Fixing Gentrification: How To Avoid the Dilapidation Trap

On designing cities that adapt and thrive.

In January 2021, an American digital nomad named Kristen Gray posted a Bali thread that lit up the internet like a signal flare. The images she shared—villas bathed in tropical sunlight, overflowing fruit bowls, lush rice paddies stretching to the horizon—spoke of a life unburdened by winter or the grind of her home country. Her caption offered more tha…