According to the Miriam-Webster dictionary, gentrification is “a process in which a poor area (as of a city) experiences an influx of middle-class or wealthy people who renovate and rebuild homes and businesses which often results in an increase in property values and the displacement, of earlier, usually poorer residents.”

The roots of Long Beach Island gentrification were planted after the 1962 storm. Faced with the reality of rebuilding the economy after that catastrophic event, the then…