"Further away from jobs.." You just complained that they wouldn't get jobs at trader joes, yet apparently they already have jobs. As far as "affordable housing." I'm tired of that excuse for letting neighborhoods turn into poverty factories. As far as them having no place to go, many of the working poor in those neighborhoods own their homes or they have a mortgage on their home which, due to the 2008 housing crash is likely worth less than they owe and due to likely bad credit is probably at an interest rate that's killing them. I'm studying a neighborhood in San Antonio called Denver Heights which is a really poor east-side neighborhood -- 40% of those homes have been foreclosed on. So that's telling me that those homes were owned by poor people and not some evil rich investors. If Trader Joe's had been built in that neighborhood, perhaps many of those families would still have a home because the equity increase would result in them being able to favorably refinance rather than losing the home to the bank. Now when you drive through there, it's almost a rotting ghost town.

This could provide a huge benefit to those people. But I guess we can just ignore the positive benefit to those people. Instead let's kill the development in the interest of "saving" the bottom 1% at the expense of other people in the neighborhood, many of whom are the working poor. This Trader Joe's deal could have make them fairly rich. If they own a $40K home that's now worth $150K, they just made $110K. They could refinance their home, cash out the equity and use that money to start a business, pay debt or buy more property. With one deal, they wouldn't be poor anymore. These "community groups" rather than trying to keep people victims ought to be out there teaching about real estate, investing and starting businesses, but alas, they only teach about how oppressed they are.

You're suggesting that if someone is poor in a neighborhood, we should ensure that everyone else gets fucked just to look after them? You are aware of something called Section 8, I presume? Do you know anything about how it works? Apparently not. If we followed your logic, then there would be no such thing as neighborhood revitalization, because a revitalized neighborhood necessarily results in higher property values. Interestingly, neighborhood revitalization has a positive effect on schools, especially in reducing de facto segregation. But of course, we can't have the schools improving because then the poor kids wouldn't have any more excuses and the poverty pimp business would dry up within a generation.

An empty lot benefits nobody.

You're absolutely right - an empty lot is not a floor, just the a point on the continuum.

It sounds like what everyone's dancing around is the concern that a TJs in that community would start the process of gentrification that would raise the cost of living and make it untenable for the current residents to continue living there.

Assuming that gentrification is a real problem (I have zero experience, so it's hard for me to judge): have you heard of any solutions to the issue besides rent control or "keeping out" the middle class?