So why is it that the prevailing narrative ignores the abundance of evidence that relatively few low-income neighborhoods get gentrified, and that when they do there is much less displacement than is commonly assumed?

With the growth of research demonstrating the benefits of living in more economically integrated neighborhoods for low-income families, it’s surprising that this narrative doesn’t play a big role in how people think about gentrification. When the economist Raj Chetty and his colleagues’ findings about the connection between economic integration and economic mobility were reported, they were framed as an argument for moving poorer families into richer neighborhoods, and not vice versa.

The narrative that results from ignoring this more positive data is popular because of its “truthiness”—it seems to be right according to intuition, regardless of what factual evidence suggests. The truthiness here is that gentrification is assumed to be an intrinsically malignant process, and so any evidence to the contrary is deeply discounted or ignored, even as it piles up. The aforementioned studies, and others, simply don’t fit into the most common understanding of the issue.

The New York and Philadelphia studies both confirmed earlier research that gentrification is seldom associated with displacement, and that it is frequently associated with higher incomes and better economic results for the longtime residents of gentrifying neighborhoods. But few news-following Americans would get that impression.

Consider three examples. In a recent story headlined “In Chelsea, a Great Wealth Divide,” The New York Times described the plight of a retired resident of public housing who had to travel to New Jersey to find bargain-shopping opportunities. But not until the 14th paragraph did the story acknowledge the positive findings from a New York University study that public-housing residents in high-income or gentrifying neighborhoods enjoyed higher incomes, lower crime, better schools, and higher test scores. And not until the final paragraph did the story report the retired resident’s firm opinion that despite the disorientation of change and the challenge of shopping, her neighborhood was unambiguously a better place to live after it had been gentrified.

There was also a series of articles on gentrification that Governing ran earlier this year. While the magazine acknowledged that gentrification (as defined by rising rents and educational levels) and displacement of the poor are not the same thing, it proceeded as if the link between the two were strong. But in fact, there were more low-income people living in the neighborhoods that Governing identified as “gentrifying” in 2013 than in 2000.