What are the ideological inconsistencies within the Democratic Party?

[traininthedistance]

Liberals in major cities talk a big game about protecting the poor yet they push them out of their own neighborhoods through gentrification.

That's a vast over-simplification and fundamentally a frivolous point.  Neighborhoods rise in attractiveness and real estate price.  This has always happened and will always happen.  It has nothing to do with white people maliciously pushing people out.  Some poor people benefit from gentrification, some do not.  Some rich people benefit, some do not.

You can blame the free market if you want, but wealthy people who move into those neighborhoods (many of them liberals) are a part of the cycle that pushes poor people out with rising costs of living. I never said they did it maliciously but they don't seem to be upset when the pawn shops are replaced with boutiques.  

The real problem is not gentrification, but NIMBYism- there is a serious disconnect in the thinking of a certain strain of cosmopolitan liberal who wants to preserve neighborhoods exactly as they are, and keep density lower than it should be in urban areas, and then whines about everyone moving to the exurbs/Texas because real estate is cheap.

A certain amount of gentrification is good, and necessary- you can have a gentrifying city with a solid tax base to pay for public services, or you can become like Detroit.  The problem is anti-density zoning codes (and busybodies only concerned with their own property values) that don't allow people to build taller, or subdivide their houses, or anything that would increase supply in urban areas that desperately need an increase in housing supply.  Both because it would increase affordability, which is of crucial importance to the 99%, and also because urban living is efficient and environmentally friendly, and we should be encouraging that with open arms.

Grr, the whole paradigm of "homeownership as middle-class investment policy" is toxic, so deeply toxic.  In so many ways.

[traininthedistance]

1. The party supports a lot of regulations that are harmful to the poor as implemented, including occupational licensing, subsidized rent, rent controls, and a terrible set of agricultural policies that's even worse for poor people in the developing world than it is for impoverished Americans.

2. They're also pretty awful about standing up to various forms of "corporate welfare," especially in the manufacturing, banking, energy, agricultural, and healthcare sectors.

3. Too often, the party refuses to look out for people who rely on public services - especially when those people are members of marginalized groups - as much as it looks out for those who provide them.

4. The party talks a big game on confronting the security state, civil liberties abuses, and military bloat, and relies on people who take both issues seriously for money and votes. Its record while in office utterly fails to match its rhetoric.

Yeah, this, too. (I admittedly don't care as much about #4 as many folks here, but I recognize that it is an inconsistency.  The best news on that particular front, sadly, has been sequestration.)  Point #3, in particular, is why I take more of a moderate hero position when it comes to many public sector labor issues- I would rather, just for example, the MTA do what's in the best interest of its millions upon millions of straphangers than do exactly what the TWU wants, which can at times be inefficient and misguided.  

[traininthedistance]

About gentrification, since the left seems to be against both gentrification and suburban development (not to mention suburbanites who are against the suburbs), if I am a young educated adult moving to a new city, where am I supposed to live?

I guess I'm not "the left" since I have defended gentrification as the lesser evil several times here... but I would like to see wholescale upzoning and redevelopment in our cities.  For example, Cleveland had over 900,000 residents at one point; if we rebuilt enough housing there to fit 900K people there'd be enough supply for plenty of yuppies without pushing out people who depend on the cheap rents to live.

And, let's be honest, inner suburbs can often be good places, too.  You didn't really start to go whole-hog on the "make everything windy, chokepoint-filled, segregated-from-everything cul-de-sacs and eliminate any walkable neighborhood businesses/schools/institutions" development pattern until the '70s or so.  Older suburban areas, while not where I would personally choose to live right now, definitely have some good points to them and I'm happy to see them thrive, grow, and redevelop as well.