Chi-town gentrification tour- surface impressions
Chicago, like New York, but without the pesky New Yorkers and surrounded by Midwest farmland. I took a bunch of pictures, and I need to download them and label them properly. Then again 1/2 of them may be crap and only worth a delete button.
This weekend I did the Robert Taylor tour. We drove down to south Chicago, after getting bagels in Sokie.
Just my first impressions, there's a lot of empty land round the former Robert Taylor Homes. I'm trying to imagine them with big ol' apartment buildings on them, but all I see are acres of empty land and thinking, urban agriculture. It didn't help that I also so plenty of community gardens and seethed with envy. Also Chicago, much bigger than DC and with tons more space. When I was reading about the Robert Taylor Homes in Sudir Venkatesh's books I imagined something more compact, like Sursum Corda.
My guide and driver was also from Florida, so we kept comparing it to depressing parts of Orlando. There was enough barren open spaces, storefront churches, run down looking buildings that if you knocked off most of the 2nd and 3rd floors, you'd have Orlando.
Well after taking a few pictures, wandering over to the University of Chicago area and hitting a neat little farmer's market attached to a nice community garden you could walk through, we drove to Gary, IN, for more looks at depressing areas.
Once I ID most of the pictures and locate the SD card reader, I'll post more.
Labels: gentrification
Taking a Break/ Chi-Town Gentrification Tour
I'm probably not going to be posting much for a while. I've been assigned to a 3 month detail that has made my commute 3x longer than normal, so I'm not really interacting with the hood that much. And I have to get to bed earlier because the disruption to my normal schedule is screwing with my sleep so that my body is sending me all sorts of nasty signals that I need more rest. It's a good project, a good detail, and once I get to where I'm supposed to be I really like the work.
Knowing I need some sort of rest, I've been planning a late vacation. Normally I avoid going anywhere in the summer. But summer vacation time is nearly over and I've been reading a couple books by Sudhir Venkatesh, who wrote
Gang Leader for a Day and
American Project. I just cracked open
Off the Books: The Underground Economy of the Urban Poor and man, I wanna go to Chicago. I want to get a lay of the land that was the Robert Taylor Homes. I also want a pizza. I hear they make good pizza in Chicago.
Two years ago I did the
London Gentrification tour, walking around the gentrified Brixton neighborhood. Yet, I had experienced Brixton several times before in 1993 and could sense a change. I've never been to Chicago. So I'll take suggestions of books I should read and places I should eat at.
Labels: blog, gentrification
Fun with ProQuest and the Historical Washington Post
Rob Goodspeed covered this use of the word "gentrification" and its use in the Post in his blog
here. So I cannot even improve upon his work. However I can make some observations and provide a bibliography.
For the years 1970-1979, a few:
"Londoners vs. Developers" by Jerry Edgerton. Mar 25, 1973. p. C2
"Will 'Saved' Cities Mean Suburban Slums?; Mr. Peirce writes a syndicated column, on the problems of cities and states" by Neal R. Peirce. Jul 30, 1977. p. A15
"Gentrification of London; Working-Class Residents Vie With 'Colonizers' For Housing Working Class Vying For 'Gentrified' Homes" by Clay Harris, special to The Washington Post. Nov 5, 1977. E1
"Harlem Woos Tourists in Bid to Level Ghetto Barriers" by Lee Mitgang Nov 8, 1978 A30
"The Future Is Behind Us: Make Way for the Past; Architectural Outlook for the '80s: Make Way for the Past" by Wolf Von Eckardt. Dec 30, 1978 C1
"Opportunity for a Livable City; The Urban and Suburban Choices Facing Washington's New Mayor" by Wolf Van Eckardt Jan 13, '79 B1
"The Motown Model; GM Spruces Up Its Neighborhood General Motors' Motown Model" by Wolf Von Eckardt Jan 20, 1979 D1
"Going 'round in (Logan) Circles; How a Modest Dream Was Transformed Into a Bureaucratic Nightmare: Cityscape 'Gentrification' and Logan Circle" by Wolf Von Eckardt Feb 3, 1979 D1
"Preservation Is Not the Enemy of the Poor; Preserving Cities For Poor Residents" by Beverly A. Reece Feb 10, 1979 E29
"Measuring Change in the Cities" Feb 22, 1979 A16
"Mayor Voices Housing Concerns" by Blair Gately, special to The Washington Post Mar 15, 1979 DC5
A few articles in my own ProQuest gentrification query were written by
Wolf Von Eckardt, who did the art & architecture beat. January 13, 1979 in "Opportunity for a Livable City" (B1, B4) he has hopes for the new mayor, Marion Barry. As a candidate it seems that Mr. Barry was not fond of the 'rehabilitation movement' taking place in the city by the middling classes. Von Eckardt wrote:
In the first place, displacement due to rehabilitation may not be as widespread as Mayor Barry was told. His task force said approximately 150,000 families were in danger of being thrown out of their houses. The Census Bureau just told us that the city lost population. Could it be that many of these endangered families have displaced themselves-- to Prince George's County?
I'm also noticing in the results for the mid to late 1970s an anixety about the growth of suburbs. Which leads me to think that some people are 'renovating' and moving into economically depressed areas and there are more getting the heck outta D(odge) C(ity), either to PG, MoCo, or NoVA.
Labels: gentrification, media
Change?
The
last post's comments have gotten way off topic so I'm going to try to move them here.
There is a comment I want to answer in a bit of a longer length.
Are all of these new businesses for the existing residents or to attract new, higher income residents? And if they are primarily to attract new residents, and push out the lower income families and residents who have been living there for decades - well, I think that's a problem.
My question is what will happen to the ordinary hardworking lower income people as the professionals move in? Ironically, the young urban professionals who move into these areas looking for diversity, often end up driving out the "diversity" by raising the cost of living beyond the means of long term residents.
My question is how to prevent this from happening and to create a truly diverse community, comprised of every income level, educational background, race, religion, etc.?
Regarding new businesses, there was a demand (residents) that attracted the business, not the other way around. This is no Field Of Dreams. Business failure is a very real possibility, and with small businesses we could be talking about someone's life savings, a mound of debts (business loans) on the hope that the perceived demand is not a load of hype. There was/is a great demand for the businesses in a way that residents go out of their way wooing and supporting (see Queen of Sheba, Vegetate). And in the case of Windows (feel free to correct me Scott) the business was already there, but over time expanded and changed. There were residents, people who'd been here from 20 years to 20 days whose demands for a dry cleaner, a place to go and sit and eat, a place to get a decent wine, etc were not met. So yes, the businesses are here for a portion of existing residents, as well as visitors, and sometimes those visitors decide to become residents.
esse, a commenter, answered the other part regarding long time residents quite well:
On my street, the long time residents are dying.I have lived on my street for 15 years. I have yet to see a single household "forced out". 5 vacant houses have been renovated and have people living in them now, three houses were owned by seniors that died. Their kids sold the house,because they have their own house in the suburbs. One family did cash in and moved to the suburbs for more room and better schools. I think that many neighborhoods in DC are renovating, rather than than gentrifying.
Labels: gentrification
Thursday-Friday Grab Bag
Warning for some of you car owners, traffic enforncement is now in tow. I've been seeing cars get moved by the city on a regular basis. Today I saw a truck taking away a car on New Jersey Avenue. The day before it was moving a car on R St. You've asked for city services, and well you got one.
With the housing problem we are surprised why? Remember oh, back to
2004,
2005, and
2006 when I said real estate agents were on crack and the houses were overpriced? So, what happened? We discovered the houses were overpriced. The bubble deflated. I can't say
burst because it's not like the houses are worthless, just worth less. We knew people were taking out loans too large for them to handle. We knew this day would come. We knew a few years back that there would be a lot of foreclosures, and guess what? 2008, there are a lot of foreclosures. Who knew? Yes, there are people who are losing their homes, but where I am, so are a lot of developers and flippers and speculators who came into Shaw, looking for a quick buck. Some of them got out in time. A good number didn't and so we are stuck, until the next housing uptick, with vacant, 1/2 done, or crapily done houses, and cut-up townhomes created into funny looking condos.
Central Union Mission is going downtown. And there was great rejoicing in Pentworth and some other NW neighborhoods. For lo, they moveth the men's shelter to 65 Mass Ave NW, where they are not far from other homeless services. And someone remind me, wasn't the Gales School (65 Mass Ave) used as a shelter before?
I'd support more harpsichord players. Because they are artists, performing artists. And tearooms? Since I don't drink coffee, I'm stuck with loving Teaism, so if the landed gentry come in and put in tearooms, I'm all for it. Besides I spent most of my undergrad years
studying the rise and fall of the British aristocracy, I'd be pleased to observe them up close.
Labels: city services, gentrification, housing
Job Gentrification
My first Federal job was as a GS-5. I had a brand new shiny MA in History and I was a Museum Technician. Know what I did as a Museum Technician? Hung coats and told people where the bathroom was, and they were almost always down the stairs and to the left. Other duties included monitoring the exhibits, stuffing brochures into the hands of tourists at the information desk, and inform people in long lines of how to get through security. Occasionally, I would lead a tour, work on information sheets, and speak in pigeon German. But for most of what I did, did not require a graduate degree, or even a Bachelor's. I had a gentrified job, low pay but high requirements.
Don't get me wrong I appreciated the job. It was a foot in the wonderful world of the culture industry, Federal employment, and they paid to keep my language skills up. For several of my colleagues, also people with BAs, and MAs it was a stepping stone to other positions at the Museum, or in the Park Service. We had a fair amount of turnover, and I left after about 2 years to go to grad school again to get a degree I could eat with. At the same time a colleague left for a desired position along the C&O canal (Park Service).
But back to the job gentrification, something I have been thinking about as it applies to my college educated and unemployed cousins. Those low paying jobs that really don't pay a lot and don't really require anything more than a High School diploma to actually "do" the job. But like housing gentrification, where the price of housing goes up past the masses' income levels, the job's requirements go past the masses' education levels.
I'm betting right now there is a bright young thing with a newly printed BA or MA in hand getting off the plane (or train) and heading to DC to make his or her mark. And that person will be competing with other degreed people for jobs worthy of their education, as well as those lower paying AdminAsst jobs competing with non-degreed people.
Can this possibly further plain old gentrification when the jobs that would help people afford the homes are basically only available to people with a doctorate in basket weaving?
Update:
The Council is
planning on passing legislation to make sick leave a mandatory benefit. This will be great for persons already employed. However, I think it one of the several things that makes the city less competitive and will create fewer jobs that wouldn't have had sick leave anyway. Also it will make jobs more valuable, too valuable to be wasted on the hard to employ crowd, thus increasing unemployment amongst the unskilled. Also it would encourage employers to seek alternative solutions to get tasks done, rather than hire another person (contract out, buy a machine, make people do more work, etc). We have seen this in our industrial sector, where people have been replaced by machines or production has been moved abroad, with in call centers in Manila or Mumbai.
Labels: gentrification
Devil's Advocate
Remember the chapter in Freakonomics "Why Do Drug Dealers Still Live With Their Moms?" Well go up a little in the heirarchy and expand it, and you have Dr.
Sudhir Venkatesh's Gang Leader for a Day a 302 page book about the years Dr. Venkatesh hung out with a drug dealing gang in the Robert Taylor Homes in Chicago. I could barely put this book down as it was so interesting.
I couldn't help but think of our own little groups around the hood as I read and I held on to various themes in my head. One theme being nature abhors a vacuum, particularly in terms of power. The gangs were one power group, controlling or working with, or negotiating with other groups. The other theme was that of complexity. Drugs were one source of income, the gangs also levied taxes on squatters, prostitutes, and hustlers. However the gangs weren't the only ones collecting 'taxes' on underground trade.
Two things that I thought were most useful in the book, for my understanding, were how the gang saw themselves as being part of the community and what undermined the gang. I have heard before, and in great disbelief, that the hangers out help the community. From Venkatesh's study I see where that assertion comes from, in that the community leaders at Robert Taylor were able to get funds and co-operation for programs from gang leaders. There is some irony in a program to get kids off the street and away from gangs, partially funded by a gang. Towards the end, when the author was winding up his studies, two things were occurring, the Robert Taylor Homes were slated for demolition and a federal crackdown on drug trafficking. Together those two things removed the customers, the taxable underground economy, and valuable experienced staff (dealers, enforcers, etc).
In the case of Shaw, gentrification probably helps break up some networks, by reducing the number of underground consumers in the area and reducing the amount of influence certain groups have. I'm going on 7 years here in the hood (good lord I'm getting old), and I have seen the drug activity around here decrease, since my arrival. I'll credit aspects of gentrification to that decrease, in that several vacant buildings that hid or facilitated illegal trade, are now filled and cannot be used for that sort of thing. New residents tend to support with their numbers the kind of leadership, political pushes and social reforms that weaken the drug dealing structure, adding to old timers who may have been too few in number to get any traction.
Labels: crime, gentrification
Degentrification, gentrification and something to think about
Frozen Tropics
pointed it out and Richard Layman
did too, the
NY Mag article about a neighborhood that seemed as if it was going to get gentrified, but is now heading in the opposite direction. I enjoyed reading the article as well as the comments at the
Curbed blog that shed some light on the Red Hook neighborhood.
I can't really talk about a neighborhood I know nothing about, but the idea of de-gentrification is curious. Of course, the question is has gentrification occurred in the case of Red Hook, or was it really strong wishful thinking? And if a neighborhood is gentrify
ing and then the process is stalled indefinitely, is that de-gentrification, or does it only count if the neighborhood reached a gentrf
ied point? To me degentrification seems to hint at disinvestment, but reading the NY Magazine article, they appear to define it as something else.
Today I got an email from the folks over at
Neighbors Project with their
7 Rules for Talking About Gentrification and they make some excellent points. I especially like #2. Get your history right. I'll call Shaw an historically Black neighborhood, mainly because it a) in it's most recent history been predominately African American, and b) the history bonus points of notables come from the Black History basket. Yet I will totally acknowledge that once you go further back than 1930, Shaw is mixed, if not white.
Flipping around on their site I found a link to some
Instructable guides they produced. Some are so simple that it should be like 'duh', such as
"How to Pick Up Trash In Front of Your Home." But I guess if you lived somewhere where this was never an issue, then a how-to is in order. (My excuse for not cleaning up in front of my house, I'm just lazy) They have some other guides like "
How to be a trick-or-treat stop for apartment-dwellers"; "How to Shop at a Downtown Farmers Market"; and "
How to say hi to a stranger on the street". These guides, though a little dorky, can help people integrate into the neighborhood and foster neighborly-ness.
Check out their 7 Rules, what do you think?
Labels: gentrification, neighbors
Waddaminute: Porch Culture
Something said at the Shiloh FLC Gentrification forum is not sitting right with me. And this is just my life experience, which may not reflect someone else's who may have lived in a different era and place. But the idea of porch culture being so prominent isn't exactly jiving with my memories.
I grew up in a mediumish North Central Florida city in the 1970s-1980s. I'll admit there has been some climate change, but the general weather is hot & humid. I had no clue what people meant by humidity until moving north because when it was hot it was always humid. Shade did not matter, much. So in the 70s I think people did hang out on their screened (Florida has big bugs) porches, but as air conditioning, sweet, sweet humidity controlling AC in the form of window units became more affordable in the 80s and 90s people in my neighborhood were seen less often on their porches.
Also, I think cable also played a part. My family got cable in the early 80s, 1982 or 1983 to be exact. Yes, it is entertaining to watch the world go by sitting on the porch, but so are the stories and wrestling and that new Michael Jackson video in the AC.
FF to today in Shaw.
Not that no one hangs out on their porch or stoop. I will occasionally sit outside in the front yard, when the mood grabs me. Cell phone guy will be out, in his front, broadcasting his business (at some point he'll wander to his backyard too) loudly and clearly. Other households will sit out front for a smoke, or to decompress before heading back inside. There are so many inside things that demand our leisure time, so it seems unfair to blame gentrification for the decline of porch culture. Maybe technology is to blame.
Labels: gentrification, misc
Well, that went well
Well today after getting my hair done, I went to the Shiloh Baptist Church Family Life Center's Forum on Gentrification. It was a good step on the part of the Family Life Center to have something of a dialog, which despite nearly falling into chaos*, where different opinions voiced themselves. Hopefully, some Shiloh groups and community members can come together again to improve communication, find out what we can agree on, and work together on that.
I really did not take any decent notes. Except a notation about something Alex Padro, one of the panel members said about who gentrification really hurt were the people in boarding houses and people in single family townhomes. Shaw has the highest concentration of subsidized housing in Ward 2, with Lincoln Westmoreland, Foster House, Asbury Dwellings and some other places. And, if I remember right, the tenant groups have long covenants that keep the housing affordable to them. So whatever happens in the real estate market, their fine. However, found out that the United House of Prayer, which had/has a fair amount of affordable housing is going market/ luxury rate.
Also it was good to meet/see people I mainly know from the online experience, Ray and the man behind OnSeventh. The great thing about neighborhood blogging is at some point you are going to run into people off-line. Oh, and I stand behind what I said about libel. If there is anything that I have typed that is untrue (outside of an opinion) bring it to my attention, and if it is false, I will retract it or adjust it, basically try to make it right. I am not hiding behind a blog, believe me, you can find me if you put some effort in it, like emailing me, or wandering over to a BACA meeting. At some community gatherings, some people (Scott Roberts) are more than happy to point me out.
After the forum I did talk to some folks who were members and volunteers for Shiloh. There are a few ideas that I hope some who can act on these ideas can work with. One is getting new Baptists in the area to join. Second is doing a better job of advertising different missions that can help people in need in the immediate area take care of immediate needs, like a food pantry and a benevolence fund, and if a person needs to tap into it right this minute, how they would get connected. Third, have a church presence on one of the civic association committees, like Ebeneezer Baptist is with BACA.
*****
I've been typing this up between dinner and had a nice long conversation with a fellow with a Shiloh justice ministry spin-off, the Urban Housing Alliance, who was at the forum. Long and short of it, because I really want to get back to dinner, what's going on with Shiloh and the properties and the official justice ministry to address issues is complicated. This is the part where I don't want to be bothered with the infighting because I have to side with my family members who are Shiloh members and supportive of current leadership. But the fellow made a good point of some failings with current leadership and some of the problems we are seeing.
Anyway, due to issues related to the infighting & parking, the Urban Housing Alliance will be meeting at a friendly location for them, 4311 R St, Capitol Heights, MD October 20th from 10:30AM to noon. 'Cause I asked, why out in Maryland? It seems they also meet in DC as well and their goal is to provide services, free of charge, to DC citizens (I gather from the discussion) to cut property taxes, lower rents, and hold on to homes.
Okay, din-din.
***************
UPDATE: Off Seventh has more
here and
here.
*I say the same thing about my church's screamy baby service with kids squirming and not providing the expected answers when the priest does the kiddie focused sermon.
Labels: blog, churches, gentrification, housing
Gentrification and housing
Because of this blog, I get asked about gentrification. I'm not a public policy wonk, or a student of urban planning, or an activist, but I am a citizen with an opinion on the topic. One question is if affordable housing will disappear because of gentrification? Um, short of Mothra coming in a flattening 3/4ths of the hood, no.
The reason why is just off the top of my head there are a couple of public housing units (see
here), the co-ops and other apartment buildings that are not market rate on 7th, 6th, 5th, and 1st Streets, that have sizable footprints and surface parking lots (see the
DC Real Property Map). Some are owned by churches, which doesn't really mean anything, because a church owns (in full or part, not sure) Kelsey Gardens. But as long as the churches see it as part of their mission to provide affordable housing (with the help of being tax exempt) those housing units should be fine. So the cry that there is no affordable housing or that affordable or low income housing will disappear in Shaw, doesn't ring true in my ears.
I do acknowledge that among privately rented townhouses and small 4-6 unit apartment buildings there is a danger. However if a landlord decides to sell his townhouse to someone who will more than likely want to live in the unit and be a resident homeowner, I think the neighborhood is better off because it stabilizes the community.
Anyway I started writing this to point out a function going on this weekend. Shiloh Baptist Church this weekend is putting on a Gentrification meeting/ forum whathave you reported
here and
here, and probably a few other spots. It's this Saturday between 1-4pm at 1510 9th St. And to touch on OneDC's rally for their favorite bidder for Parcel 42, but I'll get to that later.
Labels: gentrification, housing
The Washington Post finally gets it
Praise be to G-d, they lost the 'neighborhood change' template all the reporters keep reusing to describe places like Shaw and Bloomingdale. In today's Post there is an article by
DeNeen L. Brown "Change is Clear" in the Style section, page C1 about change in the Bloomingdale neighborhood centering around the image of Windows Cafe. The old template goes, setting black poor neighborhood, evil wealthy white people come in change things and displace the black people, tsk, tsk, tsk, and throw in the word 'gentrification' in a disparaging manner.
This article acknowledges that the changes have been made by both blacks and whites. Even better a black gay (okay I'm assuming gay) couple who restored a house are quoted. The whites in the story, have been in the hood for about 15 years, hard to call them newcomers. One of them, Scott Roberts, 52 year old SPF 10,000 guy, has some of the best quotes, which I may write about later. Really, those quotes are money, gems.
Good job all.
Labels: Bloomingdale/Eckington, gentrification, media
Kesley Gardens
Today must be quote other people's blogs day....
anyway over at ANC2C02 there is a
post on how Kesley is to look in 2010 after being bulldozed and rebuilt. 2010... that's 3 years.
I'm a little down on that prediction because, it's not that I don't want to see a change there, it's just that at the place where they pay me, I've been working with files covering development in the city and it seems that large things take forever to get built, if they do. Looking at the pictures it sort of looks like a zoning variance may be requested because of the height. Joe Mamo (Mammo? Mambo?) over on Florida and North Cap has been trying to get that for a good while now. And there is something about underground parking, which raises questions about how stable are the houses on the other side of the alley when all this earth gets moved. Oh, and then there is the whole construction mess.
On the upside, when this all does get built and the market rate units get filled, there will be people who may be able to support the kind of retail, I and my neighbors would like to see.
Labels: development, gentrification
A new day, now get to work
Lot of stuff I wanna cover ... It is September and InShaw has entered semi-retirement, or an active retirement. It may be another way of saying I'll post when I darned well feel like it, and post what moves me to post. So there may be several days when there is nothing, and periods of furious posting.
I've also changed the name slightly. So "(now with more gentrification)" has been dropped, in favor of what interests me, history. Gentrification still is in there but isn't the focus. The mad real estate boom has passed and the gentrification it fueled, has calmed a bit. If that rooming house, crack house, liquor store, vacant building hasn't been developed yet, it may be a while before it does. Maybe during the next wave of real estate fervor, maybe between now and then, and maybe never. In the meantime, there are other things to look at, like the past.
The past couple of years, the past couple of decades, whenever. I'm going with what a co-worker defined as history, anything that happened in the past. So anything between the Big Bang/Let-there-be-light and last week is up for grabs. But to be more DC focused I'll start somewhere in the 18th Century.
Today I just want to talk about Sunday's Washington Post.
Sorta under the title of 'gentrification' is
Income Soaring in Egghead Capital. Where I see the DC metro area is where the nation's well off African-American households live. Yet $55,547 is a pitiful amount compared to our Asian ($83,908) and Non-Hispanic White (94,290) colleagues. The data the Post provided kinda proved a belief that I had about the black middle class, they wanna get as far away from "Pookie" as their middle and upper-middle class white colleagues do. The highest median Black incomes $92,492 in Loudoun and $89,096 in Stafford, are far from the District ($34,484 and the highest percentage of population living below the poverty line).
Looking at my own middle class Black family, I and my blind great-aunt are the only ones in the District. The next closest relative tried to escape inner Beltway Prince George's County because of all that's going on around, but couldn't due to a failure to sell the house. If the house did sell, outer-waaay past Upper Marlborough would have been the new address. Then everyone else is in Fairfax Co. and Howard Co. I've noticed when the relatives move up in house, they seem to move further out. They express a desire for more space, more amenities (planned communities w/ clubhouse) and less crap.
But back to gentrification.... So if high earning African-Americans are engaging in black flight from the city and inner-ring suburbs, that could mean that they are leaving a residential void. A void filled by poorer Blacks and middle-upper class non-Blacks. Add to that the great big gap in incomes ($91,631-white; $67,137-Asian; $43,484-Hispanic and $34,484-Black), housing prices, and you got a problem. And I wonder, even if District employers provide the higher paying job opportunities, what is there to say that African-Americans who fill those positions will be from the District or will stay in the District? Okay, now I'm rambling, next...
Back from Behind Bars has a graph, that shows Truxton Circle as one of the communities where 5.1 or more (per 1,000 residents) ex-cons return to after being released from the criminal justice system. The other parts of Shaw (except what looks like upper U Street) have a rate of 5 or less per 1,000. The articles goes in on how those released have trouble finding housing and employment, and staying away from the things that led to prison.
And something that has more of a history bent an
opinion piece about Dunbar High School in its hey-day. It's more about integration and
colorism than the school itself, but the print version has a nice photograph of the school in 1931. The original school is no longer and it has been replaced by that prison-like building that dominates the TC skyline.
Labels: blog, gentrification, neighborhood history
I don't trust you
Well I finally finished reading and marking up
E Pluribus Unum: Diversity and Community in the 21st Century by Robert Putnam, and yeah, I'm low on trust. According to his article, diverse communities like ours people are less likely to trust people different from them as well as people like them. Equal opportunity lack of trust. Well, that's how I read it.
Putnam does recognize the good thing about diversity in that it does foster tolerance in the other. However tolerance is not love, or even like. There is 'bridging' between communities but little in the way of 'bonding'.
One of the things I was worried about before reading the article was lack of city services and amenities due to a neighborhood's diversity. That wasn't so much an issue and what was all included in as an amenity was too wide of a net (religious institutions, day care facilities, schools, etc). Things like schools and churches could have been in an area long before the place got diverse and are just holding on. Anyway, Putnam writes "If anything, such community resources turn out to be positively correlated with ethnic diversity...." The negative is in the low trust people, who are withdrawn from actively participating in the surrounding community.
A few other negatives of a diverse community is that there is a higher turnover. Well that just describes Washington DC right there. Someone who is a close friend of mine is moving away to the Midwest because of her career and as far as friends go she'll be irreplaceable. The specter of someone you're close to up and moving away is always there in this town, and it does not inspire you to form those deep strong bonds, knowing that there is a chance that bond will have to be ripped apart. There is turnover in Shaw too, and I know that neighbors you grow close to may up and move with the next best career opportunity or when their kids get to a certain age.
Labels: gentrification, quality of life
Quick thought on housing and gentrification
There is someone moving into the neighborhood today, who in 5-10 years will complain that gentrification moved them out. This thought came to me after a quick conversation with an older woman (maybe not quite senior citizen) who was moving into a rental house. A house that has been 'affordable' since I've been in the neighborhood. And it has had a fair amount of turnover (but that's because the landlady is horrible) so it remains a housing option.
There is little purity in the gentrification that happens in this neighborhood.
All the poor people do not move out at the same time to be replaced by people with more money. Not
all the landowners sell when the market is hot, some keep holding on, maybe through greed or apathy, and then the market cools. There is loss, there are fewer housing options for lower income groups, however there isn't a 100% loss of affordable housing from the market.
I write this from what I've observed on my block. At least three houses (there might be more) in the six years I've been noticing appear to fall in the 'affordable' category and they though the crazy RE market and it's current cooling have had some turnover with tenants and yet have had the same kind of tenant.
Labels: gentrification, housing
Fun with ProQuest: An obseravation
I've been taking quick peeks at the Washington Post articles on ProQuest and there is something about how I approach them. Being in 2007, I'm aware how things turn out in the end, yet the surprise is in the discovery of where stuff came from. The people of the 50s, 60s, & 70s they don't know how things are going to turn out. So I read about this and that plan for the area and things don't always provide the results desired, and in some cases, I can't tell if it has worked out. Also, not surprising to me, there is the messiness of the past, the corruption, sloth, distrust, confusion, and lack of funding that make their appearances.
Anyway, an article I've yet to read in its entirety is "Urban Renewal: A Slow, Painful Process: SW Developers Made Mistakes The City Now Hopes to Avoid," by George Day. Washington Post 6/2/1969 p.C1. In it one little caption "Northwest One includes housing for elderly (rear) and Sursam [sic] Corda Project". Sursum Corda, wonder how that's working out?
Labels: gentrification, neighborhood history
Strive for the harder story to tell
Well I'll probably clean this post up and put in some links about the recent Post articles about H Street and Navy Yard, as well as the tried & true "Shaw is gentrifying/changing" themed articles. Once again the old themes and the stock characters in their typecasted roles. White newcomers are wealthy arrogant jerks who disrespect the downtrodden struggling black old timers, is the easy tale to tell.
I will admit I do see glimpses of the hard stories in the Post. Where there are issues of class, country of origin, education, gender, theology, sexual orientation and age play more a part of story than that great DC standby, race. Maybe to an editor they are less interesting.
The easy story starts with a peaceful middle class African American neighborhood. Ignore the Jews, the Irish, the Germans and those few Italians that everyone tells me were all over the neighborhood (but haven't seen too much documentation on). Maybe a few hard questions center around the riots, who left and never came back, who stuck it out, who filled in the vacuum, and what did the city government do and where did the govt. fail & succeed?
Then I can ask what are the alternatives? Neighborhoods where the commercial sector has basically flat lined and you can barely even get businesses to even look at the area? Places where your dining options consists of KFC, Micky D's, Popeyes or some other carry out? Residential sections where there are few buyers and renters have no interest in becoming homeowners?
Here's the story I know about Shaw: Its been changing for over 100 years. People of different races, countries of origin and financial circumstances move in, and those people moved out and they got replaced by more people. Gentrification has been happening at least since the 80s in fits and starts (do a Proquest search, Washington Post 12/31/79-Present, search "Shaw" [or logan/ bates/ blagden] & "gentrification"). Business growth has been slow, for a variety of reasons, but it has been moving forward. So we tend to get excited when something new pops up. Long after the pages of these stories turn yellow and get stuck in the Post's pay-to-see archives, people will move in and people will move out and the neighborhood will continue to change.
Labels: gentrification, media
Part of the gentrification problem
I want to thank
John for leading me to
this blog about gentrification in Baltimore City [corrected]. Funny, Baltimore is the place I point people to when the gentrified prices of DC are too high.
Which reminds me.
TechBalt is not purposefully trying to displace people but move into a poorer neighborhood take over a block and reap a return on their investment.
Wandering around Techbalt's website I wound up linking to the city of Baltimore's crime map. It is so cool. Crime isn't cool but a colorful map of what type of crime happens where is sooo totally cool (yes I grew up in the 80s).
edited to change County to CityLabels: crime, gentrification
Evil Evil Gentrification
In today's
New York Times the case where the cash strapped city of New London wants to steal the property from homeowners so they can build yuppie complexs has been placed on the Supreme Court's docket. The city fathers (and mothers) have some wacked out idea of "public use." Which is the part of the law that allows local governments to kick people out of their homes. Usually it is to build a road, make a big park, like Central Park in NYC, or even to build a factory that would employ thousands. Not a hotel, conference center and
private 80 homes.
Labels: gentrification, politics
In Shaw field trip
Went on a little field trip to take a quick peek at gentrification elsewhere. It is the same everywhere I guess. When there is a housing crunch, where the housing stock is not enough for the population, people with some money begin moving into neighborhoods where poorer people are. But there was cool stuff too, which I'll share in pictures.
Went through Harlem. I don't know where the gentrification began there. It is pretty near the Park at 110th. Which I think is the bottom of Harlem. I could understand the reasoning behind paying big bucks to live near Central Park. The further north you went from the Park, the less gentrified it looked.
I wandered through the East Village. What jobs do odd looking goths have to afford these crack fueled rents? What jobs do to the people of Greenwich Village have to afford any of these NYC rents? Yeah, yeah, NYC greatest city in the world, blah, blah, blah, known for high rents, but still $4,000 a month for a 3 bedroom walk up? Crazy.
The good things I found in the city, besides decent buskers on the subway, were the thousands of little grocers thoughout the city. My roommate thinks DC needs more of these kinds of stores. Even in the less nice parts of Harlem you will find stores with fresh veggies and fruits, like this one, where people can get the ingredients to make meals from stratch. Scratch, instead of some high in sodium, fat and sugar prepackaged crap that is sold in many a DC quickie mart, next to the 40s.
Also walking around the city that never sleeps..... well it does sleep, on a Sunday morning 'cause that's the time to find a parking spot.... I digress. I noticed some great architectural details. Not just on the buildings of note but the everyday ones. I say doors and ironwork that was just inspiring.
Labels: business, gentrification
How gentrification can be just plain EVIL
Friday morning while trying to convince myself that getting up and going to work early is a good thing, I heard over
NPR a
newstory that riled up passions in my conservative heart. Property rights.
The story is about what's going on in New London, CT where the city wants to redevelop a section of town to make way yuppie condos. Fine. Problem, they are threatening to use 'eminent domain' as a way of taking land away from the few homeowners in that area. Eminent domain should only be used to build roads for polluting cars or waterways or big public utility projects, not privately owned condos. Yuppies and the working class are equal in the eyes of G-d, and should be equal in the eyes of the State, but alas no. Apparently because you can suck more money out of yuppies via taxes, yuppies are better people and thus the State chooses to kick out working/middle class homeowners, depriving them of their property. The State is dangerous.
Eminent Domain Watch, a blog, has a wonderful amount of information on
this case along with other incidents of local and state governments encroaching on individual property rights.
The New London case is the best example of gentrification evil style. Gentrification done naturally invovles individual property owners selling to either other property owners or corporation when they so chose. They are not forced to sell (ok this can be argued on whaddya mean by 'force'). Provided they can keep up with real estate taxes and local ordinances, individuals can choose NOT to sell. The residents in the New London area do not have that choice. And that is plain wrong. So wrong.
Should the Supreme Court decide in favor of the City of New London real property rights will be undermined for all US citizens. In DC I could only imagine the worst. My beloved Anthony Williams is already the bitch of the developers 'round here. I know the city likes sucking money from higher incomes and crack fuel housing prices, but if they were given this tool....
Labels: gentrification, politics
In Alexandria, with mo gentrification
I would link back to my friend Nora B.'s livejournal post, for the love of me, I can't find it and the girl is a prolific poster.BackgroundMy friend Nora B. has a condo in an area of Alexandria and her area, particularly her condo, is experiencing the joys of gentrification. First, let me describe N. She's a big white girl from my native Florida. We met at a confirmation class a few years ago and she was one of the several people I knew buying houses during the wild years of rising prices between 2000-now.
She bought, with he help of her parents, a condo on the western edge of the Alexandria city/county (what is Alexandria?) limits for $140Kish. The condo is this huge, not so pretty 15 floor monster on Duke St filled with brown people not born of this country.... who apparently drive cabs. So Nora was fine with being the only (with the exception of her roommate) Anglo EFL (English as a First Language) person under the age of 50 in the building.
The area of Alexandria that she's in is experiencing a different sort of gentrification. I don't know how to describe it as.... different. From Nora's living room window she sees Yuppieland (which we have a song for) otherwise known as Cameron Station. Yuppieland used to be a military. Now it is a place where people who can afford near million dollar townhomes live and breed. Outside of Yuppieland it's pretty much bluecollar/ whitecollar, eh. Pretty much what Arlington's Wilson Blvd area used to be like in the early 1990s. You got the dinner theater, porn theater, CVS, cruddy Magrudgers, Mango Mike's, and other generic run of the mill businesses.
Nora remarks gentrificationHer first sign that gentrification was coming to her condo was "Republican Guy". A white man, married, father, American, in a suit spotted. Apparently the condo was affordable, and he wasn't scared off by the huge number of Africans and Latin Americans running around. Then another night Nora spots, in the building, the Bennetton ad hipster kids. Last weekend we spotted white people in the pool. The typical pool attendees are Islamic grandmas who'll only show off their feet and the grandkids they are watching.
Another sign came from the condo board. Nora would like more parking, or at least parking for her friends who visit, and the building rules force visitors to park across the 4 lane street at odd times. So she has taken to going to the board meetings. From attending the meetings she has learned that the porn theater's days are numbered, as well as the Magrudgers. They will be replaced by the yuppie grocer Harris Teeter. Also in a move to attract white people with money, the condo is considering updating the decor that hasn't been changed since the Nixon administration.
Labels: gentrification
Gentrification in Shaw- Manna Report
If you haven't read
Manna's 2003 report you should. It covers rising rents, displacement, the personal impact gentrification is having on long term residents, good stuff. The best part is the photo on the cover (this is a PDF file) of 7th Street right after the riots, with the burned out shells. Okay, not the best part, but the jewels of the report are the personal stories of residents who have experienced the rent increases and non-renewal of leases.
The stories do help illustrate the problem that gentrification has brought. Saying rents have increased, nothing. Saying that one day a renter receives a letter that their 2 bedroom apartment that had been $634 a month was soon going up to $954 in 5 months, says a lot.
Conversions are another thing Manna writes about, that I didn't think much about before. Not just apartments to condos conversions but from boarding house to single family residence. There are several townhomes that you can see along New Jersey Avenue that are divided into two residences next to homes with the same exterior that are just one residence. The report mentions large townhomes that were formerly boarding homes housing several people at low rents that are now for one family.
A good thing about the report is that is does get into the specifics, naming names and addresses. It mentions location, address of particular apartments and converted and rehabbed homes and also businesses that have felt the impact of gentrification hard.
Of course I disagree with Manna on some points, but that is just my opinion. I don't disagree that there is gentification going on in Shaw. Hence the title of the blog "In Shaw (now with more gentrification)" which acknowledges the gentrification. I don't disagree that people are being displaced and the sadness of that.
I have a problem with the concentration of bemoaning the areas west of 9th St. That area has been gentrified. Dead to any hope of making it affordable. Move on. Don't wring your hands about the unaffordable even to mid middle class folks, lofts and condos. Another problem I have is Manna not coping to it's role in the gentrification game. Yes, Manna sells homes and condos at rates affordable to the people it is trying to help. I gather to cover operating costs, it also has sold homes AT
market rate, reflecting the crazy prices in Shaw. Manna is a non-profit, so is it any better when Manna does it and worse when a for-profit does it too, doing what it was created to do.... profit? I remember when I was first looking to buy they and other non-profit developers had some pretty expensive homes. For the ones you could afford you'd have to get in line or belong to a certain group, or wait for .... whenever.
The solutions that Manna presents, would at best preserve small islands of affordable renting in a sea of gentrification. They desire to preserve Section 8 by helping tenant associations. Good if you are in large enough building where tenants can buy the building. Land development, well maybe public land but with quasi-public organizations like
Metro (WMATA), I don't think so. Maybe they hadn't heard but Metro doesn't have enough to pass up maximum money making opportunities. New jobs, well, that might help some. But the kinds of jobs needed to afford the market rate rents and houses around here are a bit unaffordable to folks with "good jobs". And as with my former neighbors, when the opportunity to pull up stakes so your kid can get a yard, with grass, and enough room to play and run around in, presents itself because you got a good job or can sell the house at $$$, there is nothing saying you'll stay in Shaw.
Labels: gentrification, housing
How to Gentrify a neighborhood: pt 2 1/2 the gentrifier
Warning: I'm writing this after 3 glasses of wine. I could be crazy.In a followup to
Gentrify yo hood:pt 1 this part briefy looks at the gentrifier.
First, money. Do you have it or don't you. If you have money you might have choices, you could live in the "nicer" parts of the city, or you could buy bigger digs in the hood. Then there are the people like me, who don't have a lot of money and the hood was the only affordable thing. So you move in and make the best of it. I didn't move in to displace the poor. I moved into Shaw, because it was along the Green and Yellow lines (
metro), close to a grocery store, decent for my car-less lifestyle, and oh I could afford it as a single person.
Second, tolerance level. The white bread population that loves the suburbs don't cotton the city. Scared white people need not apply either. Scared [any other ethnic group] should keep to the 'burbs as well. To be and urban pioneer and gentrify the city you need to put up with the crime, the trash, the bamas, the crackheads, the vacant houses, the whatever, until the day the neighborhood turns "nice".
third, and last (cause I really need to go to bed), the gentrifier needs to be an object of change. This can range from the small and the really local aspect of investing in your home and inspiring others to do the same. Or harassing neighbors to be in compliance with the DC laws by calling the authorities constantly. Or it can range on the larger scale as to being involved in neighborhood wide revilization programs.
Bed.Now.
Labels: gentrification
More than just black and white
The Intowner just briefly touched on it in this
month's article about gentrification in Shaw. One little thing is that it is not just a phenomenon of white people moving in and kicking out black people. There is an element of class and general self interest within the African American community that adds to the mix.
Who do you think owns the landThere are a lot of renters in Shaw. These not only include apartment buildings but also houses converted into apartments or whole townhomes rented out to families or made into boarding/group homes. Who owns those houses? Who owns the houses where people are getting pushed out by gentrification? It may be wrong to assume it is always "THE MAN", the unknown white WASPY figure in the shadowy background ever exploiting minorities. It isn't always so. If my own block is a good example, two Section 8 houses are owned by a man of African decent (can't remember if he's from the islands or from Africa), and the other is owned by the Jamaican lawyer. There are plenty of houses rented out to poorer Afro-Americans owned by middle class African Americans, who live elsewhere. So when the economic revival comes, do you think Black solidarity will keep black landlords from kicking out their tenants?
Two good examples are the building that once housed Sisterspace and the Kesley Garden apartments. The Sisterspace building is owned by an elderly African American man. Sisterspace, was a bookstore catering to the Black community. After many years of disagreement about the lease and a legal battle, Sisterspace was kicked to the curb. Gentrification was to blame. Yes, the economic revival was to blame, but the person removing this black business was another black business. The apartment building Kesley Gardens is owned by an African American church in SE DC. The church is working toward removing the tenants so the building can be converted into luxury condos.
The Good Thing About Gentrification Is....When Whole Foods first moved in my Aunt was doubtful that blacks would take to it. The conversation didn't get past, "Black folk, um, I don't know..." Go into the Whole Foods/Fresh Fields on the weekend when it is packed, you will see a diversity of black faces, and I'm not talking about the ones behind the counters. There are African cabbies, who have discovered the joys of a central location with parking, eating in the booths near the cashiers. There are the all-natural brothers and sistahs, in search of the veggie/vegan organic food you cannot get at the corner quickie mart deep in Shaw. Products of
Jack & Jill wander the aisles, possibly in search of something for a dinner party? Oh, yeah and me blowing no less than $12 on wine, fish, fruit, or chocolate. Occasionally, there may be a woman in FF with kids, whose class background could be middle class to working class, but hard to tell.
For those of us who survive the wave of gentrification or are waving it in, the fruits of it are enjoyed. The equity in the house is much appreciated. The new eatery that serves good food, and maybe a place to sit, is nice too. The shops catering to the middle and upper classes that come into Shaw do not have "Whites Only" signs in front. The only signs are for VISA, MasterCard, and American Express, because the only color that counts is green.
In ClosingThe point I have tried to make is that gentrification is not necessarily anti-African American. Gentrification isn't necessarily pushed and helped by Anglos only either. It is economic. But in Shaw the victims of gentrification have a black face and the new residents tend to be white, so it is easy to simply it and say that blacks are being pushed out by whites. It's economic. People who do not have the means to stay are leaving, people who do have the means come and stay, and because the middle class in dominated by one racial group it is easy to lose site of the incoming minorities.
Labels: gentrification
Gentrification too close for comfort
I could cover the Bates Area Civic Association: I get bored so you don't have to- but really who cares (as seemed to be a phrase bandied about)? And besides who really wants to read me b!tching about an obnoxious Jamaican who dominates these meets week after week?
Instead I cover an article in the Washington Post
Church's Plan to Raze Housing Protested Tenants Trying to Buy SE Complex Voice Opposition During Worship Service written by Dakarai I. Aarons which covers the Kesley Gardens on 7th and P and Q St. The residents protested at the church that owns the property, but the church owns it with private investors. There are other problems that make things difficult.
When my neighbor read the article he seemed resigned to the eventual destruction of this community. Apparently several residents signed away their right to buy the property from the owner for a $1000. I mentioned efforts in Columbia Heights that allowed residents to turn their slummy apartments into condos. But still. Ms. Bettye lives there and I hope she will find a home in Shaw.
Labels: gentrification
Gentrification DC
Yes, I must have a bug in my bonnet. That and work has slowed down here.
Last year, well October 2003 I attended the very crowded American Cities
discussion on gentrification at the City Museum. I have notes I don't remember if I entered them into this blog. If I didn't (too lazy to search) well here it is.
Jim Abdo, president of Abdo Development began with his side of the story. He talked about historical buildings and that he, unlike some of the other developers, only rehabbed abandoned buildings. No one got kicked out.
His take points out something that I haven't touch upon in my gentrification rants, historical or historically interesting buildings. The neighborhoods in question, Columbia Heights, Shaw, LeDroit Park and Capitol Hill have some pretty neat buildings. Sadly it is only the middle & upper classes that can keep the buildings with the historical details up. It is good if you score a house that still has the pocket doors, the original stained glass, the long windows, the original crown molding, the wood floors, the carved newel posts, the detailed iron fences and stair railings, oh I could go on. When the middle classes fled the city and these houses with so much detail were rented out or sold to those with less some of those details got lost to the practical. Long tall windows are expensive to replace so they got replaced by cheaper squat ones. Pocket doors removed or walled up. As the neighborhood got rougher it just probably didn't make sense to invest that much into the property. So gentrification is saving some housing provided the rehabbers have an appreciation for history.
Next on the panel was Maria Maldonado from CASA Maryland. She talked about what gentrification was, the replacement and displacement of one neighborhood with another. She talked about immigrant families that have been there for over 18 years and are being forced out due to market conditions. She also mentioned a horrible incident where 20 lawyers descended on one building scaring the tenants. The odd thing, she mentioned was that people come for the diversity but it is the economic power of the incoming group that forces out the diversity.
The last fellow I have notes for (I left before it all ended) was from Arlington and talking about affordable housing.
Labels: gentrification, housing
Uncomfy aspect of gentrification
There was another post but I think it is lost to the ether that is the Internet. Anyway, despite my odd posts about gentrification, I haven't been able to define it in a way that is simple and oh, politics-free and maybe even free of racial context. I don't think gender or orientation have a lot to do with it, but plays a minor but maybe pivotal role. I'm more than happy to define gentrification as an economic thing. Face it when the real estate taxes go up 200%, believe me it is very much related to money.
My own problem relates to where I fit in all this. I was raised in a working class family in a poor black neighborhood in the South. Currently, I guess you can call me middle class, definately a professional (if I'm not can I stop paying the student loans?), and still black. I laud the arrival of folks who are "middle class like me" regardless of color or orientation. But I do admit it is troublesome to those who have been here longer, who now have to keep up with the newcomers who have raised the value of the properties and rents. None of us who are middle class come in with the intention of pushing out the oldtimers or the poor. (We won't cry a tear, however, should the loud section 8 house, or the drug dealers get moved out.)
The visuals of this gentrification are seen in the homes and in the people. Abandoned homes are restored to their former glory, or torn down to make way for something better. Other homes are bought, rehabbed, and made to look nicer. These homes sit near, or are right next to homes that are still abandoned, falling down, or just ghetto looking. The front yards are different, some with dirt patches made from years of hanging out in front, others with many dollars worth of plants, or new walkways and fencing. Oldtimers might keep up, or join in, if they had given up the effort before. The face of gentrification, is white. Despite a fair number of blacks such as myself moving into these 'up and coming' neighborhoods, we blend in with the old population. The ones who stick out a bit more are my white neighbors.
Please keep note that whites are a minority in the District of Columbia, making up 30% of the population. Blacks are 60%, Latinos about 8% and the rest being everybody else. In my little area of Truxton Circle (still Shaw dammit) in 2000 the Afr-American population was 90%. So when whites move in, it is very noticable. So far that group has been very middle class.
With Spring the visuals are all there. Well the "For Sale" signs are. The building and rehabbing continue. Yards in the winter that have much in common with the ghetto looking yards, bound forward with color and other greenery. And I see joggers. Joggers? Where the heck are these people jogging to? I see more dog walkers. In Winter they seem to be the most miserable sort, now, all happy with their pooches, meeting up with others pooches for doggie smootches. Then there is what I don't see. There are places where crowds of black teens would congregate in large numbers. I see fewer of them, of course, it is still early. I hope that I will see fewer kids hanging out on street corners.
I guess I have been running around the topic of race and gentrification. As far as I see, so far I'll probably keep circling.
Labels: gentrification
Gentri quotefrom http://www.narpac.org/PER.HTM
On PG County....
Furthermore, this issue of declining performance in the public school systems is clearly not one of racial distinctions, but of class distinctions. The last Post article in the series dwells on the divided views of the richest majority-black ZIP Code (20721) in the Washington metro area. Here the average household income of the more than 70% black and minority population has reached $95,700, with 86% home ownership, 75% with two or three vehicles; 45% with college degrees, 61% married and 46% with kids. These upwardly mobile, predominantly young, families are clearly torn between allegiance to their local schools and less fortunate neighbors, and pursuit of the American dream with lower risk to their kids--in private and parochial schools.
Many of these are former DC residents, and they are in the main making the same decisions as any other suburbanites faced with the same problems. And the less fortunate class is generally left to fend for itself.
Labels: gentrification
Confessions of a gentrifierI don't fit the normal profile of a gentifier.....
First, I'm not rich. On a yearly basis, if not more often my profession's listserv goes on a tizzy about how
we're never paid much. according to some government tables I make about 1/2 of the region's adverage income.
Second, I'm black. Of course some may want to take away my black person card because of the crew I hang with and I know I'm never going to win a Blacker than Thou contest. It says black on the birth certificate, so that's what I'm sticking with.
Third, well there is no 3rd. But I like things to have a begining, a middle and an end.
I do fit some of the gentifying stereotypes in otherways:
I'm new, moving in in 2000
I have a graduate degree
I'm young (sort of)
I've improved my yard and house
I attend community meetings and support changes
I have no kids
I am a homeowner
I moved to Shaw because a) it is on the Green Line which will take me to Archives II, where I thought I would wind up working. b) not far from the Yellow line, which would take me to Braddock Road, where I did wind up working, c) near grocery store, laundry and everything else a car-less person needs, and lastly and most importantly d) I could afford it.
I'm a single woman, there is only so much house I can afford. I don't like huge condo buildings, actually I hate condo buildings. Also I needed to be near the metro, as mentioned previously, I don't have a car. Not a condo, near the metro, equals expensive. But my Realtor found something in my small measly price range.
All you new people just want to come in and change things!That's what I hear everyso often from several of the old timers. Old timers have been in the neighborhood since the Indians were fishing in the Potomac. They'll lash out against people who have lived in the neighborhood 15 years, which apparently makes you a newbie still. The old timers are typically old retired women, who insult you in that being nice but insulting way.
I didn't move in with a plan. I was aware of changes and potential and I am supportive of it. Change is going to happen. People who have been here 15 years and want change do see an opening and are acting on it using some of the engery (and naivite) of the new people. So yes, I guess in some ways I do want to change things.
**
Cut down on liquor stores Good Lord, how many of these stores do you need. Right where I am there are about 3 stores in a 2 block radius where I can grab a 40, or some Mad Dog 20/20. I'm not against beer and wine. I drink wine but you won't find me in the neighborhood liquor store, unless they start carrying a variety of foreign and domestic red wines, none of that Boones Farm crap but real wine.
**
Do something about abandoned buildings Do old timers like abandoned buildings? It brings joy to my heart so see a house that previously was boarded up getting fixed up to be sold. Now people with the money to fix up houses also are up on the current economic realities and know that they can make some money and they do. They'll fix up a house and sell it for an outragous price. Usually out of the price range of most lower and middle income folks. Heck even
Manna fixed then sold houses that were out of my price range. So fixing up the abandoned buildings come at a price.
**
Cut down on crime Can't we all agree on this? Apparently not. Some newbie neighbors attended a meeting where she was attacked for wanted greater police presence on her street. The attendees told her if she wanted police presence she should have moved to Georgetown!
**
Spend money in the community I would like to spend more of my hard earned dollars in the immediate area of where I live but I have 2 questions:
1. Are you selling what I want to be buying?
2. Will I be treated with respect?
One old timer chastised the group for not supporting Black businesses and the businesses that have been here since forever. Well I would support those businesses if they sold something I wanted to buy. See the comment about the liquor stores. They aren't selling what I want, and I am not going to buy what I don't want. I want fresh fruit. I want variety. Secondly, I don't want to be treated like a criminal before I even walk into the store. I know the neighborhood was not and in some spots is not safe enough to remove the plexiglass between the cashier and the customer. But I find the whole experience insulting in some ways, so given a choice, I choose not to but myself through that.
I choose to go to Giant on P Street. They have what I want, they don't insult me (the cashier may ingore me, but not insult me), and I get to spend my dollars in Shaw. I also support Chain Reaction. The service is good, the prices okay, and most importantly they're close. I don't eat at any of the take out joints, this goes back to the not selling what I want. I would like a nice sit down place, and I have yet to try the Italian restaurant on New York Ave, but that is still far. The best I can do is the Wendy's on Florida, which also is far, but they have the Wendy's Jr. Cheeseburger. If a store or restaurant that was nice and clean and respectful opened up I may visit it and maybe even patronize it.
They're are some things that I and my fellow newbies do that are threatening to the old timers and anti-gentrifiers, and I'll try owning up to them.
***
You're trying to move people out of their homes. Yes and no. Are these the loud drug dealers down the street? They why hell yes, I want them gone. The old timers may remember when Soinso was a cute little kid, but now he's 20 and is hanging with a dope selling crew. They may feel sorry for them. Newbies show up and they just see the dope selling crew, not the cute kids they were. Sadly, some of these dealers work out of their grandmothers/momma's/girlfriend's house and when a community of law abiding citizens set they're mind to it it becomes "get rid of them all and let G-d, sort them out."
Even in situations where it isn't drugs but quality of life issues like noise and trash people look at it as a problem to be fixed and the easiest solution is to get rid of the problem instead of changing the behavior. Section 8. That tends to be synomous with problem house. They're are some good Section 8 people, but if a house has 12 people running in and out of it at all hours; people putting all their business out there on the street; children running around like they don't have any home training; being loud; being bad; being ugly, people just call it a Section 8 house. So yes, those people are targeted.
However there are people who are pushed out because of higher taxes and rents. They are not targeted, they are just victims of the changing economic times. Of course, according to Lance Freeman,at Columbia University, and Frank Braconi, at the Citizens Housing and Planning Council people aren't pushed out (see New York Times 3/26/2002 The Big City; The Gentry, Misjudged As Neighbors by JOHN TIERNEY ). They were bound to leave anyway regardless of what was going on in that particular neighborhood.
Labels: gentrification, housing, quality of life