Sometimes I Feel Like I’m The Only One Trying To Gentrify This Neighborhood
When I moved into this neighborhood, I fell in love right away. Not with the actual neighborhood, but with its potential: It’s affordable, there are nice row houses all around just waiting to be filled up by my friends, there’s lot of open space to be exploited, and plenty of parking. Plus, this area has got a great authentic feel and, with a little work, it could be even more authentic. Perfect, right?
So why am I the only one doing anything about it?
heh. Totally not the same thing, but similar dynamic. Years ago, there was a send up of the yups who went off to Vermont to get away from it all in the city. but so hellbent were they on making it into an image of them that they ended up destroying what had made them feel they’d gotten away from it all when they first discovered thier “diamond in the rough.”
Hee. “Smaller and more nervous.”
I think I saw this guy last week. No really. Only he was shorter and his hair was blonde and he wore a fedora. He complained because there were only two Starbucks on the block and only one fatburger.
The newly gentrified area of mid-city has imposed an 8pm curfew against Latino teens at the newly rebuilt shopping mall, a smaller rip off of the Grove in L.A.
Latino kids have to be in the company of an adult and be in the act of going to a store with purpose to shop or to the theater with purpose to attend a movie. Loitering is prohibited at all times, especially in groups of more than two individuals, because if you do that, then you are of course gang members.
White kids are of course still free to move about as they please, with or without an adult(s).
Dear city attorney, the first class-action law suit based on these violations of the First and Fourteenth Amendments will probably be filed in the near future. See you around.
Latino kids have to be in the company of an adult and be in the act of going to a store with purpose to shop or to the theater with purpose to attend a movie. Loitering is prohibited at all times, especially in groups of more than two individuals, because if you do that, then you are of course gang members.
White kids are of course still free to move about as they please, with or without an adult(s).
Whoa. Uh, not that it matters either in terms of racism or in terms of the class-action lawsuit, but is this policy articulated or enforced as though it were?
Living in a city with very few restaurant options, other amenities I have spoken, not acted on having more street lights in my area…more public spaces like restaurants available, maybe one coffee shop and bookstore wouldn’t hurt.
Where I live, gentrification is very near and we can’t deny the fact that amenities come with gentrificaiton and that’s both a good and bad thing. We are currently, like every other city dealing with gentrification. More so, construction craters are everywhere on my way to and from work. Little mom and pop shops are coming in, while I learn that families are being priced out, and I as a renter that pays less than $1,000 for a two bedroom am in that boat of instability.
What I would like to see is reform…let the amenities come, new “class” come in but not at the price of those of us that aren’t making the incomes to stay in the community. I do want that new restaurant to stop eating the tacos from king Taco and the cheeseburger special from Dino’s, I want a little bit more public amenities, spaces, arts, and I don’t want to only have the option of moving to a New York City or San Francisco to get that…and even then, I wouldn’t be able to afford it with a child in tow.
Many complexities yes, real “revitalization” can substitute gentrification with affordable housing and imposed curbing from unfair practices taking place in landlords’ hands trying to evict low income tenants and families to make room for higher earning tenants that can pay big bucks for the same space.
I’m trying to work to be part of a solution in this dynamic city with so much construction and land up in coming to hopefully see something different other than full blown gentrification.
It’s written as if it applies to all minors. It’s enforced in a manner that is racially discriminatory towards primarily Latinos. I guess that’s also called selective enforcement.
I think there’s also problems at another mall near the university with selective enforcement towards African-American and Latino teenagers.
I’m running a blog documenting a U.N. book on gender-based violence (i.e. domestic violence, rape, child abuse, female genital mutilation, etc.) you might be interested in…
http://brokendreams.wordpress.com
Blessings.
Huge eminent domain landgrab yesterday, mostly small family-owned businesses that will be replaced with restaurants, artist lofts and condos in the $300,000 to $400,000 range.
That’s better if you can find a politician who will agree to that, let alone a majority of them.
I’m just finding that so many elected officials at the city level are just so in bed with private developers, it’s truly sad. Watching the association that many of these small businesses paid money into in the form of taxes not only turn its back on them but stab them in their backs was really disheartening. Telling them off at the meeting yesterday didn’t alleviate that.