Let the hood be the hood
How gentrification aids in displacement and destruction of community
I hate gentrification with a passion. It is one of those shifts that happen in Contemporary America that show the immense amounts of privilege and lack thereof with certain people.
It starts off real slow. Lightly, quietly, stealthily and grows into a trickle. You start seeing bus loads of mostly white people traveling to inner city areas. They go to whatever restaurant or historical marker is most famous in said neighborhood. They travel in buses and in walking groups through areas that they have ignored and redlined for decades. Municipal officials announce restoration projects , decrepit Black neighborhood in question will get a Big name supermarket or maybe a Target. Something our parrot leaders can push to us as municipal concern and investment in our areas.
Amidst this, locals notice the fixing of broken streets, playgrounds being installed in local parks, regular trash pickup. You’ll start to see lone white people running. Jogging through the still decrepit streets, jogging past the empty lots and abandoned buildings. Locals will laugh at that jogger unaware in rapid time there will be more.
Strange things start happen as these new people arrive. There will be fires , the burning of landmarks that existed for decades, dog parks will be installed in the parks, the police will be a little more responsive and less loud as they have been.
Time goes on. There’s a Starbucks here, a Whole Foods there, a craft bar and brewery. There will be an influx of a young mostly white crowd, perhaps University students or young professionals. The locals will notice the local bodegas closing. They’ll notice rents being raised and slowly but surely a lot more construction happening. The dog shit stains will accumulate on the pavement and because of the unraveling of the long abandoned land, the rats will run amok.
In about two years time there is enough of the outsiders that the whole place feels foreign. Long time restaurants, barbershops and beauty parlors will shutter. The surviving bodgeas will undergo facelifts and suddenly act nicer. The cops will get zealous on the long time locals especially in the summer nights when music is playing, people laughing and having a good time.
Rents continue to rise, local institutions continue to close. Even Churches aren’t immune. The new comers will continue to flood the area and many of them now are Black and other races as well. But they are often from the two degree, grew up in the suburb only navigate in white world kinda people. They never would’ve lived there before.
The arrival of Gay bars and /or gay nights at local lounges will signify that yes indeed this area has arrived. The irony won’t be lost on the poor Black gays, lesbians and trans folks who grew up in this area and remember when they had to go to downtown to be amongst the family so freely.
The conversation from the Municipal authorities will be about how remarkable a transformation has happened. They’ll wonder why the local population has shifted and been displaced. But they won’t own their complicity. It won’t be weird to have a 3 million dollar condo across the streets from the projects. There will be talks of re-naming the area adding a South or a ville to a certain number of streets. Because of course those tax dollars need to be spent on certain people. The others can continue starving and killing themselves.
Being displaced will hurt the local long priced out. The local born of another local who can no longer afford to live in the area of their birth. The area of their first days of happiness and sadness, where they connected with a rich history and learned what it means to be who they are because of where they are from and what that means in the grand scheme of things. Those blocks , respites of safety despite the poverty and crime will become colder, grayer , lifeless quiet spaces. The ghosts will have infiltrated. What once was will never be and that local will have to remember what once was.
