So You’ve Decided to Gentrify
Neighborly tips
Look, you’re college educated. Statistically speaking, we all are. Right? Sure. Maybe you found a job in the city, or you’re going back to school, or you’re cheap, or you just want to live somewhere “edgy” or “gritty” or whatever sweeping euphemism we’re using for black people and immigrants when you read this. The point is, you’re moving to the part of town your parents wouldn’t even drive through, much less stop, unless they visit you. Maybe they still won’t. Maybe they’d rather meet you in a nicer, neighborhood a few blocks over that’s slightly “cleaner” or “more artsy” or whatever euphemism we’re using for white when you read this.
It doesn’t matter, because this isn’t about them. It’s about you, champ.
Here are some tips to help you successfully gentrify a neighborhood.
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Don’t call the police
I can’t emphasize this one enough. Just. Don’t.
Now hear me out: bad things do happen. Cars get broken into. Teenagers hang out on stoops. The family down the way has a party and the music is too loud. I’m not saying these aren’t bad. I’m saying that they don’t require government intervention. The same way you wouldn’t go to the ER with a cough (you wouldn’t, would you?), there’s no point taking the nuclear option when a little diplomacy would do.
Do
Solve your problems like adults. I’m not saying it’ll stop bad things from happening, because frankly, neither will the police. But if you’re concerned about tension between the police and “the community,” one of the simplest DIY ways to ease tension is to make sure your neighbors don’t know you as “the guy with the noise complaint.” Which brings me to the next point…
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Meet your neighbors
You’re a resident now and, whether you or your neighbors (who were here first, after all) want to admit it, you chose this life. Guess what? A lot of the families who live next to/above/below you didn’t pick this out of a catalog of Places With Character. They ARE the character. More importantly, they’re people.
Before you and your friends jokingly referred to your place as “the hood,” in that voice you learned from a rapper, this was a neighborhood. As in a place with neighbors. Human beings with families and stories and aspirations.
Do
Learn to pronounce their names. Say hey if you see them walking by. Ask after their families. A simple conversation can have a huge impact. You don’t even necessarily have to help the old lady downstairs unload her shopping bags, but on the topic of economic investment…
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Do support your bodega
Yes, things are overpriced and maybe not as organic as you’d like, but trust me on this. The dude(s) behind the counter will remember you, and maybe even keep your go-to items on hand. If you get in his good books, you might even find a distributor who carries that specialty soap you don’t really need.
Remember
You are not Neil fucking Armstrong.
You’re not a hero. You’re not Thor Heyerdaal. You’re just another kid who decided to live in a place where other people already live. You’re not even a good person. Did you help the old lady from tip #2? No. She’s more of a hero than you are for hanging onto her rent controlled place as long as she has.
Your neighbors had a lot less advantages (parental safety nets, college degrees, networks of potential employers) and still built lives and raised families before you moved in. I guarantee you once you get that condo or move back home and declare your old street “dead,” life will go on for them. Ideally, your arrival won’t be Cortezian, or even Columbian, with the foreign diseases and the missionary fervor and whatnot. Chill.
Culture already exists here, and maybe if you shut up and listen, it might rub off a little. But be careful that you…
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Don’t complain
There’s nothing worse than a transplant complaining about the changes in the neighborhood. Those are YOUR friends going to the place with the $10 tater tots. YOUR classmates, YOUR co-workers. You ride the same shuttle bus and run up a tab in the same gastropub and visit the same galleries, concerts and outdoor movie screenings. None of you is going to care who remembers when this place didn’t even have a grocery store and you had to get in your car and drive ten minutes to get food. Because you (all of you) are riding the crest of a wave of mediocrity, criticizing the swelling tide that propels you. You are molecules of water eroding the rich and fertile shores, and even under a microscope, you’re all the goddamn same.
Got all that? Good. Now go on out there and work on making your neighbors not hate you. And come back with a Sprite and some Takis, slugger.
