Why Gentrification Is Good For Black People

As you know, I’m quite the fan of controversy. This article will be nothing different.

What is gentrification?

Oxford dictionary defines gentrification as follows: “the process whereby the character of a poor urban area is changed by wealthier people moving in, improving housing, and attracting new businesses, typically displacing current inhabitants in the process.”

In Layman’s terms gentrification is basically the upgrading of a neighborhood to make it more universally aesthetically pleasing to a wider audience.

Now on paper it doesn’t sound like such a bad thing. Putting more Starbucks in the hood, how can that be all that bad?

A lot of black people feel like the intention behind some of these more mainstream organizations being pushed in black neighborhoods aren’t for the most genuine reasons.

Oftentimes some of these big corporations come to black neighborhoods and end up pushing out some of the small black businesses.

Some black people in those neighborhoods also feel like gentrification rolls out the red carpet for other races to take their place. I think more black people would welcome gentrification if they felt like it was for them.

It’s almost as if they’re welcoming in another race without the community’s consent.

A lot of black people don’t mind the Starbucks in the hood, but what is the Starbucks in the hood for?

What are the intentions of the people who put the Starbucks there?

Is the Starbucks here to give black people access to something most black neighborhoods don’t normally have access to?

Or is the Starbucks here to make a neighborhood that isn’t normally appealing to other races, more appealing them?

Is the Starbucks here to help other races transition to this community more seamlessly?

And since gentrification has a tendency to drive up the prices of everything in the surrounding area, the likelihood of the people who originally live there being able to afford the increased prices are low.

On paper it’s easy assume that these people have malicious intentions and that they want to kick black people out of their neighborhoods.

I for one am not not a fan of this notion that anytime black people start to see improvement in their neighborhood that they automatically assume the worst.

A lot of black people act as if we don’t deserve improvement or they simply don’t receive it.

You can’t complain about living in the hood twenty four seven and how your current conditions suck, and then when someone tries to come upgrade your situation you reject it.

This implies that black people don’t deserve nice things, when you reject something from someone they are more reluctant to keep being generous.

I don’t approve of the mindset of thinking that improvement means that it is for white people. A better looking neighborhood doesn’t mean that it’s only for white people.

I reject that notion wholeheartedly, I for one love gentrification.

I for one encourage gentrification.

I understand that prices go up, prices will continue to go up with or without gentrification.

Some black people are afraid that the areas that they know and love will continue to look less and less like they remembered.

This can be scary but what is the solution? Stay in the hood, keep the neighborhood unapproachable?

Black people often talk about how they want their communities to improve, but they don’t want their communities to improve at the risk of losing the people who built those communities.

A very fair thought process to have.

Upgrading your surroundings comes at a cost, a cost I am willing to pay if it makes our people live in an improved environment.

I want us to be able to welcome nice things, I want us to be able to expect nice things, to accept nice things.

We don’t want to live in the hood, and we damn sure don’t want to look like we live in the hood for the rest of our lives.

The reality is there is no perfect solution.

I don’t know an answer that will satisfy everybody but anyone rarely does.

Rejecting improvement in your community just seems counterproductive to the goals you have set.

Black people expect good things, encourage good things, a latte at Starbucks isn’t the end of the world.