“What can we as gentrifiers do?”
By involving your community in the reporting process, reporters can assure their stories are valuable to readers.
HHow can we be sure to report on something people care about? By listening. By asking questions. Not by assuming. And also not by doing it the traditional “I am the reporter, therefore I have the authority to ask the questions”-way.
I moved to New York in January and I knew nothing about the neighborhood where I landed: In Crown Heights, Brooklyn, I was able to find an “affordable“ — $1000 rent for a room in an apartment that share with a friendly couple and some mice — room. So many old residents I talked to — yes, this is a neighborhood where people actually still talk to each other on the streets — either just had moved (one just came back to pick up his mail) or were thinking about moving. Even if they have lived here their whole life, they leave. The rent just became to high. I immediately knew I had to report on that.
But how can we talk to the community apart from on the streets? In our community engagement class at the social journalism program at CUNY-J, we experimented with Hearken. This is a platform that helps journalists to partner with the public throughout their reporting. So in my case, I wanted to know what the people of Crown Heights want to know about gentrification and their neighborhood. Hearken is a pretty easy to work with, in a few steps I set up a link and spread it in different forums and social channels like Nextdoor. The first respond I got was:
“As a Hasid here, I wonder how recent movements like BLM incorporating Palestinian justice massaging affect our black neighbors’ view of Jews.”
One must know that in the southern part of Crown Heights, there are traditionally a lot of Hasidic Jews, and that BLM refers to Black Lives Matters. So this person actually wants to something about another community — and that’s where social journalists come in: they can help to start a communication between two communities that have long been conflicted. Via asking the community what they want to know, reporters can hit a nerve.
Another interesting question that was submitted was:
“What can we, as gentrifiers, do to keep Brooklyn & Crown Heights authentic in the midst of sweeping gentrification?”
I really like this question because gentrification is a topic that so many cities have to deal with, whether it’s San Francisco, New Orleans, Berlin or London. Keeping a neighborhood authentic is one thing. But many of us who look for an affordable place to live are automatically part of systematic replacement: We move in, the rents go up, and old residents who can’t afford that prices have to leave the neighborhood. Nobody I have talked to feels comfortable with being responsible for displacement, but nobody knows what to do about it, either.
Unfortunately that was the last question that was submitted via Hearken so I tried to listen to my community in real life by attending a meeting of the Crown Heights tenant union. Some of the most interesting questions that were raised there were:
“What should I do if my landlord offers me a buyout?”, “I can’t afford to live in NYC anymore. Where can I move?”, “What can I do when I agreed to a buyout and didn’t get the money?”, ”What is a ‘relocation specialist’?”, “Why should I not accept a buyout?”, ”Why is my neighbor’s apartment being renovated and mine not?”, “How can I get my rent history?”
I haven’t actually reported on the very interesting “what can we as gentrifiers do”-question, but I eventually will. The story I did report on was one that was raised within the poet’s community (I came up with the question by listening to the community):
Is there really a split between the traditional poetry scene and the slam poetry scene?
