Serious question, gentrification, micro-colonization or something eles?
Serious question: How do low-income/poor white (artists or otherwise) move into a place they can afford, and thrive within it without that equating to gentrification? I understand gentrification as a concept as well as a defined word and I see it bandied about both correctly and incorrectly all over the place.
I've seen every neighborhood I've ever lived in suffer from gentrification. Initially, the changes are slow, an aspiring kid buys a house they can afford, another builds a neighborhood cafe, restaurant or bar they want to hang out in and eat at, another sees the crumbling old movie house and wants to bring it back to life. Innocent well-meaning stuff that supports the place they live. Maybe the neighborhood is cheap-ish making financing reasonable, so maybe restoring the place is feasible. That's nice. When does this slow creep of improvement become a tipping point to gentrification? Is the next step limited to the impact developers may make on a neighborhood?
What about the streets (in Seattle) that were built as retail hubs a hundred years ago that sat fallow for decades that are now bustling with new shops and eateries (19th ave E, Ballard Ave, Airport Way S), I'm certain not because the location was hot but because the buildings were cheap and now the neighborhood is "gentrified". Is it that those business owners are perceived as white and male by default? Or is that something else? Revitalization? Is that dangerous? What if this revitalization if happening at the hands of lifetime neighborhood residents who want to reclaim their stomping grounds? Is that gentrification? Is gentrification as a word being used to stand in for something like a micro-colonization?
How can artists, artisans, and small business proprietors thrive in a place and make it comfortable, (v. (gentrifies, gentrifying, gentrified) renovate and improve so that it conforms to middle-class taste. -adj. make more refined or dignified) for themselves and their neighbors without being seen as an act of gentrification? Is "middle-class taste" the death-nail? What about dignified, is that the exclusive territory of white folks? Why or why not?
I've seen every neighborhood I've ever lived in suffer from gentrification. Initially, the changes are slow, an aspiring kid buys a house they can afford, another builds a neighborhood cafe, restaurant or bar they want to hang out in and eat at, another sees the crumbling old movie house and wants to bring it back to life. Innocent well-meaning stuff that supports the place they live. Maybe the neighborhood is cheap-ish making financing reasonable, so maybe restoring the place is feasible. That's nice. When does this slow creep of improvement become a tipping point to gentrification? Is the next step limited to the impact developers may make on a neighborhood?
What about the streets (in Seattle) that were built as retail hubs a hundred years ago that sat fallow for decades that are now bustling with new shops and eateries (19th ave E, Ballard Ave, Airport Way S), I'm certain not because the location was hot but because the buildings were cheap and now the neighborhood is "gentrified". Is it that those business owners are perceived as white and male by default? Or is that something else? Revitalization? Is that dangerous? What if this revitalization if happening at the hands of lifetime neighborhood residents who want to reclaim their stomping grounds? Is that gentrification? Is gentrification as a word being used to stand in for something like a micro-colonization?
How can artists, artisans, and small business proprietors thrive in a place and make it comfortable, (v. (gentrifies, gentrifying, gentrified) renovate and improve so that it conforms to middle-class taste. -adj. make more refined or dignified) for themselves and their neighbors without being seen as an act of gentrification? Is "middle-class taste" the death-nail? What about dignified, is that the exclusive territory of white folks? Why or why not?
Comments
Post a Comment