I'm tired of transplants sayin the DC I grew up in was mostly abandoned, crumbling, boarded up, vacant, empty businesses (Washington: middle-class, apartment)
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What you wrote on the NYC forum has been said many times.
I find it odd that you are comfortable making racist statements claiming all black people live in "hoods" and only eat cheap fast food. Many black people eat organic and very healthy food and many white people eat nothing but fast food trash.
Well, why couldn't blacks just go to the banks and get loans back in the 40s, 50s and 60s? Clearly, they didn't care, otherwise they would have secured the financing and moved out to the suburbs along with everyone else. Or at least take out loans to fix up their homes. And their neighborhoods wouldn't have been messed up had they not acted up once that preacher guy got shot. Who just goes into a blind rage because somebody you probably didn't even know was killed?
What you wrote on the NYC forum has been said many times.
I find it odd that you are comfortable making racist statements claiming all black people live in "hoods" and only eat cheap fast food. Many black people eat organic and very healthy food and many white people eat nothing but fast food trash.
I said no such thing. If u dont agree, thats quite alrite but dont make up stuff to justify your stance.
Furthermore, since you wanna start the whole cheap fast food vs organic argument, im gonna be real blunt and simple when I say the following:
real organic farm fresh food isnt supposed to cost the prices wholefoods and these hipster grocery stores charge for them. you go to a real farmer in the midwest or down south and tell them you pay the prices that hipsters are o so willing to pay for them, theyll straight up call you a flacking idiot. Ditto if you go to tropical farms in the caribbean and latin america.
If you really want to make a difference in poor people getting farm fresh organic goods, stop overcharging for the stuff. Better yet, when these yupsters move to the hood, stop letting the luxury condo developers destroy the community gardens that were created for this very purpose.
If you REALLY want to make a difference, see if its possible to arrange it so that farm fresh food can be bought with WIC and foodstamps. Im sure that'll make some kind of difference.
I know what you mean. It's the bourgeois, white savior delusion. Oh yay...the transplanted professional white population had "liberated" DC from crime, filth, joblessness and so on. Typical attitude from newcomers: "You native black people should be grateful that the white yuppie transplants from California or New York are investing in your communities." Bike lanes. Capital BikeShare. Doggie parks. Coffee shops. Food trucks. Loft-style condos. Microbrew pubs. Restaurants serving food at $30 per plate.
What's really awful is that newcomer whites really believe that black people "allowed" their city to fall into economic despair from the 1960s through the early 1990s. That somehow black residents were perfectly happy and content with drug dealers, gang violence, prostitution, vacant store fronts, chronic unemployment and graffiti. That somehow black residents made no effort to improve the economic conditions of their neighborhoods or make the streets safer from crime. That somehow blacks could not pull themselves up by their boot straps and become just as enterprising as suburban America.
Example of newcomer ignorance: look no further than white transplant hate against Marion Barry. Most of these clowns have not lived or worked in the DC region during the periods of Barry's reign but they howl about the mayor's corruption, crack pipe smoking and political favoritism. Say what you will about Berry, but I seem to recall that the man was a jobs-making machine for thousands of DC residents who needed an opportunity to improve their financial fortunes. Without Barry, poverty would have been far more pervasive and the city really would have seen a "Detroit" style decline in population. The city lost population for sure but not like what happened in Detroit from the 1960s thru today. Fortunately, the city never collapsed into the abyss thanks to the efforts of Barry and a few other political leaders. These men had some dirt in their fingernails for sure but they understood the needs of their community.
The OLD Washington, DC was not Beirut (circa 1970s), not Baghdad (circa post-Saddam Hussein), not present-day Afghanistan. But you wouldn't know it when you talk to the hipsters and yuppies who have recently planted roots in The District.
I said no such thing. If u dont agree, thats quite alrite but dont make up stuff to justify your stance.
Yes, you did. Note below how you begin your charge accusing people of being racist and use as your examples low income food as a reflection of race rather than what it is - class.
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A lot of yall (not all) are hella racist. No youre not wearing klan robes and burning crosses in peoples yards but when you make statements like "oh that hood sucks. Only eateries are fast food and hole in the wall soul food/west indian/mexican places" or when u make statements like "ugh theres no organic food places here all they have is cheap dirty bodegas"....yea you look really flippin suspect
You also seem to equate being a gentrifier with being white, which is very much not true. Black people are gentrifying many neighborhoods and supporting in large numbers many of the new businesses being built because of redevelopment in the urban core. The black-owned Busboys and Poets restaurant / bookstore where there used to just be empty parking lots north of downtown is often full of mostly African American clientele, and they serve good, somewhat expensive food. Same with Eatonville.
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Furthermore you wanna start the whole cheap fast food vs organic argument, im gonna be real blunt and simple when I say the following:
real organic farm fresh food isnt supposed to cost the prices wholefoods and these hipster grocery stores charge for them. you go to a real farmer in the midwest or down south and tell them you pay the prices that hipsters are o so willing to pay for them, theyll straight up call you a flacking idiot. Ditto if you go to tropical farms in the caribbean and latin america.
And coffee isn't supposed to cost $4 a cup, but Starbucks managed to build a brand identity that people were drawn to and willing to pay significantly more than the 50 cent cup o' joe that had been the norm for decades.
Similarly, Whole Foods built a brand that enough people support to allow them to charge significantly and expand their chain. .
I don't think you understand what organic is, though. It's not just going to a farmer down South or in the Midwest and buying direct; many of those farmers use pesticides that prevent them from being able to label their food organic. Organic has strict federal mandates in order to qualify. Unfortunately, the industrial food industry has become so laden with chemicals and processing that natural food has become a premium commodity. It's just basic economics why prices are higher at this relatively early stage of the organic / natural food revival.
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If you really want to make a difference in poor people getting farm fresh organic goods, stop overcharging for the stuff. Better yet, when these yupsters move to the hood, stop letting the luxury condo developers destroy the community gardens that were created for this very purpose.
Here in DC a local chain called Yes! Organic Market moved into a lower income area east of the Anacostia River and sells organic food at about the same price of normal food. Even so, they actually struggled for a while, partially because the way the road is structured near a highway interchange in front of their place it's difficult to get to, but also because demand wasn't very high for healthy, natural food even when it was affordable. They changed their name to Fairlawn Market, diversified their product somewhat, and seem to be doing fine.
Also, a way to lower the prices is for people with the income to spend on organic food and saturate it in the market so that prices drop naturally and organic food becomes the norm rather than the exception.
Lastly, rice and beans have been a staple of poor people's diet for centuries. It's really not expensive to be poor and eat adequately healthy if you wish. People just get addicted to the grease, fat, and advertising.
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If you REALLY want to make a difference, see if its possible to arrange it so that farm fresh food can be bought with WIC and foodstamps. Im sure that'll make some kind of difference.
That already happens.
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But gentrifiers dont care for none of that. If the locals make these requests, they go ignored. so goes life in our society. *sigh*
I don't know why you make such broad statements about what people care about. Most of these gentrifiers voted for Obama and are very supportive of a relatively broad social safety net and equal opportunity.
I'd say the unifying quality of most of this broad label of "gentrifiers" is they're just trying to be healthy and happy. It's nothing sinister and you really have a slippery slope of who qualifies for this label. To be gentry requires owning land, yet many of these people you despise rent because they can't afford to own. Many people in this city who aren't poor but are far from rich, like me, are still priced out of most of the city and are forced to move to an outlying lower income neighborhood and endure the venom of becoming evil gentrifiers.
It's complicated. I'd suggest leaving your anger out of it.
Example of newcomer ignorance: look no further than white transplant hate against Marion Barry. Most of these clowns have not lived or worked in the DC region during the periods of Barry's reign but they howl about the mayor's corruption, crack pipe smoking and political favoritism. Say what you will about Berry, but I seem to recall that the man was a jobs-making machine for thousands of DC residents who needed an opportunity to improve their financial fortunes. Without Barry, poverty would have been far more pervasive and the city really would have seen a "Detroit" style decline in population. The city lost population for sure but not like what happened in Detroit from the 1960s thru today. Fortunately, the city never collapsed into the abyss thanks to the efforts of Barry and a few other political leaders. These men had some dirt in their fingernails for sure but they understood the needs of their community.
Another mistake I noticed in your post: Barry certainly made some positive impacts on the District for the cards he was dealt, but DC never would have had a Detroit-level collapse, with or without Barry. DC always had a well-known stable core of federal funding and workforce. Detroit was an industrial city that was abandoned for the suburbs and other countries by both business and residents.
Why don't you post some pictures of U St. NW, or H St. NE so we can see how great it was in the "old days?" Or perhaps you want to show the open air drug markets that were next to Potomac Gardens, Cappers-Carrollsburg, or Greenleaf Gardens - you know, the areas where you now see children playing safely? Or maybe a picture of the fine establishments that surrounded Franklin Park? Or the ads for homes in places like Friendship Heights that sat on the market for a year with no offers because pretty much nobody wanted to move to the District - even the a nicer area.
You also seem to equate being a gentrifier with being white, which is very much not true. Black people are gentrifying many neighborhoods and supporting in large numbers many of the new businesses being built because of redevelopment in the urban core. The black-owned Busboys and Poets restaurant / bookstore where there used to just be empty parking lots north of downtown is often full of mostly African American clientele, and they serve good, somewhat expensive food. Same with Eatonville.
Bus Boys and Poets and Eatonville are owned by Andy Shallal, an Iraqi-American, who is now running for mayor.
"Black people," collectively, don't gentrify neighborhoods because there are so few of them with high(er) incomes relative to whites. They don't have the numbers or the market power to stimulate the construction of multi-million dollar condos. Gentrification, in some cities anyway, is by and large a white middle class to upper middle class phenomenon. You see the replacement of the existing culture (which could even be Polish) with a culture that's very white and upper middle class.
When certain whites move to a neighborhood, it's a signal to other whites that the neighborhood is "in transition." Other whites then follow. That doesn't happen with black people. There aren't enough of them. You could probably take the BSAs of the Top 25 colleges in the United States and not have enough people to occupy every unit in Adams-Morgan.
"Black people," collectively, don't gentrify neighborhoods because there are so few of them with high(er) incomes relative to whites. .
Not true in DC. While DC has it's share of poor black people, there is a considerable number of wealthy and middle class blacks in DC as well. You can't stereotype them as universally poor in DC. Especially with the number of upper and upper-middle class black neighborhoods in DC. They can be just as much of gentrifying force in DC as white upper and upper middle class people.
You obviously have not spent time around Shepherd Park/Colonial Village/Crestwood/16th St Heights. Gentrification in DC is not strictly a racial thing. It's a CLASS thing.
There are enough upper and upper middle class black people to improve entire neighborhoods in DC, but also completely change them.
Not all black people in DC are poor, and many of the gentry in DC ARE black. In fact they usually come in advance of those high price condo developments. I don't consider black people some race and class unified. There are rich black people, and poor black people, and middle class black people. As such those who buy houses, are well educated, and earn north of the median in household income...are by all definitions gentry, and this includes some on this board who are all to critical of the gentrifiers, when in fact they are one, whether they were born here or not, or whether they are black, white, or whatever. The gentry is not unified by race...but by class. The gentry is not white or black, they are largely upper and upper middle class, and in many ways a fairly diverse group. In many cities this is majority white, but not always, in DC, this is far more diverse. While DC has a large poor black population, it also has a large affluent black population, large enough for several neighborhoods in and around the district. Confessions of a Black D.C. Gentrifier - Washington City Paper
Many of the neighborhoods that gentrified Shaw, Bloomingdale, etc. gentrified precisely because of high earning black people moved in and improved the neighborhoods. In fact if you know the history of DC gentrification, it is largely driven by college educated blacks. Many of who bought houses, remodeled them, then flipped them. Sure some of the buyers of those houses were white, but some were asian, latino, and yes..black. This is the thing about the urban gentry in DC, they are not only vanilla, they are actually a diverse group. As much as people what to make gentrification a racial issue, it is ultimately a class issue. I will be the first to recognize the role affluent and educated blacks have in gentrifying DC neighborhoods. In fact it is the reason why many turned around, but the color of the skin did not matter of who did it.
When the expensive condos and apartments often came in after the neighborhood has already improved in many cases. In some cases the neighborhood was already well off. One can barely call the Walter Reed Improvement gentrification. Shepherd park is already affluent, and mostly black. That is unlikely to change.
The dynamics in DC are a little different. Because the city is a magnet for high earning, highly educated blacks...it has to be seen through the specter of class. When the affluent push out poverty in some cases of gentrification, it knows no color. It is an economic issue, not a race issue, and I think some fail to understand that.
Why don't you post some pictures of U St. NW, or H St. NE so we can see how great it was in the "old days?" Or perhaps you want to show the open air drug markets that were next to Potomac Gardens, Cappers-Carrollsburg, or Greenleaf Gardens - you know, the areas where you now see children playing safely? Or maybe a picture of the fine establishments that surrounded Franklin Park? Or the ads for homes in places like Friendship Heights that sat on the market for a year with no offers because pretty much nobody wanted to move to the District - even the a nicer area.
Great post.
I'm tired of DC natives lying about the city. The place sucked pretty bad from 1960-1990 and that's just all there is to it. Pointing out a few oasis spots in a crappy city doesn't mean anything.
I'm sure you can find nice parts of Detroit if you look hard enough.
Some of the natives obviously believe people are too stupid to see through their propaganda. Nice try . You are only fooling yourselves if you think anyone is buying the non-sense you are trying to sell
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