Black history bulldozed for another Starbucks: Against the new Baltimore (Fairmount: apartments, attorney)

[bmoregrimey]

I think the writer of the article is very misleading....but i can understand why he would be since he earns his living supposedly speaking for black baltimoreans. I dont even know any black baltimoreans complaining of gentrification except for maybe infinite_77. This whole scenario is fictional at best. I know many people whom would welcome gentrification and investment in their neighborhoods and are actually wondering when these things will happen. The writer wishes that his public housing project was still standing....i saw the lexington terrace project demolition and folk were clapping when it went down. Although some did cry about many of the memories they had growing up there, but most were happy to see it go. I cant stand people like this dude whom want to romanticize the bad conditions of these neighborhoods like it was a nice place to be. And to think he actually makes money off of this and people think he is authentic....My neighborhood was bad i had some great memories there but also plenty of bad ones that i cant even forget if i wanted to. I wish i could forget all the shootings and violence and messed up drug scenes.

[dogpark]

Originally Posted by Infinite_heights77

Do you think that so-called poor Black Baltimoreans are soley the problem?!

Nope, never said that - you allude to that in many of your postings.

Originally Posted by Infinite_heights77

I have problems with Baltimore's middle and upper middle class African American populations who have NO clue what time of day it is as well. Most of these people have the monetary and intellectual resources, as well as the political connections to move things in the city. Either they don't care or are scared to make waves because of jobs, titles or positions.

Yet I don't see you calling out these folks specifically - who is in position but does nothing? If you are reform minded,who needs reforming? I'm asking because I want to know in more detail what you think.

[steppinthrax]

Originally Posted by Sunflowery

Gentrification only works when jobs are provided so that able bodied people won't have to rely on public housing, section 8, food stamps and other types of public assistance.

As far as Baltimore's job market is concerned (outside of the Hopkins bubble), you might as well put a fork in it because it is done.

I'm not anti-police but the Baltimore City Police Department is terrible. There's a reason why they are under federal investigation.

I do not know what you mean by anti-beautification. Every city has parts of a city that are considered "ugly". Am I making excuses for Baltimore? Absolutely not.

The what you call "able body people", lack any skills and education that allow them to get off of public housing, section 8 and food stamps. As a matter of fact I'm fairly sure they like being on these social services because it doesn't require them to put forth an effort. I look at those social services as a safety net when something terrible happens in your life and it should only be used as a temp access. Unfortunately these people are on social services for years and years and years.

The idea of gentrification is to install commercial entities, housing and general fees that exceed the incomes of the current population in that area, thus forcing them out. Making way for higher income and more resp adults to take over the area. Crime lowers, loitering lowers, and the area looks better!!!!!

Unfortunately that is the only way it works....

[Wandering_Nomad]

Gentrification is a sign of a good economy, someone should tell that to the idiot who wrote the article.

Here's a quote from the article:
"I used to hang in Lafayette Housing Projects with my big cousin Damon. He taught me how to shoot a jump shot, impress a girl without talking and land a left hook. That place is gone. Visiting his old unit after his murder would’ve been therapeutically nostalgic for me but that place is gone and will never be back again."

This guy is lamenting that his old housing project was demolished? WTF?
It's hard to take articles like this seriously, or the idiots who write them.
If housing projects are no longer needed, people should be celebrating. That's called progress.

[steppinthrax]

Originally Posted by Wandering_Nomad

Gentrification is a sign of a good economy, someone should tell that to the idiot who wrote the article.

Here's a quote from the article:
"I used to hang in Lafayette Housing Projects with my big cousin Damon. He taught me how to shoot a jump shot, impress a girl without talking and land a left hook. That place is gone. Visiting his old unit after his murder would’ve been therapeutically nostalgic for me but that place is gone and will never be back again."

This guy is lamenting that his old housing project was demolished? WTF?
It's hard to take articles like this seriously, or the idiots who write them.
If housing projects are no longer needed, people should be celebrating. That's called progress.

The only people who complain about gentrification are those who are displaced by them!!!!

This person lives in their own world. He thinks that there is nothing wrong with a crumbly old section 8 housing project.

[Seafood Junky]

Black history, white history.. Why not just history?

Mike

[dfredward]

This guy Watkins makes a living writing about ghetto life (not Black life) to (mostly) white folks who are foolish enough to lap it up.

[feck]

Originally Posted by dfredward

This guy Watkins makes a living writing about ghetto life (not Black life) to (mostly) white folks who are foolish enough to lap it up.

"Ghetto life"? I think the author has merit if you compare
him to other similiar writers. It doesn't sound like you are
well read.

[Woodlands]

Originally Posted by Infinite_heights77

Why is he misguided Woodlands?!! Why is it upsetting for some every time a young Black man expresses his views and positions you don't deem acceptable in your white hegemonic worldview??!

Its free Country ...people can say or write what they want. Everyone has nostalgia for their neighborhood or hometown. People can find good or memorable incidents or institutions that shaped them for the better or the worse rooted in their neighborhood. My point is that IN BALTIMORE.... to equate neighborhood change as the fault of whites or gentry seems to be a quest for a boogey man to blame for neighborhood change. If someone fixes up a row house or knocks down a vacant building and puts up a new one....should we run off and BLAME someone because I used to sit on those steps and drink soda or knew someone who used to live there?

In the case of urban renewal of the 1970s where entire neighborhoods were leveled to make way for a highway that was ultimately canceled...I am with those residents in their ire especially since West Baltimore at the time was still habitable.. It became inhabitable AFTER the highway was built and declined ever since..Churches along with homes were torn down and it was done by the government and neighborhoods were totally gutted that didn't need to be...and not to make way for housing for the gentry...whom normally infiltrate a neighborhood more organically on a block by block basis. The only equivalent we have today is JHU in Eastside...However; mixed income housing is replacing what was once exclusively housing for the very poor not to mention that the replacement will be decent safe and sanitary housing. If those residents, that were renting, received a voucher to move to a better house in NE Baltimore is that a bad thing? I guess its bitter sweet..

There.nothing wrong with nostalgia...we all have it but to expect things to stay the same when the world by its sheer nature changes and to peg the new residents for the "negative" change on one group or race is misguided...Keep in mind if we reverse this conversation and look at areas that have experienced racial change since the 1950s which has occurred in over half of Baltimore from white to black.. Should those whites that fled to the suburbs that talk about how their neighborhood were "back in the day" and how (in their opinion) their neighborhood where they grew up is now ruined because blacks have moved in..are they justified in their view? Is that a correct way to think or would you say its misguided?

[pwduvall]

Originally Posted by Woodlands

There.nothing wrong with nostalgia...we all have it but to expect things to stay the same when the world by its sheer nature changes and to peg the new residents for the "negative" change on one group or race is misguided...Keep in mind if we reverse this conversation and look at areas that have experienced racial change since the 1950s which has occurred in over half of Baltimore from white to black.. Should those whites that fled to the suburbs that talk about how their neighborhood were "back in the day" and how (in their opinion) their neighborhood where they grew up is now ruined because blacks have moved in..are they justified in their view? Is that a correct way to think or would you say its misguided?

I agree with this and I have something to add. The city only survives when it has dynamic neighborhoods that provide a decent quality of life.

I'm sure people have nostalgia for neighborhoods that are failing and heading for oblivion. Good things happen everywhere and some good people live everywhere. None the less, failing neighborhoods are inherently unstable. The alternatives for a failing neighborhood in Baltimore are investment (gentrification) or the wrecking ball. That is the hard truth. In more successful cities, prosperous people do move into neighborhoods that are not failing, which can cause displacement. I don't see much of that kind of thing happening in Baltimore over the next decade.

Is there any place in Baltimore where whites are moving into successful and fully occupied black neighborhoods?