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LA has more pedestrian vibrancy than Southeast DC. Not even close, actually.
I know you know very little about Ward 7 and Ward 8, but the Benning Road and Minnesota Avenue NE intersection below is one of the most vibrant parts of the city period! There are so many people walking around in this area all day you would think it was Chinatown Gallery Place. I'm talking about street vendors selling stuff on tables and everything. In fact, this may be the only place in DC that even has street vendors setup selling stuff. Not with permits, just tables and tents on the sidewalk everyday.
I know you know very little about Ward 7 and Ward 8, but the Benning Road and Minnesota Avenue NE intersection below is one of the most vibrant parts of the city period! There are so many people walking around in this area all day you would think it was Chinatown Gallery Place. I'm talking about street vendors selling stuff on tables and everything. In fact, this may be the only place in DC that even has street vendors setup selling stuff. Not with permits, just tables and tents on the sidewalk everyday.
Man, you are funny. I know Wards 7 and 8 quite well. And it's funny you would choose a streetview of an apartment building with surface lots just on the other side of Benning Road.
If Wards 7 and 8 had all this pedestrian vibrancy, I'm sure you would have posted 10 videos showing as much by now. You seem to have no problem finding 10 videos of kids banging buckets outside of the Verizon Center on 7th Street, but you can't find one video of this mythical pedestrian traffic in Ward 8?
LOLLLL....where do you think these people came from? You think they ran out their houses to see the accident? SMH...LOL...right.
Anyone who actually lives in Ward 7 and Ward 8 who walks around these intersections everyday knows this is normal. You don't because you don't live in DC and when you did, you didn't cross the river.
The displacement is happening, but it’s by middle class to upper class black people and families replacing lower income black families. I tell people all the time that we (educated middle class black people) are gentrifying the neighborhoods over in Ward 7 and Ward 8. Just because we are black doesn’t mean we aren’t gentrifying them. If we were white, they would call us gentrifiers, but because we are black, it’s ok?
Are the Black gentrifiers complaining about the existing culture of the neighborhood? Are they calling the cops about stores playing Go-Go music on street corners or using neighborhood school campuses as dog parks? Are property taxes skyrocketing for existing residents to the point that they are forced to move?
I'm referring to involuntary displacenent on a large scale when a large contingent of people who would rather stay put can no longer afford to. I have no issue with folks who can afford to remain in their neighborhoods voluntarily but would rather move elsewhere for whatever reason(s) and that's actually a lot more common than many of us care to admit, and it usually happens well before a neighborhood even begins gentrifying. In DC, the '68 riots and the slow process of rebuilding the areas most affected along the U Street corridor that caused so many Black (and White) residents to move away is probably the best example of that.
It's simply not a meaningful comparison to make. LA is a city of nearly 4M people living on 450+ square miles of land. Saying LA is more vibrant than one quadrant of a significantly smaller (albeit denser) city doesn't tell us anything useful.
Are the Black gentrifiers complaining about the existing culture of the neighborhood? Are they calling the cops about stores playing Go-Go music on street corners or using neighborhood school campuses as dog parks? Are property taxes skyrocketing for existing residents to the point that they are forced to move?
I'm referring to involuntary displacenent on a large scale when a large contingent of people who would rather stay put can no longer afford to. I have no issue with folks who can afford to remain in their neighborhoods voluntarily but would rather move elsewhere for whatever reason(s) and that's actually a lot more common than many of us care to admit, and it usually happens well before a neighborhood even begins gentrifying. In DC, the '68 riots and the slow process of rebuilding the areas most affected along the U Street corridor that caused so many Black (and White) residents to move away is probably the best example of that.
You make really good points and that's why we aren't looked at the same way as our white counterparts who move into lower income black neighborhoods, but we do still raise the property values and taxes. The houses we are buying cost two and three times the price of those currently living there. I think because we don't try to change the neighborhood, we are accepted.
Man, you are funny. I know Wards 7 and 8 quite well. And it's funny you would choose a streetview of an apartment building with surface lots just on the other side of Benning Road.
If Wards 7 and 8 had all this pedestrian vibrancy, I'm sure you would have posted 10 videos showing as much by now. You seem to have no problem finding 10 videos of kids banging buckets outside of the Verizon Center on 7th Street, but you can't find one video of this mythical pedestrian traffic in Ward 8?
Anybody in this thread who lives in DC will vouch that the video I posted is normal foot traffic in that neighborhood. It's really vibrant, I'm not exaggerating. As for those surface parking lots, this is where Northeast Heights is being built.
Minnesota and Benning are not particularly vibrant....heavy car traffic and a decent amount of foot traffic but nothing unusual, definitely not one of the most vibrant parts of DC.
Atlantic Station in Atlanta looked super average.
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