Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Im not against urban revitilization by any means......and you know what? I realize american society is not fair....life in general is not fair......I realize society is unequal and all these things......
I also realize city data forums are already FLOOOODED with threads on gentrification.....but what im about to say i dont think its been said yet......so with that established...... to any proud self described gentrifier reading this.....
- YOU ARE NOT GODS GIFT TO THE NEIGHBORHOOD/CITY!!!!!! Ill give credit where its due.....yes some of you bought bombed out shells and rebuilt them and upgraded them.....so im sure blood sweat and tears went into that. But stop lying to yourselves....the neighborhood didnt get better cuz yall gave a f&^c, nor did it get better cuz your law abiding citizens (yet patronizing the local weed pushers @ the same time)...nor did it get better cuz you went to the community board meetings.......it ultimately improved because yall have MONEY and a large majority of you all have WHITE SKIN! Yes I said it!!!!! American society, esp the police and city works departments, make rich white people first priority (and many times the SOLE priority) in regards to who has their needs taken care of first. This society is designed for your needs and it caters primarily to people like yourselves....
- No one wants to go back to the horrors of the crack era. People in bombed out ghettos felt the horrors more than anyone else....heck these people went to sleep with chaos literally sittin outside their door while most of yall "gentrifiers" were sleeping comfortably and without worry wherever it is yall were living/growing up @ the time. So no, no one wants to go back to those days. No one wants to go back to the days where little kids catch a stray bullet while running down the street doing what little kids do. with that being said....
- yall were not the first ones to try and fix and fight for the neighborhood. Yes, alot of the locals were ignorant as all hell and didnt give a f****.....but youre either an idiot or just uninformed if u think that there werent concerned local residents who didnt go to community board meetings or demand that the city do their job in providing basic services.....they tried to work with police who didnt care to serve and protect the area.....if they tried to report criminal activity, the cops didnt serve and protect them when the criminals attacked these concerned citizens as punishment for speaking out (hence why even law abiding locals dont talk to the cops)......like i said before, these people were in the wrong income bracket and most of them were not the right ethnicity or skin color (since the cops and the city departments were too busy catering to people like yourselves). I also need yall to get familiar with a CDC (community development corporations)......all those inexpensive townhouses that were built over the vacant lots in many urban cities in the 90s? yea, locally run and organized community development corporations are responsible for alot of that.....as well as the community gardens that the developers destroyed when yall started moving in.......
- I find it funny when yall come and gentrify an area yall wanna quote history and be like "oh this was a sophisticated white area years ago" yet when the area degenerated into the state it was before yall came in to "save" it, yall totally ignored all the political and social policies that created these burnt out violent wastelands to begin with....research terms like redlining or how drugs infiltrated the ghetto and how the cops and the feds turned a blind eye (if they werent involved in bringing that stuff in there themselves) and youll see what im talking about....
- a lot of yall call yourselves "urban pioneers".....pioneers of what exactly? Its not like these were uncharted areas or places where NO ONE lived prior to your arrival.....so please.....enlighten me as to what your "pioneers" of.......
- you say "well maybe if yall owned your buildings gentrification wouldnt have taken place" Wrong again. For starters, in a poor area, many of the people are barely making rent and some worry about where their next meal is coming from. So its not going to be an area with large homeownership to begin with. However, nuff of the locals owned their property. True, there were those that sold them and moved away (i wonder if they realized the gentrification invasion that was about to happen) but there were those who stayed. And when the gentrifiers started moving in, property taxes skyrocketed and then once the greedy real estate developers got involved, all sorts of legal loopholes were deployed to try and force the remaining homeowners out their homes. In DC, my ex gf lived in a gentrifying area in a co-op. The co-op board had numerous court battles with the developers trying to buy the place so they can turn it into luxury yuppie condos. Needless to say, the locals lost and she had to move and well......yea this illustrates my point.
- When these neighborhoods went from white to nonwhite back in the 50s 60s and 70s, the nonwhites did not force the white people to leave. Those people CHOSE to leave @ their own free will, esp once blockbusting real estate agents convinced them it would be the right thing to do......and it didnt help the area was redlined by banks either......so you gentrifying an area vs white flight (which was voluntary) was NOT the same......
- 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
- Dont cry and moan that a neighborhood/city has no local culture. If thats really true, its probably b/c it was cleared out and pushed far outside the city to accomodate gentrifiers like you. Or there is a local culture, but since theres not a vegan organic shop selling overpriced craft beers on every corner, in your eyes the area sucks. its either that or....
- Like it or not, a citys working class is whats given the city its soul and character all these years. And no im not just talking about ghetto dwellers, i also speak of immigrants, working class white ethnics, the REAL ARTISTS who were also pushed out the area.......So when all that dissappears b/c yall wanted to turn the city into an orgy of overpriced restaurants and yoga studios......yea just think about that.
- Dont complain that a given area has little to no shopping options and then cry and moan when a walmart or big box chain wants to set up shop in the area.........not everyone can afford to shop @ whole foods......
- When most of yall say "this area needs diversity" what yall really mean is that "theres not enough exotic thai/indian/vegan restaurants" and "theres no yoga studios" in the area.......If yall REALLY cared for TRUE diversity, you wouldnt be calling the cops on people for hanging out on their front stoop (and most of them are not selling drugs mind you), you wouldnt throw ***** fits when locals throw their block parties (esp if theres no fighting involved) you wouldnt throw a fit just cuz some local little girls drew a hopscotch board with WASHABLE chalk on the sidewalk...........
- Finally i wanna say that locals are not wary and resentful of you because your improving the area. Locals dont dislike you cuz your white. Locals dont dislike you cuz you have money, or because of the job you have. Locals probably resent you because alot of you gentrifiers are trust fund babies who come to an area thinking that not only does the area have to revolve around you, but ultimately alot of you bring the racist classist attitudes you had in the suburbs to the city with you and flaunting that nose in the air attitude to locals......An area can still be majority nonwhite yet youll still practice the same housing discrimination tactics to qualified law abiding minorities who show interest in renting in the area..........alot like what yall beein doing in rich areas and suburbs for years......only reason why yall dont get beat up and robbed for being so disrespectful cuz the cops go into overtime to ensure your safety (one of the unspoken objectives in NYC's stop and frisk was to protect the gentrifiers til all the poor nonwhites moved out the area).....
- PS some of you gentrifiers are greedy as f*ck. Esp in the DC area. Yall took all the prime locations to reliable public transit to yourselves. yall have gentrified most of the city and are in progress of gentrifying even far flung ghettos in the city limits in search of "cheaper housing". But now thats not even enough. Yall wanna bring that same mess out into the inner ring suburbs you pushed the poor folk out to as well. Seems yall are never satisfied....*sigh*
BUt hey......do what you do.....it is what it is.....
*waitin for all the butthurt gentrification cheerleaders to cuss me out*
"Yall" need to buy your homes, and help support your business. If you did, you wouldn't be forced to move. Gentrification doesn't equal the WHITE man taking over. Look at Jamaica, NY where the South Asian community has revitalized the area. Created their own business, and the neighborhoods crime rate has gone down significantly over the past few years. While the median income of the local residents, the education level of the local schools etc.. have been going up staidly. If "Yall" could emulate the Asians, and not blame people for trying to help revitalize the community the criticism would be valid.
"Yall" need to buy your homes, and help support your business. If you did, you wouldn't be forced to move. Gentrification doesn't equal the WHITE man taking over. Look at Jamaica, NY where the South Asian community has revitalized the area. Created their own business, and the neighborhoods crime rate has gone down significantly over the past few years. While the median income of the local residents, the education level of the local schools etc.. have been going up staidly. If "Yall" could emulate the Asians, and not blame people for trying to help revitalize the community the criticism would be valid.
I see you TOTALLY missed that section of my post where i addressed that *epic facepalm* furthermore, when immigrants move to an area, theyre not on a mission to kick longstanding locals out. They come to get started and if they reach critical mass they set up shop to create businesses that cater to their cultural tastes and traditions. Its what Latino, West Indian, Asian and African immigrants have been doing in NY for YEARS. They just live in the area and put their own stamp on it. If they become majority, its because longtime residents leave (and most of the time its not bc the newcomers raised rents and property taxes) and more of that immigrant group replaces them.......this is how black new york became predominantly West Indians and Africans and its also how many neighborhoods (both black and white) in CA became predominantly mexican. So yea, try again.
"Yall" need to buy your homes, and help support your business. If you did, you wouldn't be forced to move. Gentrification doesn't equal the WHITE man taking over. Look at Jamaica, NY where the South Asian community has revitalized the area. Created their own business, and the neighborhoods crime rate has gone down significantly over the past few years. While the median income of the local residents, the education level of the local schools etc.. have been going up staidly. If "Yall" could emulate the Asians, and not blame people for trying to help revitalize the community the criticism would be valid.
Amen. We'll said. What the OP doesn't realize is that his people are mainly to blame for their bad community. It starts from within. Your people need to police their own. You intervene when you see drug dealing, dog poop on the sidewalk, a game of dice on the corner, etc. But that wasn't the case, ya'll turned the other cheek and follow the stop snitching street code. The end result is Harlem pre-gentrification or in today's NY, a perfect example is Brownsville and East NY.
- 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
News flash - that is not "racist," but "class-ist."
There are no NYC locals. Most of the so called "natives" are first or second generation New Yorkers. Most families here have at least one parent whose's roots in NYC go no further back than the post WW2 period. And half the city wasn't even born here.
Amen. We'll said. What the OP doesn't realize is that his people are mainly to blame for their bad community. It starts from within. Your people need to police their own. You intervene when you see drug dealing, dog poop on the sidewalk, a game of dice on the corner, etc. But that wasn't the case, ya'll turned the other cheek and follow the stop snitching street code. The end result is Harlem pre-gentrification or in today's NY, a perfect example is Brownsville and East NY.
I knew u were gonna reply to this. U lack reading comprehension otherwise u woulda read the part of my post where i talked about that. I know my post was a bit long but if ur gonna come barking @ me u @ least need to do ur homework......dnt type anymore responses til u FULLY READ what i wrote. that is all.
Amen. We'll said. What the OP doesn't realize is that his people are mainly to blame for their bad community. It starts from within. Your people need to police their own. You intervene when you see drug dealing, dog poop on the sidewalk, a game of dice on the corner, etc. But that wasn't the case, ya'll turned the other cheek and follow the stop snitching street code. The end result is Harlem pre-gentrification or in today's NY, a perfect example is Brownsville and East NY.
Now how do you think trying to police serious gangsters or criminals is going to work? The person doing so might be putting their own life in danger. So what happens in these areas is anyone who gets a better job or education just moves out. In the end, no one has their "people" or their "own". Everyone is responsible for themselves, or at the most their family. The best way to save your kids is not to have your own children in that environment.
I seriously doubt you go around your neighborhood going out of your way to find out who the drug dealers are, and policing them. You're welcome to do that, if you think it needs to be done.
I knew u were gonna reply to this. U lack reading comprehension otherwise u woulda read the part of my post where i talked about that. I know my post was a bit long but if ur gonna come barking @ me u @ least need to do ur homework......dnt type anymore responses til u FULLY READ what i wrote. that is all.
Perhaps if you typed your post in proper English he would have been able to read it? This isn't an Aol chatroom. If you're going to make a serious point present it with proper spelling and grammar.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
