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Since some on this thread are fascinated with gentrification, I thought I'd post this article about a Spike Lee rant on that topic. He's referring to Brooklyn, but I think it applies to DC. I am by no means against gentrification, and am looking probably to move into one of the neighborhoods. But if you overlook the Spike Lee bad behavior, he has a point. What do you guys think?
And his solution is.... what exactly? Whether it's New York or DC, the only way to stop people from moving in and changing neighborhoods would be to ban people from buying property. That will never happen in either city, nor should it ever.
He is entertaining and a smart guy but this seems more like just venting over something that can't be stopped, rather than an actually insightful point.
But I understand his concern. If I had a new neighbor come in and call the cops on me for playing music, I would be pissed too.
I don't think he was saying it shouldn't necessarily happen, he said 1) when you come in, maybe you should at least try conform to and appreciate the history of the community in which you live and 2) people in neighborhoods that aren't gentrified yet deserve decent services, too.
I don't think either one of these points is unreasonable.
The funniest part about Spike Lee's rant is that he asks that people honor & respect the original residents of these neighborhoods. In the case of the parts of Brooklyn he discusses, that would be the Dutch and Irish who lived there for >100 years before the shorter dominance (40 years) of African-Americans in these particular neighborhoods.
While Brooklyn has a significant abolitionist history (Henry Ward Booker's Plymouth Church, for example) and many free blacks settled in various parts, the vast majority of its population until 1970 was European.
My Irish grandfather and 60+ extended family members all grew up in an Irish neighborhood in Detroit. That neighborhood is LONG GONE. Do I wish it was still there? Yes. But, things change.
I also have French blood. Detroit was once French.
The thing is neighborhoods change as habitation patterns change. In many ways it cannot be stopped.
I think what is often left out of the entire gentrification dialog is how white flight and the subsequent demographic shift in cities was in many ways a historical anomaly. In most other key cities in the world, the urban core is more affluent than the outlaying areas. What is happening now is a shift back to the historic norm in the US, affluence is migrating back inwards, at least in about a dozen key cities. I like to call them "capitals" even though only two are capitals (DC & Boston). They are capitals of government, technology, finance, or education.
Not every American city will follow, but to think much can be done about gentrification, or that gentrification is a bad thing (it's not) is foolish. It is going to happen largely because there has been a shift in attitudes and generational habitation patterns.
Eh, the irony is its coming from Spike Lee who's made millions on this very issue. Brooklyn was never going to continue to be the ****hole it once was. Someone should have asked him how much his dad bought the house for in 1968 and how much it is worth now.
i don't think he was saying it shouldn't necessarily happen, he said 1) when you come in, maybe you should at least try conform to and appreciate the history of the community in which you live and 2) people in neighborhoods that aren't gentrified yet deserve decent services, too.
I don't think either one of these points is unreasonable.
you're about to get white people all riled up and angry.
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