U STREET REDUX. The Washington Post cliche about U street gentrification once again is repeated in the magazine section. Editors please check your morgue and note that you have been writing this story, probably semi-annually, for the last ten years.
The cliche: from "Black Broadway" to gentrification. Gloss over the riots the left the area a wasteland. Talk about how U street has either become yuppified or is the new Greenwich Village/Adams Morgan. Please give it a rest.
March 5, 2006
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4 comments:
Amen! Also, why always the "guilt" about it now becoming a fashionable neighborhood for the general population? Should we instead be pushing for it to revert to it being a prison without walls for a segment of the population that wasn't at that time allowed to go anywhere else?
There's nothing more dangerous out there than those who can see the past only through rose-colored glasses and forget there are reasons that things changed ... and continue to change.
the general population prices people out. think about dupont circle if you don't want to deal with racial issues. Lots of fashionable gay people and artistic people and students and just funky people. Also equally funky shops. Now, it's just an extension of farragut square with more and more chain shops every month. what annoys people who might disagree with you and dcbubble is that without regulation on the type of stores and housing prices, gentrification eventually prices or shoves out what made an area so hot.
Georgetown was once home to a burgeoning (sp?) black population. you don't hear that too much anymore.
look, i didn't like teresa's article anymore than you and i think someone should explain she's writing an article, not poetry. but gentrification is an issue. people are pushed out. and the incoming crowd can be stuck up.
just my two cents.
Well in the case of U Street, what was pushed out were the drug dealers mostly. Because that was all that was left after the riots, mostly. Ben's is still there along with a few carryouts. What else predates the riots? Even Bohemian Caverns is as new as the Starbucks.
Neighborhoods change ... just like everything in life changes ... And that which doesn't change dies. Dupont became Dupont when white flight made its expensive property affordable to those who beforehand couldn't have afforded it. They helped bring stability back to a neighborhood and make it nice again ... leading to the current change where it is becoming what it was before. Again ... change ... change .. change ... That's the way of the world ... and no amount of legislation or financial aid can change this. But this isn't bad. If Dupont weren't changing and becoming expensive, then the younger, poorer "urban rangers" wouldn't be out fixing up places like Mt. Pleasant and the Rhode Island Avenue and North Capitol Street areas. Change is good ... and normal. I mean, would you want to be 20 years old forever? ... And as enticing as that may sound at first blush, think of all the other experiences you would have missed along the way if you hadn't aged ... and changed!
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