Loving your neighbors transforms everything. Though in my experience in Philly, the gentrifiers only loved themselves and sought to use and abuse the neighborhood shaping it into their image without disregard of the long history of that neighborhood. We did our best to “fight” against that by living and loving differently. If every gentrifier came into the neighborhood with the intentionality you lay out gentrification wouldn’t be as great of an issue. When that happens you slowly move from outsider to insider. But sadly too many are content to remain outsiders demanding that the neighborhood conforms to their desires. So, in a good way it is a shock to the ole heads when someone comes in and truly loves as a neighbor.
Another gentrification myth is that “gentrifiers” don’t care about the neighborhoods they move into. This can be true like you describe. However, I think this narrative also keeps out potential good neighbors who become fearful of being the bad guy. We need to tell more stories about new residents moving in with intentionality.
I had a paragraph in the intro clarifying my audience (people who care) but I took it out. If I had a 7th point, it would be “help recruit more residents who give a damn.” Any new resident who wants to move in with intentionality and love their neighbors is welcome in my book! My wife and I see it as our responsibility to try to recruit such new residents to the neighborhood.
While I appreciate and agree with you overall, especially with your intentionality, my only push back (mildly intended) would be to say that those so-called myths exists for real reasons. Yes, we should work against them to defeat them, but those "myths" are often based in reality. I wonder if calling them myths weakens the horrible impact they have had on so many people - those I have witnessed first hand far too often.
Yet, I do get your desire to encourage others who give a "damn." I'd focus not so much on calling them myths, but maybe "false narratives." Narratives that are based in reality, that have perpetuated much harm, but that we - as the Church - must intentionally seek to rewrite. My two tiny cents for what they are worth.
BTW, have you read Who Moved My Neighborhood? by Mark Strong. It's somewhere in my collection of books, but I have no idea where...
That’s fair. I appreciate the pushback. I definitely don’t want to minimize the harm. I agree it’s real.
I think I used both myth and false/flawed narrative in the essay?
When I use myth, in my head I’m targeting the narrative uttered by progressives who are good at yelling but poor at action. I think this is the dominant voice here, and it’s paralyzing good people from moving into the neighborhood. Really grinds my gears, if you know what I mean.
Ha, people being afraid to move in for possible contributing to gentrification was never a problem we had! :) They was more afraid of taking a bullet. I wonder if there is a certain point where neighborhoods reach a critical mass of gentrification where the shift occurs from fear of violence to being afraid to contributing further to gentrification...?
That fear definitely still exists. Our neighborhood has a bad reputation. The first google result for our neighborhood is "Haughville searching." But the statistics don't actually support that. There are hardly any random acts of violence in our neighborhood. It's all drugs based. We have far less crime than more gentrified neighborhoods on other sides of downtown. Once people learn that, the fear goes away pretty quickly.
Of course, this happened with some frequency before gentrification. My wife and at the time toddler son, once stumbled upon a loaded gun at the park across the street from our house.
The main difference that comes from gentrification is that before the cops wouldn't do a thing. Now, well, now they shot the guy down.
I guess that is progress... (insert sarcasm here).
you do have a lot of great restaurants in your community that's for sure.
Good post: thank you for both thinking and writing on this as well as sharing the thoughts with the broader community.
Loving your neighbors transforms everything. Though in my experience in Philly, the gentrifiers only loved themselves and sought to use and abuse the neighborhood shaping it into their image without disregard of the long history of that neighborhood. We did our best to “fight” against that by living and loving differently. If every gentrifier came into the neighborhood with the intentionality you lay out gentrification wouldn’t be as great of an issue. When that happens you slowly move from outsider to insider. But sadly too many are content to remain outsiders demanding that the neighborhood conforms to their desires. So, in a good way it is a shock to the ole heads when someone comes in and truly loves as a neighbor.
Another gentrification myth is that “gentrifiers” don’t care about the neighborhoods they move into. This can be true like you describe. However, I think this narrative also keeps out potential good neighbors who become fearful of being the bad guy. We need to tell more stories about new residents moving in with intentionality.
I had a paragraph in the intro clarifying my audience (people who care) but I took it out. If I had a 7th point, it would be “help recruit more residents who give a damn.” Any new resident who wants to move in with intentionality and love their neighbors is welcome in my book! My wife and I see it as our responsibility to try to recruit such new residents to the neighborhood.
While I appreciate and agree with you overall, especially with your intentionality, my only push back (mildly intended) would be to say that those so-called myths exists for real reasons. Yes, we should work against them to defeat them, but those "myths" are often based in reality. I wonder if calling them myths weakens the horrible impact they have had on so many people - those I have witnessed first hand far too often.
Yet, I do get your desire to encourage others who give a "damn." I'd focus not so much on calling them myths, but maybe "false narratives." Narratives that are based in reality, that have perpetuated much harm, but that we - as the Church - must intentionally seek to rewrite. My two tiny cents for what they are worth.
BTW, have you read Who Moved My Neighborhood? by Mark Strong. It's somewhere in my collection of books, but I have no idea where...
That’s fair. I appreciate the pushback. I definitely don’t want to minimize the harm. I agree it’s real.
I think I used both myth and false/flawed narrative in the essay?
When I use myth, in my head I’m targeting the narrative uttered by progressives who are good at yelling but poor at action. I think this is the dominant voice here, and it’s paralyzing good people from moving into the neighborhood. Really grinds my gears, if you know what I mean.
Ha, people being afraid to move in for possible contributing to gentrification was never a problem we had! :) They was more afraid of taking a bullet. I wonder if there is a certain point where neighborhoods reach a critical mass of gentrification where the shift occurs from fear of violence to being afraid to contributing further to gentrification...?
That fear definitely still exists. Our neighborhood has a bad reputation. The first google result for our neighborhood is "Haughville searching." But the statistics don't actually support that. There are hardly any random acts of violence in our neighborhood. It's all drugs based. We have far less crime than more gentrified neighborhoods on other sides of downtown. Once people learn that, the fear goes away pretty quickly.
Speaking of the old hood in Philly: https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/police-south-philly-rifle-shooting/4138428/
Of course, this happened with some frequency before gentrification. My wife and at the time toddler son, once stumbled upon a loaded gun at the park across the street from our house.
The main difference that comes from gentrification is that before the cops wouldn't do a thing. Now, well, now they shot the guy down.
I guess that is progress... (insert sarcasm here).