Gentrification

Gentrification is a seemingly benign word, but it has insidious connotations like yuppie and Barnes and Noble- about the latter I am totally kidding. I probably love the Noble Barn more than life itself.

But gentrification can be like a cancer. At first you don't notice it until you realize its sweeping effect and the prospect of returning to life as you knew it is pretty bleak.

I won't bore you with the details of the history of gentrification. But Wikipedia has a well-written article on the subject.

Suffice to say, gentrification is everywhere. Clearly, its symptoms are most manifest in major cities where there are more areas that fall into economic decline stranding the economically-challenged, making it unable for them to leave, then poor students/starving artists, who prefer cheap rent over a cool zip code move in, then the bohemians and (ugh) hipsters follow their lead, making the place all boho-chic with their restaurants and galleries. And soon Parker and Ashleigh have caught the whiff of la boheme and are snapping up condos and causing the rents to skyrocket. Meanwhile, the students and all the bohemians who are still slinging coffee at Starbucks and not able to cash in on all these nouveau money are priced out of the very areas they, unintentionally, helped revive. To say nothing of the financially poor people who were undoubtedly forced out as the beatniks were moving in with their bongos.

(a sidenote- there is an interesting book on the students and bohemians who help lend an air of bonhomie to the gentrified areas, yet are priced out of living in the areas whose atmospheres they cultivate. It's called Neo-Bohemia: Art and Commerce in the Postindustrial City by: Richard Lloyd. I admit I haven't read it yet and the guy himself didn't actually live in Wicker Park, he was just a visiting sociologist, but he does make valid points. Available at amazon.com)

It's weird, even disorienting for people who've lived in an area long enough to remember when it wasn't advisable to be in Lincoln Park or Silver Lake after dark, and now it's the place to be seen after hours.

But this is happening in cities that frankly aren't as hip as say, Chicago or New York. In Milwaukee, for example, the downtown, slight as it may be, and frankly charming, has experienced an economic revival thanks to the reclaiming of the Historic Third Ward, which has ushered in many a chic cafe and boutique along with warehouses-turned-artists' lofts, a thought that was definitely foreign in 1970. Recommended dining: go to the Ale House on the river front. Their food and micro-brews are awesome and situated on the river makes for excellent summer dining. I also should point out that the East Side, Walker's Point, and Bay View are also all experiencing a revitalization according to local sources.

And if you're there check out Milwaukee's Art Museum, or MAM, which boasts the honor of being Santiago Calatrava's first American commission. If you're feeling especially intrepid, be there when the museum opens and the "wings" of the Calatrava addition "open."

Every time one seems new evidence of gentrification one assumes that it will go on and on ad infinitium. But I have enclosed a link to a fascinating article called, "the Embers of Gentrification" by Adam Stenbergh, from New York Magazine, 11-12-2007, which postulates that this may not be carved in granite (countertops).

This article in an extremely well written format examines the dying out of a former hot-spot. I haven't been to Red Hook recently, so I can't attest to its current state. But it is interesting to consider that the phenomenon of gentrification may not self-perpetuating forever and ever? There may be light at the end of the Pottery Barn J. Crew yuppie tunnel? The knob on the door is probably from Restoration Hardware, but if it stops the vicious cycle, I'll do whatever it takes to knock that sucker down!

Gentrification is particularly disheartening to the people who have lived in an area and enjoy its scruffy non-homogenized charm. San Francisco, one of my spiritual homes in the US, has fallen victim to gentrification thanks to the tech boom that caused rents to reach the stratosphere and caused the literal mass exodus of hundreds of artists.

Another recommended book is Hollow City: the Siege of San Francisco and the Crisis of American Urbanism by: Rebecca Solnit and Susan Schwartzenberg.

Even though we are currently facing a recession, prices for real estate in San Francisco remain astronomically high. Again, this is an example of gentrification's cancerous-like effect. I have family friends where the father commutes two hours each way (!) every day to work in the city. And it's not due to lack of good schooling, if you can afford to send your kids to school in San Francisco proper, they'll be getting some of the best education in the nation.

Chicago is another example. Gentrification has swept through at a wildfire-like pace. Only one example is Lincoln Park, which used to be a rougher section of town. Now you'd never know that walking down North Ave. (which actually runs east-west, but whatever) One is flocked by Crate and Barrel, J. Crew, Pottery Barn, Whole Foods, Victoria's Secret, etc.,- a yuppie's nirvana.