Help, I found a Bag of Drugs in my Driveway (Gentrification, Schmentrification)
Ahh Pat’s Food Store, the beautiful view from my living room where I write this post. This morning, I found a little baggy of some white powdery substance right in between this convenience store and my house. Every day, I watch at least 5 casual drug deals. Now, this isn’t a particularly “sketchy” neighborhood. A couple houses are condemned, waiting to be flipped, and some are pretty cute because they have recently been flipped. My neighbors are nice enough, and I’d take a walk down the road during the day with my big scary dog…
I bought my house at a low price because the area isn’t
great, but the house is great. It’s just half a mile from downtown Spartanburg
where new developments are being built. Me and my husband’s first thought after
seeing the house was, “if we hold onto this for 10 years, we’ll probably make
4x our money back.” Every time an old gross building across the street is
knocked down, we cheer. We are watching the transformation of a city happen
before our eyes. While I don’t want to run my neighbors out at all, I do want
Pat’s Food Store to burn to the ground. It seems that it is a huge reason for
the sorta kinda sketchy activity that goes on at the street corner day in and
day out. If a Starbucks were there, I don’t think drug deals would happen as
openly or as often. Just sayin.
Anyways, as we discussed in class today, the topic of gentrification
needs to be reframed. Is it really gentrification, or do we just want nicer
buildings and better opportunities/activities? In some cases, buildings MUST be
knocked down and rebuilt. Pat’s Food Store is way too far gone to simply
retrofit, as is the case with a lot of other buildings in this country. And in
many cases, it is not at all necessary to run out the existing population.
Lydia! I feel like in the case of your neighborhood, changes need to happen to better the neighborhood and make it a good environment to live in. What I don't quite agree, though I understand, is that ... on one hand, we want changes for the living environment to better and for the people there to live better. But that not what happen in reality because once changes happened, the people that already there before now can no longer effort to pay to stay there. It's like those people got pushed around from one rundown neighborhood to another. It is sad!
ReplyDeleteLydia,
ReplyDeleteIt is very interesting to look at this issue from the perspective of a young homeowner. I am also guilty of house hunting in neighborhoods with less expensive properties, knowing that in a few years the area will be redeveloped, and I will see a return on my investment. But I do not see an issue with hoping that your neighborhood becomes a safer, more beautiful place. The obvious issue at hand is what becomes of the residents that are pushed out in the process? And what becomes of the existing buildings that do not make the cut?