Megan McArdle writes for
The Atlantic on issues of business and economics. She takes a timeout to talk about the
issues of her Washington, DC neighborhood.
Many of the urban planning debates that take place in DC are in
fact proxy battles over gentrification. Almost no one on either side
ever actually voices the core conflict, which is that the poorer, mostly
black current residents do not want gentrification to force their
community out of their affordable and centrally located homes, and the
newer, mostly white residents want the sort of services (and property
values) that materialize when a neighborhood gentrifies*--and that the
presence of one community is an obstacle to the goals of the other.
Since no one wants to come right out and say this, the debate focuses on procedural issues: noise, parking, safety, "
respect to the community".
Basically,
the gentrifiers spend a lot of time arguing in favor of new bars and
restaurants; the current residents spend a lot of time arguing that they
aren't needed. Both sides argue--and may even genuinely believe--that
this is a purely principled argument over, say, the procedural
mechanisms for distributing liquor licenses, but this is pretty
transparently not the actual motivation. In my own neighborhood, many
of the people who had argued forcefully in favor of licensing
Shaw's Tavern
seem to have neatly switched sides when the applicant was Full Yum
Carryout, a sort of Chinese-hybrid takeout place that caters almost
exclusively to the area's black residents.
(Before
you ask, I am against liquor licenses on principle, but if we must have
such a regime, I believe that the regime should follow the "shall
issue" principle that governs dog tags and fishing licenses.)
If
you follow these debates long enough, you end up hearing a lot of the
anti-gentrifiers argue that they too, want services--just not bars and
restaurants, or so many bars and restaurants. This has always struck me
as a little bit odd because they're sort of vague on what services they
do want. Grocery stores are a big favorite--but my neighborhood,
Eckington, now has two large, well stocked supermarkets, and I doubt
that the density would support much more than that. Everyone seems to
love dry cleaners, and drugstores (but we have a fair number of those,
too). Beyond that, it's not been clear to me what people had in mind
when they complained that all the bars and restaurants would prevent the
development of needed retail.
It actually goes on to talk about those neighborhoods that were decimated by 1968 riots - that is the riots that erupted after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. That's true of plenty of neighborhoods around the nation not just Washington, DC and not just Chicago. The article made note of how many people who no longer have the old bricks and mortar retail in some neighborhoods are more likely to rely on Amazon.com or other online retailers to be able to procure their goods and services.
You might ask how would this relate to our neighborhoods on the south side of town. Well in Chatham specifically I have noticed a lack of cohesiveness as far as businesses that they wish to attract. Still some comments seems strictly rejecting but without noting what businesses they would like to attract.
Perhaps the dynamics in DC is a little different than here, but the rejection is certainly there! Do you have any thoughts on this?
