Gentrification

[on-reserve.livejournal.com]

Hey All,

Posting this as it came up for me in a previous post that was sort of an amalgam of "eccentric and annoying Davis Square traits."

I realize this is a hot-button issue but I trust that people can express themselves civilly. Ok, I *hope* we can.

Gentrification. It's a big deal. People in this community talk an awful lot about how we don't want Davis to "turn into another Harvard" but in some sense the people living there now and who have populated the square over the past decade *have* turned Davis into something different from what it was.

How does one say, "I don't want Davis Square to get too gentrified" without taking responsibility for being part of the gentrification that has happened thus far? Who decides how much gentrification is too much, not enough, just right?

Maybe Davis is better, maybe it's not -- it probably depends on who you ask and what they were looking for in a neighborhood when they picked Davis.

Comments

[spatch]

What's the threshold of gentrification going too far?

Valet parking on Highland for Sauce. That's my yardstick. Real Davis motorists don't need valet parking, they just need parking, period.

I realize this will be an unpopular viewpoint, so consider this a "nyer" in advance.

[nowalmart.livejournal.com]

What about the fact that Redbones has bicycle valet parking?

[spatch]

That's with tongue firmly in cheek, of course.

[obra.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but I've actually found it damn useful more than once.

[spatch]

Ain't knocking Redbones here, though. It offers a useful service with a healthy amount of humor attached to it, while encouraging and rewarding biking around. It doesn't seem to me that Sauce shares such a view.

[bikergeek.livejournal.com]

And the fact that said valet parking takes away one or two spaces from the rest of us peons. Actually, I wonder where they put the cars? It's not like there are any large non-municipal lots in the immediate area that they could have a contract with, or something.

[hahathor.livejournal.com]

I think valet parking takes LESS space than non-valet, because not all the cars have to be directly accessible. It's pretty amazing to watch the valets moving the cars around to get access to one parked in a back corner - kind of like those puzzles where you have to put all the numbered squares in order in a limited frame.

Course, as a non-car-owner, I do get a certain schadenfreude watching traffic and reading Snow Emergency updates.

[bikergeek.livejournal.com]

"Are you crazy? It was dented when you brought it in!"

...and this would be why I live where I have off-street parking.

[spatch]

Kinda makes me wish I still had my old beatup rustheap (headlight smashed in, giant dent in roof where a tree fell on it) and present it to the valets as if it were a Bentley.

"Take exceedingly special care of it, my good man! I've counted every dent, and if I see one more..."

[larksdream]

*snerk* You would have to buy or borrow a monocle, of course.

[oakenguy.livejournal.com]

If Spatch doesn't already own a monocle, I'll eat my fedora.

[lidiya6.livejournal.com]

does sauce have valet or are you saying that is when it will have gone too far?

[spatch]

It did over the summer. I had one of those "Well, there goes the neighborhood" moments the first time I saw the sign outside.

[dominika-kretek.livejournal.com]

I had such a moment the first time I saw Sauce.

[abilouise.livejournal.com]

I agree with the reason for valet parking for sauce. Because I don't want those people driving around and around the neighborhood looking for parking either.