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

[bikergeek.livejournal.com]

Yeah, my neighborhood in Wilmington DE (Trolley Sq.) was like that. I picked it carefully, mostly because at the time I moved there I owned some rather unreliable junkheap cars and didn't want to have to rely on the car for the basic necessities of life. I'd love to live in such a neighborhood again but for several things:

1. It's impossibly expensive unless you get along with roommates, and I dont' get along with roommates.
2. I've become an avid motorcyclist, and I need offstreet parking for my bike.
3. Long-term, I want to be out of multi-family housing. I live in half of a 2-family house in Belmont. While I'm lucky right now in terms of my immediate neighbor, if either of us were to move, that luck likely would not continue. I had Neighbors From Hell in my last apartment. (Long story.)
4. Long-term, my sweetie and I want to have a child. The poor quality of most urban schools makes remaining in an urban environment a non-starter.

[talonvaki.livejournal.com]

True...
1) I have a little one bedroom, and my rent hasn't changed in 5 years.
2) Yeah...
3) Me too. My downstairs neighbours were kicked out of hell for their nasty behaviour. The landlord likes me.
4) I went to suburban schools and was not impressed with them, either, but I see your point.

[bikergeek.livejournal.com]

I went to suburban schools in northern NJ but they were actually good. They had the same social nonsense as any school does for whatever grade level, but the quality of instruction was good. Classes were actually challenging. Drug use was limited to booze (NJ had 18 drinking age for most of the time I was in HS) and weed.

Mostly, I'd prefer my kids to attend a school where "Grand Theft Auto" calls to mind a video game rather than a course of instruction.