Gentrification (from All Things Considered)
Saturday, April 26, 2003
Poor readers might prefer listening to this piece through NPR.
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When I moved to Chicago, I got an apartment in Wicker Park. I picked Wicker Park because I wanted to live with the sort of people who prefer slam poetry to actual poetry, the sort of hipsters for whom vintage polyester is not so much a fashion choice as a lifestyle. But it turned out that Wicker Park already had a lot of rich people-and a Starbucks.
I arrived in Wicker Park during the golden age of its gentrification, back when trendy girls in Weezer t-shirts still bothered to lament the influx of ambience chasers.
Chicago's gentrification is a little like its weather: everyone complains about it, but no one ever shuts up and moves to Georgia, where it rarely snows and the housing is cheaper.
So what are we to do? I suppose Chicago could give developers incentives for building affordable housing, and I suppose that rich people could finally realize that God created suburbs just for them. But I've got a plan that doesn't require divine intervention: we trendy people need to take one for the team.
Trendy people are the Marines of gentrification: we breach the beachheads so that other people can stroll through and raise rents-and then we express shock and indignation over their arrival. They follow us because they remember being us, and still desperately want to be fashionable. As the arbiters of cool, we need to understand that our choice of neighborhoods will inevitably shape the way the urban gentry feel about them.
So about a year ago, I moved to Chicago's Gold Coast, where all the men wear Armani, all the women carry Prada, and all the children are miserable little brats. I was tired of them invading my neighborhood, and I realized it was high time for me to invade theirs. And I encourage my trendy brethren to follow my lead. If we move to high-end neighborhoods, maybe they will stop spreading out like the flesh-eating bacteria we rightly believe them to be.
Now, I know it won't be easy. Trendy jobs, like restaurant server, performance artist, or unpublished avant-garde novelist, don't pay very well. But when we try to save money by moving into cheap neighborhoods, we only displace working families and usher in the ambience chasers, who will raise rents until we move again, starting the cycle anew. Someone must save working-class neighborhoods, and the responsibility to do so falls squarely upon our slouched shoulders.
When I moved to Chicago, I got an apartment in Wicker Park. I picked Wicker Park because I wanted to live with the sort of people who prefer slam poetry to actual poetry, the sort of hipsters for whom vintage polyester is not so much a fashion choice as a lifestyle. But it turned out that Wicker Park already had a lot of rich people-and a Starbucks.
I arrived in Wicker Park during the golden age of its gentrification, back when trendy girls in Weezer t-shirts still bothered to lament the influx of ambience chasers.
Chicago's gentrification is a little like its weather: everyone complains about it, but no one ever shuts up and moves to Georgia, where it rarely snows and the housing is cheaper.
So what are we to do? I suppose Chicago could give developers incentives for building affordable housing, and I suppose that rich people could finally realize that God created suburbs just for them. But I've got a plan that doesn't require divine intervention: we trendy people need to take one for the team.
Trendy people are the Marines of gentrification: we breach the beachheads so that other people can stroll through and raise rents-and then we express shock and indignation over their arrival. They follow us because they remember being us, and still desperately want to be fashionable. As the arbiters of cool, we need to understand that our choice of neighborhoods will inevitably shape the way the urban gentry feel about them.
So about a year ago, I moved to Chicago's Gold Coast, where all the men wear Armani, all the women carry Prada, and all the children are miserable little brats. I was tired of them invading my neighborhood, and I realized it was high time for me to invade theirs. And I encourage my trendy brethren to follow my lead. If we move to high-end neighborhoods, maybe they will stop spreading out like the flesh-eating bacteria we rightly believe them to be.
Now, I know it won't be easy. Trendy jobs, like restaurant server, performance artist, or unpublished avant-garde novelist, don't pay very well. But when we try to save money by moving into cheap neighborhoods, we only displace working families and usher in the ambience chasers, who will raise rents until we move again, starting the cycle anew. Someone must save working-class neighborhoods, and the responsibility to do so falls squarely upon our slouched shoulders.
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