Is that ‘go away evil’ cologne you’re wearing?
Josh and I have been wanting to buy a house for what feels like a long time now. We really loved living in Lakewood, but the prices there are so high, we just can’t accept spending that much on an 80 year old house when there are other places in Dallas that are much more affordable. One place we have looked at is the north side of Oak Cliff. This area is undergoing an urban revitalization that some might call gentrification. Beautiful old homes, built with amazing craftsmanship are being updated. Property values are going up. I imagine north Oak Cliff is what Lakewood was 10 years ago. The boom hasn’t happened yet, but there are definitely a few homes in the half a million range. And while I figure some of those prices are bound to fall due to the real estate bust we’re entering, the area as a whole is very affordable and has much of the same charm that we loved about Lakewood.
Today I listened to a podcast of This American Life, an episode that aired a couple weeks ago called “Human Resources.” One story focused on the concept of gentrification, and how many lower income residents of these areas believe there is a greater conspiracy involved. They believe there is a “plan” in place to let their communities get run down on purpose, so the property values will fall. Then, when things get cheap enough, rich people will swoop in and buy the land up and build new condos and shops. Wealthier middle class people will move in, rent and property taxes will get hiked and the low income folks will be forced to move to a cheaper area.
I guess I’m pretty naive, because I honestly never thought of gentrification this way. It always made me sad to see those beautiful old homes in such disrepair. When they start getting a face lift, it feels like a dormant community coming back to life.
How is it that despite what happens, it’s always ‘rich’ or ‘white’ people’s fault? If white people leave, the crime goes up. If white people return, ‘they’re kicking us out.’ Is it really possible for gentrification to revitalize a community without displacing its poor? Do the lower income really move because they can’t afford the property taxes, or is it really ‘black flight?’
I struggle with this because Josh and I moving to Oak Cliff, or any other lower income urban area, would most definitely put us on the bad side of a gentrification argument. We can afford to live in the suburbs, but they just aren’t as interesting. For instance: last weekend we drove to Oak Cliff to look at a house we saw on Ebby. About 20 steps from this house was a store called “Chango Botanica.” I assumed it was some kind of Latin floral shop, but when we drove by, there were ghoulish skeletons in the windows! I was trying to figure out how “Botanica” could mean “Halloween” when Josh said he saw some Catholic stuff in another window. We looked this place up online, and it turns out to be some kind of a spiritual shop, catering to every kind of religion and mysticism you’ve ever heard of, including VooDoo and Black Magick (why a “k,” exactly? I’d like to know). The products at this place make me giggle, they seem so silly. St. Michael aerosol spray? Since when did we need an arch angel to freshen the air in our bathrooms?
I’m not saying my goal in life is to move to the sketchiest part of town, but there’s something to be said for a community that still has non-chain shops owned by locals with a personality all their own. And despite the fact that few low income minorities read this blog, I’m curious what you guys think… about gentrification, the white/black/latino debate and how you might use Chango Botanica’s Chinese Floor Wash: Yellow.
5 Comments // Comment or Ping
Brandon D.
The only two places I’ve ever lived in Dallas were built in the 50s as a direct result of white flight from Oak Cliff. We, as a race, ditched the rolling hills, enormous trees, and easy access to the urban city in favor of distant flat farm land that causes all kids of foundation problems. Fear is a crazy thing. And I think it is fear that motivates people to make accusations of a conspiracy like the one you mentioned. It is true that as communities of white people lose their fears and move back to some of the best parts of the city it has negative impacts on the people that never left. At a strictly practical level, it’s simply a long overdue value correction for an area that, without racism, would have been very expensive a long time ago. But live is messier than that. Its a tough problem, but nothing I think you can carry around as constant guilt. Still, if you can’t bare the thought of oppressing other area residents, white-bread Richardson will welcome you back with open arms.
7:50 pm, Mar 18th, 2008
desi
I am not surprised you never thought of gentrification this way. Gentrifiers are usually the last to realize what they’re doing. I don’t know who you’re but if you’re white and middle class and you want to move to Oak Cliff you’re a potential gentrifier. Don’t think of it gentrification in such simplistic terms.
It’s not about waking up a dormant community. For your white eyes this is a dormant community because there is no starbucks or middle class chain stores, but for the community that lives here this is a thriving community with local businesses and full of life. When you move here, renovate that dilapidated but cute house with so much potential, you’re beautifying the neighborhood, yes, but you’re doing so much more, you’re starting a process that will ultimately bring all that “stuff” from North Dallas that we don’t want here.
As for everything being white people’s fault, well, it’s sort of is. It was white people in the 50s who couldn’t bear integration who left. Now, it’s white people coming back for the cheap housing and downtown proximity who want to see themselves as more progressive and race tolerant, but the first thing they do when they get here is consciously or unconsciously do every single thing they can to make the area look cleaner, prettier, whiter. I wouldn’t be surprised if in a few years as the area where this Botanica is becomes gentrified the new white settlers start a petition to have the owner remove what they consider offensive or foreign to their taste. You don’t want to move to Oak Cliff to be part of this neighborhood as it is, you want to move to Oak Cliff to make it look like something it is not, ex. Lakewood.
The people of Oak Cliff want nicer apartment complexes, better streets, more safety and better access to all the services that have long neglected us, but they don’t want to have to pay the ultimate price for them, having to leave the apartment they’ve lived in for so many years because it will be torn down to make way for a luxury condo complex, or because they can’t afford to pay the taxes anymore.
Please, be conscious of the consequences of your decision.
9:38 am, Mar 19th, 2008
Heather
Desi: It makes sense to me that my using the term “dormant community” could come across as offensive to people who thrive in these areas of Dallas. For that I do sincerely apologize. It is not my intent to disavow that community exists in Oak Cliff, but the truth remains that some areas of the city are rundown, neglected and in disrepair. I don’t believe that every community without a Starbucks or big box stores (Target/Walmart) is rundown. What I see is classic architecture, brick tudors and prairie bungalows, with boards over their windows, weeds overtaking porches, roofs near collapse and abandoned cars rusting away. Is the reason for this simply poverty? If the community is thriving, as you say, why does no one care to remove the old couch from their yard? Individuals can remove trash from their property, if they are able bodied, without a large bank account or the threat of being removed from their home.
You did not mention if you are part of the African American or Hispanic community, but regardless, I’d like to hear your opinion on the health of the neighborhood in terms of how its citizens keep their properties. Most home owners I know want their investment to increase in value. Neglecting it does quite the opposite — for their home as well as those around it. How can this translate to pride in a community, exactly?
I think you might also be over estimating what our goals were in considering a community like Oak Cliff. It was never so we would be perceived as “race tolerant” by others. Our motives lie strictly on the following: my husband and I are both artists by trade. We love and appreciate the great craftsmanship and artistry that exists in historic homes. We have lived in rented homes built around 1916 and 1926 and felt a significantly greater spirit of creativity in those handcrafted homes than when we have lived in modern apartment structures. Is it racist to desire a creative space as your home? One with history? And what if those kinds of places are only located in a predominantly black or hispanic neighborhood?
Your comments make me feel as though the minorities prefer that whites stay in North Dallas with their Starbucks and Olive Gardens. If that is the case, how will it ever be possible for our children and our children’s children to see a day when color is not a boundary? How can African Americans, Whites and Hispanics ever overcome the lines our great grandparents, grandparents and even parents drew if we never choose to take a step forward?
Josh and I did not consider Oak Cliff as an option because we thought it would someday be filled with Starbucks drive thrus. On the contrary, we were willing to give up the convenience of suburbia: stores, lower crime and good schools, to live in a home made by craftspeople.
I hope that you can understand that my post here about gentrification was a sincere effort to see the other side of the debate - to make sure that we were making our decision conscious of the current community and opinions of its members. I hope that, at the very least, doing that has made us slightly more communicative than the average ‘gentrifier.’
Once again, I appreciate your comment Desi.
9:01 pm, Mar 21st, 2008
Michelle
I had to get a dictionary out to read this blog. ~this your sister that only has medical knowledge. But I take comfort in knowing that I know what ophthalmophegia is without looking it up.
1:08 pm, Mar 26th, 2008
Graypawn
everything i’ve read here has made me happy. living in Seattle has made me wonder about the process as well. It’s funny for me because i can feel the ‘artsy’ issue. I love the CD (”Central District”) because it has character. But the worst parts of the CD are the plain ass, boring, rich, white-folk that came here because they can get more house for their money and look ‘racially tolerant’. It happens. That sucks.
What’s weird is: we’ve already got a Starbucks. And i work at a Walgreens. And before i was ever here, and before they were built, was a field where the kids in the neighborhood played stickball.
maybe i’m just too late.
11:39 pm, Mar 29th, 2008
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