The Atlantic considers Bronzeville, the neighborhood northwest of Hyde Park in Chicago. The neighborhood is relatively unique in being an example of minority gentrification.
I would add a couple of thoughts. First, I do not recall hearing the area actually called Bronzeville until after the gentrification got going. When I was a grad student at Chicago, it was just the bad neighborhood you drove through on the way from Hyde Park to Midway airport. Second, I don't think that lessons from Chicago, with its long and acrimonious racial history, necessarily generalizes to places like DC, which are full of whites who would pay to a premium to live in a stable, racailly mixed neighborhood.
Several years ago some students I taught worked on a "real estate challenge" that involved coming up with a plan to renovate a building in Bronzeville. When I drove over to look at it a Chicago police officer pulled me over to tell me that I didn't belong in the neighborhood.
ReplyDelete