Comments on: Buy Now - Part I http://www.spanglishgringo.com/weblog/2005/07/31/buy-now-part-i/ Stories, thoughts & insights on Jesus, college students, and the Bible; Los Angeles, immigration, politics, ethnicity and culture, and also about my daughter Isabel - from a spanglish gringo father living in, learning from, leading & loving life in East L.A. Sat, 19 May 2012 03:21:19 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.2.1 By: Abner Ramos http://www.spanglishgringo.com/weblog/2005/07/31/buy-now-part-i/#comment-117 Abner Ramos Sat, 06 Aug 2005 15:31:00 +0000 http://www.spanglishgringo.com/weblog/2005/07/31/buy-now-part-i/#comment-117 Part II, please Part II, please

]]> By: Anonymous http://www.spanglishgringo.com/weblog/2005/07/31/buy-now-part-i/#comment-116 Anonymous Tue, 02 Aug 2005 14:39:00 +0000 http://www.spanglishgringo.com/weblog/2005/07/31/buy-now-part-i/#comment-116 The LA Weekly article is the money article; make the time to read it, if you can. Gloria Ohland explores from both sides a question I've been wrestling with the past year or so: is gentrification good? As a rich liberal, it's easy to look at the situation and say that gentrification is bad because it displaces poor people and ruins the "authentic" character of neighborhoods. But after living in BH for 4 years I feel the need for development. I feel the need for rich people to provide better municipal services and professional role models. And I feel the need for the creation of jobs. Honestly, I think some neighborhoods need some displacement. She mentions Cabrini Green in Chicago; I've read in other sources that the best thing that ever happened to that project was blowing it up. And churches and non-profits were pouring a lot of money and man-hours into it before the demolition. But it is a very troubling question of what happens to the poor when they are displaced. There are the regular people who definitely get screwed by the transition. My guess is that many of them wind up moving into already crowded quarters with extended family, or wind up homeless. Then there are the gangbangers who cause us all to rejoice when they are moved out of our neighborhoods. But they are still the jerks that they are, just moved somewhere else. Are we making BH safer by moving our cholos to somebody else's territory? Anyways, eager to see where you go with this, Scott. And as for your title: people should understand that BH is still classic inner-city. Helicopters, drugs, thugs. If you're buying hoping for Silverlake, you're going to have to wait 5 years for things to clean up a bit. By the way, the LA Times link should be: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-boyle24jul24,1,3177898.story -mark. The LA Weekly article is the money article; make the time to read it, if you can. Gloria Ohland explores from both sides a question I’ve been wrestling with the past year or so: is gentrification good? As a rich liberal, it’s easy to look at the situation and say that gentrification is bad because it displaces poor people and ruins the “authentic” character of neighborhoods. But after living in BH for 4 years I feel the need for development. I feel the need for rich people to provide better municipal services and professional role models. And I feel the need for the creation of jobs.

Honestly, I think some neighborhoods need some displacement. She mentions Cabrini Green in Chicago; I’ve read in other sources that the best thing that ever happened to that project was blowing it up. And churches and non-profits were pouring a lot of money and man-hours into it before the demolition.

But it is a very troubling question of what happens to the poor when they are displaced. There are the regular people who definitely get screwed by the transition. My guess is that many of them wind up moving into already crowded quarters with extended family, or wind up homeless. Then there are the gangbangers who cause us all to rejoice when they are moved out of our neighborhoods. But they are still the jerks that they are, just moved somewhere else. Are we making BH safer by moving our cholos to somebody else’s territory?

Anyways, eager to see where you go with this, Scott. And as for your title: people should understand that BH is still classic inner-city. Helicopters, drugs, thugs. If you’re buying hoping for Silverlake, you’re going to have to wait 5 years for things to clean up a bit.

By the way, the LA Times link should be: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-boyle24jul24,1,3177898.story

-mark.

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