Was there a heroic age of gentrification?

by: Mae Singerman

Wed Jan 06, 2010 at 13:51:58 PM EST

Went to a great reading and talk yesterday at Bluestockings Bookstore for the release of the newest n+1 journal. Nikil Saval read his piece on gentrification which was thought-provoking and nuanced. Most of the people I know, including myself are against gentrification theoretically and displacement of poor people, but would be considered gentrifiers. 

A highlight from the article: "Middle-class couples, affluent in the postwar boom, took over the upkeep of old housing stock after the poor, without much choice in the matter, had let pilings, stoops and columns decay. In the heroic age of gentrification, the property buyers looked like pioneers and integrators. Banks had 'redlined' largely black neighborhoods like Park Slope, Brooklyn, which meant that the gentrifiers couldn't acquire easy credit that banks would one day lavish on their children...[White residents] adopted neighborhoods that were not only 'mixed use' but mixed race." 

ALSO:This is an awesome interactive map so you can check out which income levels make up New York neighborhoods.

http://envisioningdevelopment.net/map