Paris is a perfect example. They have completely mistreated the Muslims that have moved and relocated to France, and most of them have moved from Northern Africa and the few West African countries that used to be former French colonies in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Ironic right.

And the French government has played them all the way to the left and has left them to fend for themselves. So while we had housing projects in the American cities where the cops were afraid to go in, France has pockets of whole cities and smaller suburbs around Paris that are full of near slums.

As I said, I’m not sure if I’m in favor or not of gentrification. Sure it looks nicer, I feel safe and wouldn’t mind walking down my hometown’s State Street, but as you said, at the expense of city history and the story, I’m mad as hell–and I’m not apologizing for it. The rich history of the African American story, as told in Black Boy and Native Son is now being lost. I mean, at least find some city money for a city sponsored Bronzeville Museum. Seriously, if it wasn’t for the DuSable Museum on the South Side, within the next FIVE years, Olympics or not in Chicago, there will be no vestiges of what used to be in the old “Black Belt.”

Thanks for the comments bruh!

The town I left, Tucson, has been doing something similar. It is called the Rio Nuevo Program. Basically, all of the old, cheap housing around the downtown area was going to be torn down and replaced with fancy high rises and boutique shops. Fortunately, this economic crisis hit and the program was mismanaged, so the city pulled the plug on it. So far as I’m concerned, the issue for me is that the city’s history is being trampled underfoot by business interests that don’t care too much about the city’s story. The fact that the housing they planned to put it in would be in a price range that excludes most blacks and other minorities from purchasing is a tangent, so far as I’m concerned. To say otherwise, in my opinion, would be to assume there is a grand conspiracy, a conspiracy which I do not see evidence of just yet.

I’m not going to weigh in on whether gentrification is right or wrong, because I can argue either side equally well. Yet, we can see the results of it if we look at cities like London and Paris. Poorer people are pushed to the periphery and are largely abandoned while wealthier people live in the city center, in safer neighborhoods. The issue, so far as I see it, is not one of race, but of justice and social responsibility. If we are going to literally reorder our cities, then we owe it to the people who are being displaced to take care of them. We have a moral duty, in my opinion, to ensure that all members of our society are cared for with respect and decency. Maybe moving some members of society out of the homes they have lived in violates this, maybe it doesn’t. Either way, more needs to be done to ensure the outcome is just for all involved.

I hope you will write more about life in Chicago at some point. This post was very interesting. I visited Chicago this past December and I loved it! I (almost) even loved the 10 below temp. Lol

Regarding the Olympics; it would be great for anyone with any political connections but for most it will most likly be a bad thing. Any neighborhodd that is on the edge before and near any Olympic sites would probably be lost to gentrification.

He gets elected for the same reason Harold Washington was elected: it’s always like three or four blacks running against one white guy. And when Washington ran, it was Daley and Jane Byrne running for the Democratic nomination.

Thanks for the link to architectural city planning. After viewing the link, I watched a 6 min film from 2007 re the new urbanism

While somewhat OT for Uppity’s post, city living is changing as we watch. The whole gentrification of ‘inner city’ (bad, poor, and generally nonwhite) neighborhoods is astonishing to witness. Many times it has been a conscious part of long-range planning that ‘holds’ unattractive urban areas for a future time as urban living convenience demands that ‘the gentry’ return to the city from which it fled after the WWII. Suburbia effectively insulated the adequately
‘middle-class’ returning soldiers’ families from ‘inner-city’ influences.

There is a more insidious plan to closer-in city living–gated communities that effectively exclude former inner-city dwellers. Those citizens are shuttled off to decaying housing stock in suburban no-longer-attractive transportation costly areas.

Planned obsolescence (1950s)that included real estate investor greed was sanctioned, and it has been allowed to run amok because of American consumerism. Consider the firm(s) that have privatized a community in Atlanta (and elsewhere). The gated, privatized community includes city services (garbage collection, street cleaning, etc.) that now wants to secede from the city so that ‘private’ taxes do not support the greater community from which it benefits.

The public housing projects in Chicago, specifically satisfied the need to keep the Jim Crow era mandated ‘Black Belt’ intact AND hold valuable land for which private investors rake in windfall profits.

A new phase of ‘urban renewal’ is happening. Good post Uppity!

Well, you totally opened my eyes on a topic i was wholly unfamiliar with. feel free to expound if you want.