What's happening in Oakland's Uptown and Temescal is crazy. There is a natural tug-of-war between development and gentrification, but it's really hard not to love a little good press. Word of Temescal's gastro-groundswell is not new to local foodies, but now the word has gone national. Sunset magazine's July 2009 issue features a great two page spread on the Temescal's gourmet ghetto, a welcome celebration of something in Oakland other than Rockridge.The Sunset feature mentions: The Temescal Farmers' Market, Bakesale Bettys, Marc 49, Pizzaiolo, Aunt Mary's Cafe, Barlata and FROG Park. It also notes that home prices in the neighborhood have quintupled from 1995-2005, dredging up the down side of such a culinary mecca. Unfortunately Oakland is going the way of Brooklyn and many other cities in that its urban rebirth has been made possible by an influx of outsiders. Below is a tongue-in-cheek promotional video made for the city of Oakland that captures the hipster renaissance taking place here.
This fauxmo video is funny but also contains chunks of truth. Though the debate between development and gentrification is tough to reconcile, for some it's a very cut an dry issue. Hip-hop theater legend Danny Hoch is one such person. I recently got to interview him about his one man show concerning gentrification in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and his stance is definitely worth discussing.
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I have to say, the Danny Hoch interview doesn't do a very good job of explaining why gentrification is on balance a negative thing. He follows all the threads, figures out exactly who's responsible for change and how, but doesn't actually justify the background assumption that it's bad for people with money to move into low income neighborhoods. Hoch puts a lot of stock in origins and home cities, which is disturbingly conservative/reactionary. Should people *not* be allowed to move where they want? What measures does he propose to prevent gentrification that won't simultaneously limit the freedom of people to improve their situation?
Personally I think Hoch's argument isn't about justice at all, but about aesthetics: who are the "right" kinds of people we should allow to live in Williamsburg?
I have mixed feelings about Temescal: I really like a few of the restaurants, it's admirably laid-back, but the farmers market makes me throw up in my mouth a little. I live near downtown, and I like the way that this part of town isn't an identifiable, brandable destination - a bit of anonymity goes a long way towards preventing a sudden influx of homogenous newcomers. I'm watching the branding of nearby Uptown with great interest.
I heard you had to break some eggs to make an omelet.
Nancy Nadel perfect example of a missionary.
Hey michal, i think you need to read the interview again. You remind me of the recent spike lee interview when he said that white folx still ask him why "mookie" threw the trash can threw sal's pizzeria window at the end of "do the right thing"; yet, no person of color has ever asked him that. In 20 years. Hoch clearly states,"The improvement of a neighborhood is great, but not at the expense of the people who live there. And when a neighborhood improves only when a privileged group moves into the neighborhood, then that's injustice. This is happening in the Bay Area and in every major city in the country. You have people who have been asking for thirty years for a hospital and another school in their neighborhood, 15 to 20 years for a traffic light where multiple kids have been killed by cars, and they get none of that."furthermore, he says "But a whole bunch of left-leaning, middle-class white folks move in and in two weeks they get a bike lane? That's fucked up. And that's not to say that having a bike lane is fucked up. That is to say that you are unaware of white privilege and class privilege if you are going to excuse yourself from being a part of gentrification by saying, "But you got a bike lane now."
I find it funny and sad that many white teachers in the bay 1)aint from the bay and 2) are constantly telling students to go back to their communities to help yet the white teachers wont go back to their god forsaken town cuz it aint as "cool" to teach there as it is to teach "black and brown" kids in the bay. Hoch adds to this by saying "I see it as missionary work. That's one of the tools of colonialism -- to send your missionaries out to help the uneducated savages of the colonies. There is a saying; "You can't go work on the plantation if your own garden is dirty." What about the challenge of staying at home?
It's glamorous to go to the city and work in the 'hood and go work on the plantation and simulate the idea of struggle, but it's not real struggle. Real struggle is staying home in a swing state and trying to get muthafuckas to vote for Obama. Real struggle is staying home in Missouri and doing anti-racism work. But that's not glamorous."
1. artists get pushed out of the mission and lower haight and move to oakland. 2. the gay community, closely connected to the art community, sees the potential and follow. 3. the soulless douchbag hipters follow, which is what they do best. 4. the galleries and winebars open. 5. the so called liberal professionals invade (ala temescal farmers market). Then the takeover is complete.
*Shrug*
I think Hoch just doesn't like change, or new people. He's a conservative nostalgic, basically saying "go home, white people, Williamsburg was better before you moved here." Well, places change. Just to take a few local examples: West Oakland used to be predominantly white, and SF's Mission district was mostly Irish.
All that business about teachers and colonialists is just silly. Cross-pollination of different kinds of people from different kinds of backgrounds is A Good Thing, it prevents places from turning into either gated communities or complete ghettoes. Cities thrive when people have freedom of movement, to live and work where they think it's best. It's in a city's long-term economic interest to promote this kind of movement and flow. The idea that people should have to "justify" their presence in a city, like living in New York is a right you have to earn, is a total nativist crock, the exact mirror image of the privilege that Hoch seems so bent out of shape about. Who does he think he is, coming to California to tell us how to live? Go back to Williamsburg. ;)
Homes, streets, neighborhoods, and cities are always in a constant state of change and flow. To deny that truth and seek instead to crystalize some sort of "good old days" from the past, viewed through rose-colored glasses, is an excersize in self-deception. Flux and change was just as much in effect during the so-called "good old days" (if they ever actually existed) as it is in today's society.
The question is not whether you're going to be able to stop change from coming to where you live, the question is how you are going to greet it. If all you want to do is throw up interference, you'll get run over. Rather, you should seek to incorporate your person, your point of view, and your methods of expression into the changing neighborhood around you. Oh, but right, that's not "glamorous".
Michal is 100% correct. Perfect post. The only constant is change. Every single neighborhood anywhere was once something else and belonged to a completely different group. To not understand this and history is to remain ignorant and tilt at windmills. Yes, all that junk about teachers and colonialists is complete BS. (heck , I know a lot of these teachers and many are doing these jobs because they CARE about kids, so show some respect.) Once the rest of you guys get all this then the real questions are not really about gentrification, but about your role in connecting individually to where you live and to your neighbors. Each person has to decide if they will truly act with respect towards whoever lives next to them and if they will create a place that is positive and constructive. We all have to own up and build and take care of our homes and neighborhoods... and respect...even, love...our neighbors.
As much as I appreciate the positive changes that have occurred, it would be terrible if my neighbors, mostly renters that grew up here, have to leave because now they must compete for housing with people that earn many times more than they do. If that's not colonization aided by disparity, I don't know what is. Gentrification can be destructive to the existing community and ignoring that fact is completely disingenuous.
Just like michal asks Hoch to go back to brooklyn and stop telling us how to live in Cali, thats we we ask of all the hipster/yuppie types. Many of those "teacher" i speak of come from all over except the bay. They try to impose their morals on us and tell us how to live. They come here and try to teach us who we are. Thats colonialism folx. when the hood receives justice when white folx move in ONLY thats INJUSTICE. How would white folx feel if myself (a mexican male) went to their affluent white neighborhoods and taught white youth about whiteness and white privelege? I would never do that cuz my struggle at home is more important. White youth need guidance also. Eventhough many feel they are "progressive" they are without a doubt misguided because many white folx dont know where to start their whiteness deconstruction so no one shows them the way. I feel all of the gentrification supporters posting here are in between the denial and defensive stages of whiteness.
On a side note, is 38th notes becoming a spot for hipster invaders of The Town?? I hope not.
another thing, you claim these white teachers "care about kids". There is a difference between caring "about" and caring "for". On the real, ask them if their students "care" about their teachers. You can lie to yourself all you want to make yourself feel better but truth be told, Town kids dont give a fuck about these so-called "educators". Dont beleive me? go into their classrooms and see for yourself. Many white educators shoot themselves in the foot because they dont problemitize their whiteness. Once they get over this (that eventhough they themselves might not have broken thie rstudents trust, they must acknowledge that their skin color and roles as teachers have; but they shouldnt blame themselves or their students when they are talked shit to cuz they white), then they will begin to be efective. Education is complicated. Many teachers lie about how "good" they are. And yes many white teachers teach black and brown youth to try and impress their friends so they can prove how "different" they are.
This is a very tough issue...
I see both sides of what everybody is saying and I think the truth lies somewhere in the middle. All neighborhoods go through their changes, but for me it is important to keep that original flavor in it. Outsiders, (usually white people) move into those communities because it is up and coming and slightly more affordable, but if that area completely changes, then doesn't it lose some of the original flare it had? I believe it is good to have new kinds of people in neighborhoods and in the classrooms because it expands peoples horizon. It allows us to dream a little more, or can even give us an idea of what we do not want to be. (ex. the white teacher who tries to save the kids of color)
It is also important for white people to understand white privilege. I am a white male myself and had the oppurtunity to learn about it in high school. Once I learned about it, it became more apparent in my every day life. Even walking down the hallways of my high school- no one would question where I was going even if I did not have a pass, but if a student of color is walking down the hall they immeidetly are questioned for a pass.
I thought an earlier commenter made a good point about the fact that when the area gets whiter more things change such as bike lanes and what not. I totally agree with this.
Overall its a tough issue and I see both sides, but we must keep some of our great culture that lies in these neighborhoods or else we just become another city
People will move into cities, because they want to and appreciate cities for any number of reasons, and they'll move to cities for a job or for a significant other.
My comment is this: For the young white professionals who are moving into the Bay Area for any of the above reasons, we don't necessarily have a ton of options that don't end in gentification. I live in Temescal because I can afford it and I like it, and I can't afford many of the more expensive neighborhoods (Rockridge, Pacific Heights in SF, Marina, etc). So, then I'm the forefront of gentrificuation, because even though I don't make enough to afford a wealthy neighborhood, by the fact that I have no family but am making a young professional's salary, I'm more able to afford the increasing prices of Temescal than some families who have lived there longer.
People like me are going to be moving into the bay area, and want to live somewhere we can afford.
I think the folks who say change is the only constant are right. Who defines when the "real" era of a neighborhood's identity started? I'm a third generation Oaklander and I'm white. My grandmother was in the first graduating class at Castlemont. My parents, my aunts and uncles, they all graduated from Fremont (me? well, I got screwed at went to HS out of state, but that's my own trials and tribulations). But if I were to move in to my family's houses I'd be considered a "gentrifier"-- despite my family's 100 years of history in East Oakland. So my question is-- who determines when a place's "real" identity starts and stops? That's why I think change is the only constant.
Who defines a character of a city? the folx who make it appealing to the whole hood and ,unfortunately, to other folx's non-appealing towns or cities. And just to clear things up, there is a huge difference between white flight and gentrification. The irish in the mission left not because they were priced out by wealthier mexican immigrants but because they did not want to be around us "colored" folx. the white folx in west oakland did the same. The irony is that it is the grandchildren that want to move back to where their family once objected to. Honestly folx, west oakland is not west oakland because of the white folx back in the day and the mission is not the mission cuz of the irish. mission is a prime example of the tropicalization of dead urban space that in fact is a complete renovation and "re-development" by a group of folx (in this case raza immigrants) with no cost to the city unlike many "chinantowns" across the US which in fact defines the area as the last poster said. As for the white potna from the town...blood you from the East and thats that. You aint no gentrifier cus you going back to yo roots and thats what Hoch talks about.
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