WHITE PEOPLE RUIN EVERYTHING (GENTRIFICATON EDITION)

ITEM: There’s an interesting article on io9 that looks at an upcoming trend – white people moving back into city centers – and the potential impact that has on the affected neighborhood, to include the low-income locals already living there.

Turns out it doesn’t end well for the low-income people:

If the incomes of these locals in the U.S. were rising at the same rate as the incomes of whites, this might not be such a problem. Maybe whites would come to town, move into some abandoned places, and spruce up the joint. The problem is that the income disparity between blacks and whites has been growing immensely over the past few decades. Local black residents can't compete with the white infillers for space.

So when whites flock to a black neighborhood, they are often the harbingers of doom. Rents skyrocket to the point where the original population can no longer afford it — and they move to low-income suburbs like Ferguson outside St. Louis.

It’s an interesting article, especially in light of recent events in Ferguson that have raised the spectre of both class and race disparities that commentators on a certain cable TV news channel like to pretend either don’t exist, don't matter or are overblown by liberals as being bigger problems than they really are and are really just an excuse to be lazy and mooch Obamaphones, steak and birth-control off the govt.

Something like that.

Note that the article isn't saying white people are doing this kind of thing on purpose. They’re not. It’s just that they don’t notice the impact they’re having on everyone else.

Which pretty much sums up the history of America, in a way.

“Oh, there are Indians here? Oh well, let’s just settle here, they’ll never even notice we’re here.”

Moving on up,

This is dF

ROAD TRIP

Back in three weeks.



[Via Steve Niles]

In absentia,

This is dF