9 ms·

So back in the day, "Anna" and a bunch of black people moved in and 'displaced' locals: “Due to the circumstances of the section going colored, we have sold our

So back in the day, "Anna" and a bunch of black people moved in and 'displaced' locals: “Due to the circumstances of the section going colored, we have sold our house. The school is surrounded.” One anonymous landlord was perhaps the most blunt: “We own about five houses in that section, and we wish to sell all of them, if even one negro moves in.” Given these attitudes, it’s not surprising that some 40,000 homes, in Kirkwood and beyond, were sold by whites to blacks—for as little as $10,000—in just a few months in 1961, as Newsweek’s Atlanta bureau reported later that decade. I wonder if people like Anna moving in also felt the same guilt that the author of this piece does? Still, it’s hard not to feel like an interloper after you’ve moved into a historically black (well, after it was historically white) neighborhood...The guilt intensifies when you realize that your [house] belonged to the family next door for longer than you’ve been alive. I'm curious if these feelings of guilt are common when moving into a demographically different neighborhood? Maybe they are just a convenient way for (culturally, if not financially) upper class whites to signal virtue to each other? Would the author feel less guilt if he instead stuck to a lily-white enclave full of "blonde wi[ves] and ...Nordic-looking cherubs"? What must a mixed race couple do to avoid feeling guilt, given that at least one of them is probably displacing a demographically different person? (Yes, I'm obviously mocking the author of this silly article a bit.)

H0n3sty 11y ago
Like most gentrification fluff pieces this one is as you note, just a convenient way for the author to signal his virtue. If he had any real concern about improving relations in his community he would have made an effort to do just that. I never took the initiative to walk next door and chat There is also no great tragedy in two parties coming to terms on a transaction when both of them agree - by definition, they're both better off because of the transaction. $70K for a the weeded lot next door it not a bad deal.
- jseliger 11y ago
  There is also no great tragedy in two parties coming to terms on a transaction when both of them agree - by definition, they're both better off because of the transaction. $70K for a the weeded lot next door it not a bad deal. The real tragedy here is land-use restrictions that most municipalities instituted in the '70s and '80s, which prevent the supply of housing to meet demand (http://jakeseliger.com/2015/12/27/why-did-cities-freeze-in-the-1970s/ http://jakeseliger.com/2015/12/27/why-did-cities-freeze-in-t...). Many "gentrifiers" in many Atlanta neighborhoods would probably prefer to live in NYC, LA, SF, or Seattle, but those municipalities have strict rules that prevent the building of sufficient housing to meet demand. So people move elsewhere. Matt Yglesias discusses this in more detail in The Rent is Too Damn High (http://www.amazon.com/TheRent-Too-Damn-High-Matters-ebook/dp/B0078XGJXO?ie=UTF8&tag=thstsst-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957 http://www.amazon.com/TheRent-Too-Damn-High-Matters-ebook/dp...).
  - H0n3sty 11y ago
    The real tragedy here is land-use restrictions Should community residents not have the freedom to enforce restrictions on their own communities? Would these communities be as desirable if they allowed new residents to crowd out the old residents?
    - eli_gottlieb 11y ago
      >Should community residents not have the freedom to enforce restrictions on their own communities? Definitely not. Land is a common asset of all of society: taking away building sites while basically all urban areas (ie: with jobs) suffer housing shortages is exploiting the commons.
      - H0n3sty 11y ago
        Would you also permit hazardous chemical refineries to be built alongside or within residential communities? Are there any freedoms of self-government that you would like to see preserved?
        eli_gottlieb 11y ago
        >Would you also permit hazardous chemical refineries to be built alongside or within residential communities? Probably not, but I'd have their site planned at the regional/state/province level rather than allowing each individual municipality to say "NIMBY!" to everything. Because most NIMBY measures aren't about chemical refineries, they're about the working class, about sites of housing and employment for ordinary people.
        H0n3sty 11y ago
        So you're okay with reducing home values by placing high-density housing anywhere (and the corresponding violent crime risks), but not with reducing home values by placing industrial facilities anywhere (along with their corresponding health risks).
minimax 11y ago
I wonder if people like Anna moving in also felt the same guilt that the author of this piece does? I didn't care for the article, but this comment is awful and you ought to feel bad about writing it. Did black people moving into an overtly racist white neighborhood in 1960s era Atlanta feel guilty about it? No, they were probably fucking terrified. One day in June, a black family moved into a home on Woodbine Avenue, just over the southwestern Kirkwood border in Edgewood. That night someone set fire to it. Did you read that part? Come on.
- yummyfajitas 11y ago
  Why, exactly, do you think I should feel bad for writing this? What message do you think I'm trying to convey? Whatever your explanation, please reconcile it with: (Yes, I'm obviously mocking the author of this silly article a bit.)
  - minimax 11y ago
    Because you seem to be trying to establish some equivalence between Anna's circumstances and the author's. I think it's insulting. If I misunderstood the point you were trying to make I apologize.
    - basch 11y ago
      anna feeling guilt = > absurd ergo the author feeling guilt => absurd . the author is being mocked for the absurdity of their feeling guilt. i think the crux of the insult is gentrification guilt is reserved for the privileged.
    - yummyfajitas 11y ago
      Both circumstances displace people of a different ethnic group. In that sense they are equivalent. Is that the relevant thing in terms of causing guilt? Who knows? As I said, I think the only relevant thing is this guy signalling to all the other white people what a virtuous fellow he is.
- H0n3sty 11y ago
rayiner 11y ago
I lived in Atlanta for a long time. It's hard to live there, and see the lines drawn by de jure segregation still there, as clear as daylight, and not feel like something is wrong. There is a really deep philosophical question here: do people walk free of the sins of their fathers? It may be the immigrant in me talking, but that's a difficult idea for me to swallow. Atlanta is a place where the sins of past generations permeate the soil and bricks of the city. You can ignore it, but that doesn't make it go away. I think the author is reasonable in feeling guilty. Why are those neighborhoods so cheap? They're cheap because of segregation and the other injustices inflicted on the residents of those neighborhoods. The U.S. in general, but southern cities like Atlanta in particular, would look totally different if it weren't for slavery and segregation. At the very least, the author is benefiting from that injustice when he buys into a walkable urban neighborhood at bargain prices. So what's wrong that he feels guilty? It's virtuous to feel guilty when you're benefiting from someone else's misfortune.
- jcizzle 11y ago
  I've also lived in Atlanta a long time, but have also lived in other places for longer. If you think Atlanta is a bastion of segregation, it would benefit you to widen your perspective. But as they say, if you are looking for something, you'll eventually find it - even if it doesn't exist. By the way, the neighborhoods are so 'cheap' because poor people lived there for a long time. (I put cheap in quotes, because homes in this neighborhood are significantly more expensive than the average home in America.) The homes require more work and the school systems have less resources. If you want to walk back in history and find out why poor people live in this neighborhood, great, understanding history is important so that its negative aspects don't repeat itself. But what are you suggesting, that the neighborhood stays poor? Or it stays segregated? If anything, the raising prices of homes in neighborhoods like these indicates that people no longer care about their neighbor's skin color. That's a good thing.
  - rayiner 11y ago
    The legacy of segregation in Atlanta isn't something you have to look for--you'd have to be blind not to see it: http://socialshutter.blogspot.com/2012/10/when-street-names-change-on-other-side.html http://socialshutter.blogspot.com/2012/10/when-street-names-.... > By the way, the neighborhoods are so 'cheap' because poor people lived there for a long time. (I put cheap in quotes, because homes in this neighborhood are significantly more expensive than the average home in America.) The homes require more work and the school systems have less resources. Gee, why do you think all that is?
exelius 11y ago
This was a human interest piece; IMO it was less about the factual impacts of gentrification and more about the emotional baggage that white people feel about it. This was the author's way of coping with the destruction of the history in that area: to record it so that it may be remembered. And IMO the feelings of guilt are the stereotypical "white guilt". Progressive white people feel guilty about the situation that black people are in because we benefit from the institutionalized racism that they suffer from. But we can't really do anything because we don't understand what being a black person in America means. That means many of us end up confused and feeling guilty because as progressive white people, we want to help. But we can't, so we end up writing about the history that we're destroying as a means of making it ok to ourselves. But ultimately, this is the kind of "local history" that is often lost between generations regardless. It's likely nobody remembers who the neighborhood patriarch was in their neighborhood 100 years ago, so this isn't a phenomenon restricted to gentrified areas. It's just that gentrified areas are filled with guilty white people (who are far more likely to write a tome and post it on Medium than someone poorer and less educated).
- robocaptain 11y ago
  I think that is a start. I actually live in a neighborhood near Kirkwood and have had similar thoughts and experiences as the guy in this article. Guilt is sort of the word for it, but not quite. I think the simple fact of recognizing privilege when you have it, is a start. Being aware of history is the next step. The final step is not just wanting to help, but actually helping. I think a lot of people in this author's situation find that last step difficult. The truth is that if you look hard enough, you _will_ find people in the community that care and are trying to do things. They can point you in the direction you want to go.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
vinceguidry 11y ago
> Maybe they are just a convenient way for (culturally, if not financially) upper class whites to signal virtue to each other? That's just silly. You don't know what you don't know. How do people find racial, social, and political consciousnesses? They aren't born with it. Not upper class white people, and not black people either. Something has to perpetuate it, some event that forces you to awaken to all in the world that's shitty and motivate you to do something about it, and, more importantly, change yourself so you don't perpetuate those things. Blacks can't get away from the various hells of the world, they naturally find that consciousness at a really early age. Whites are insulated from them through a process that, these days, we call privilege. It's easy to lampoon white people who suddenly find their social consciousness through some picaresque encounter with world-weary minorities, it's a much-mined cultural cliché. But it's the wrong reaction. Worse, it smacks of egotism, perhaps you think that you're one of those white people that aren't affected by privilege.
- H0n3sty 11y ago
  Blacks can't get away from the various hells of the world I believe this is known as the racism of lowered expectations.
  - rmxt 11y ago
    There is a line between "acknowledging reality and the lingering effects of institutionalized racism" and "the racism of lowered expectations," but it is not drawn at "blacks can't get away from the various hells of the world." The former is what I think the GP is getting at.
    - H0n3sty 11y ago
      Implying that one race cannot do what other races can is racist.
      - deleted 11y ago
        [deleted]
  - 11y ago
baldfat 11y ago
I HATE the word Gentrification and it is a meaningless word. Right now in my city over 50% of the children change schools before the school year is over. They start in September and half the students are new students in June! That is not a community that is just a transient zone of bad homes and bad landlords. Also the homes are gorgeous and are certainly better made then most homes today. So neighborhoods do change but when an area with no established families turns into a community lets not throw out the word gentrification it is establishing a community and property values go up because it becomes a place people want to move into.
kafkaesq 11y ago
I wonder if people like Anna moving in also felt the same guilt that the author of this piece does? Should they have felt "guilty" because racist whites fled en masse, terrified at the prospect of living next to someone of their skin color? I don't think so.
shanacarp 11y ago
Short answer: You are misreading history by a mile. My Grandfather actually was one of the first people to participate in one of these full section deals in the late 40s and early 50s in Dorchester and Southie in Boston on behalf of the family company and family trust. he also was one of the first of his family to go to college - for accounting, courtesy of the GI bill, post ww2. 2 things pushed these deals together 1) almost all the buyers were becoming/were middle class blacks/on their way, courtesy of the GI bill/backwages of ww2 and Korea. Southie wasn't redlined, and they went through friends of friends to buy in order to become landlords, not to live there. 2)As part of housing shortage/great society issues, section 8 was introduced, and a number of buildings involved were going to be zoned/legally obliged to take and early version of section 8. Group 1 didn't run the numbers very closely, my grandfather did. The buildings would have become effectively slumlord properties. My grandfather wanted no part of that. He also assumed the following: Surrounding 1-2 family house prices would start to drop as the rumor mill started to fly. Which would buy him time to move. That prediction proved to pretty much be true with the passing of multiple laws in the 60s surrounding housing and the creation of HUD/expansion of the FHA. As a result, my father actually spent the first 2 years of his life in Southie/Dorchester before his family moved to Milton. The primary buyers my grandfather sold to did not hold onto the property for very long, for obvious reasons. People like Anna, especially if they were first wave buyers, did not feel like they were dispossessing anyone since at the time it wasn't clear if these sorts of housing acts were going to pass/what was going to happen involving integration (which was happening roughly towards the end of the 60s). At best, from what I can tell it was about starting to join and integrate into the country, not dispossession.

H0n3sty 11y ago

Like most gentrification fluff pieces this one is as you note, just a convenient way for the author to signal his virtue. If he had any real concern about improving relations in his community he would have made an effort to do just that. I never took the initiative to walk next door and chat There is also no great tragedy in two parties coming to terms on a transaction when both of them agree - by definition, they're both better off because of the transaction. $70K for a the weeded lot next door it not a bad deal.

jseliger 11y ago
There is also no great tragedy in two parties coming to terms on a transaction when both of them agree - by definition, they're both better off because of the transaction. $70K for a the weeded lot next door it not a bad deal. The real tragedy here is land-use restrictions that most municipalities instituted in the '70s and '80s, which prevent the supply of housing to meet demand (http://jakeseliger.com/2015/12/27/why-did-cities-freeze-in-the-1970s/ http://jakeseliger.com/2015/12/27/why-did-cities-freeze-in-t...). Many "gentrifiers" in many Atlanta neighborhoods would probably prefer to live in NYC, LA, SF, or Seattle, but those municipalities have strict rules that prevent the building of sufficient housing to meet demand. So people move elsewhere. Matt Yglesias discusses this in more detail in The Rent is Too Damn High (http://www.amazon.com/TheRent-Too-Damn-High-Matters-ebook/dp/B0078XGJXO?ie=UTF8&tag=thstsst-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957 http://www.amazon.com/TheRent-Too-Damn-High-Matters-ebook/dp...).
- H0n3sty 11y ago
  The real tragedy here is land-use restrictions Should community residents not have the freedom to enforce restrictions on their own communities? Would these communities be as desirable if they allowed new residents to crowd out the old residents?
  - eli_gottlieb 11y ago
    >Should community residents not have the freedom to enforce restrictions on their own communities? Definitely not. Land is a common asset of all of society: taking away building sites while basically all urban areas (ie: with jobs) suffer housing shortages is exploiting the commons.
    - H0n3sty 11y ago
      Would you also permit hazardous chemical refineries to be built alongside or within residential communities? Are there any freedoms of self-government that you would like to see preserved?
      - eli_gottlieb 11y ago
        >Would you also permit hazardous chemical refineries to be built alongside or within residential communities? Probably not, but I'd have their site planned at the regional/state/province level rather than allowing each individual municipality to say "NIMBY!" to everything. Because most NIMBY measures aren't about chemical refineries, they're about the working class, about sites of housing and employment for ordinary people.
        H0n3sty 11y ago
        So you're okay with reducing home values by placing high-density housing anywhere (and the corresponding violent crime risks), but not with reducing home values by placing industrial facilities anywhere (along with their corresponding health risks).

minimax 11y ago

I wonder if people like Anna moving in also felt the same guilt that the author of this piece does? I didn't care for the article, but this comment is awful and you ought to feel bad about writing it. Did black people moving into an overtly racist white neighborhood in 1960s era Atlanta feel guilty about it? No, they were probably fucking terrified. One day in June, a black family moved into a home on Woodbine Avenue, just over the southwestern Kirkwood border in Edgewood. That night someone set fire to it. Did you read that part? Come on.

yummyfajitas 11y ago
Why, exactly, do you think I should feel bad for writing this? What message do you think I'm trying to convey? Whatever your explanation, please reconcile it with: (Yes, I'm obviously mocking the author of this silly article a bit.)
- minimax 11y ago
  Because you seem to be trying to establish some equivalence between Anna's circumstances and the author's. I think it's insulting. If I misunderstood the point you were trying to make I apologize.
  - basch 11y ago
    anna feeling guilt = > absurd ergo the author feeling guilt => absurd . the author is being mocked for the absurdity of their feeling guilt. i think the crux of the insult is gentrification guilt is reserved for the privileged.
  - yummyfajitas 11y ago
    Both circumstances displace people of a different ethnic group. In that sense they are equivalent. Is that the relevant thing in terms of causing guilt? Who knows? As I said, I think the only relevant thing is this guy signalling to all the other white people what a virtuous fellow he is.
H0n3sty 11y ago

rayiner 11y ago

I lived in Atlanta for a long time. It's hard to live there, and see the lines drawn by de jure segregation still there, as clear as daylight, and not feel like something is wrong. There is a really deep philosophical question here: do people walk free of the sins of their fathers? It may be the immigrant in me talking, but that's a difficult idea for me to swallow. Atlanta is a place where the sins of past generations permeate the soil and bricks of the city. You can ignore it, but that doesn't make it go away. I think the author is reasonable in feeling guilty. Why are those neighborhoods so cheap? They're cheap because of segregation and the other injustices inflicted on the residents of those neighborhoods. The U.S. in general, but southern cities like Atlanta in particular, would look totally different if it weren't for slavery and segregation. At the very least, the author is benefiting from that injustice when he buys into a walkable urban neighborhood at bargain prices. So what's wrong that he feels guilty? It's virtuous to feel guilty when you're benefiting from someone else's misfortune.

jcizzle 11y ago
I've also lived in Atlanta a long time, but have also lived in other places for longer. If you think Atlanta is a bastion of segregation, it would benefit you to widen your perspective. But as they say, if you are looking for something, you'll eventually find it - even if it doesn't exist. By the way, the neighborhoods are so 'cheap' because poor people lived there for a long time. (I put cheap in quotes, because homes in this neighborhood are significantly more expensive than the average home in America.) The homes require more work and the school systems have less resources. If you want to walk back in history and find out why poor people live in this neighborhood, great, understanding history is important so that its negative aspects don't repeat itself. But what are you suggesting, that the neighborhood stays poor? Or it stays segregated? If anything, the raising prices of homes in neighborhoods like these indicates that people no longer care about their neighbor's skin color. That's a good thing.
- rayiner 11y ago
  The legacy of segregation in Atlanta isn't something you have to look for--you'd have to be blind not to see it: http://socialshutter.blogspot.com/2012/10/when-street-names-change-on-other-side.html http://socialshutter.blogspot.com/2012/10/when-street-names-.... > By the way, the neighborhoods are so 'cheap' because poor people lived there for a long time. (I put cheap in quotes, because homes in this neighborhood are significantly more expensive than the average home in America.) The homes require more work and the school systems have less resources. Gee, why do you think all that is?

exelius 11y ago

This was a human interest piece; IMO it was less about the factual impacts of gentrification and more about the emotional baggage that white people feel about it. This was the author's way of coping with the destruction of the history in that area: to record it so that it may be remembered. And IMO the feelings of guilt are the stereotypical "white guilt". Progressive white people feel guilty about the situation that black people are in because we benefit from the institutionalized racism that they suffer from. But we can't really do anything because we don't understand what being a black person in America means. That means many of us end up confused and feeling guilty because as progressive white people, we want to help. But we can't, so we end up writing about the history that we're destroying as a means of making it ok to ourselves. But ultimately, this is the kind of "local history" that is often lost between generations regardless. It's likely nobody remembers who the neighborhood patriarch was in their neighborhood 100 years ago, so this isn't a phenomenon restricted to gentrified areas. It's just that gentrified areas are filled with guilty white people (who are far more likely to write a tome and post it on Medium than someone poorer and less educated).

robocaptain 11y ago
I think that is a start. I actually live in a neighborhood near Kirkwood and have had similar thoughts and experiences as the guy in this article. Guilt is sort of the word for it, but not quite. I think the simple fact of recognizing privilege when you have it, is a start. Being aware of history is the next step. The final step is not just wanting to help, but actually helping. I think a lot of people in this author's situation find that last step difficult. The truth is that if you look hard enough, you _will_ find people in the community that care and are trying to do things. They can point you in the direction you want to go.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

vinceguidry 11y ago

> Maybe they are just a convenient way for (culturally, if not financially) upper class whites to signal virtue to each other? That's just silly. You don't know what you don't know. How do people find racial, social, and political consciousnesses? They aren't born with it. Not upper class white people, and not black people either. Something has to perpetuate it, some event that forces you to awaken to all in the world that's shitty and motivate you to do something about it, and, more importantly, change yourself so you don't perpetuate those things. Blacks can't get away from the various hells of the world, they naturally find that consciousness at a really early age. Whites are insulated from them through a process that, these days, we call privilege. It's easy to lampoon white people who suddenly find their social consciousness through some picaresque encounter with world-weary minorities, it's a much-mined cultural cliché. But it's the wrong reaction. Worse, it smacks of egotism, perhaps you think that you're one of those white people that aren't affected by privilege.

H0n3sty 11y ago
Blacks can't get away from the various hells of the world I believe this is known as the racism of lowered expectations.
- rmxt 11y ago
  There is a line between "acknowledging reality and the lingering effects of institutionalized racism" and "the racism of lowered expectations," but it is not drawn at "blacks can't get away from the various hells of the world." The former is what I think the GP is getting at.
  - H0n3sty 11y ago
    Implying that one race cannot do what other races can is racist.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
- 11y ago

baldfat 11y ago

I HATE the word Gentrification and it is a meaningless word. Right now in my city over 50% of the children change schools before the school year is over. They start in September and half the students are new students in June! That is not a community that is just a transient zone of bad homes and bad landlords. Also the homes are gorgeous and are certainly better made then most homes today. So neighborhoods do change but when an area with no established families turns into a community lets not throw out the word gentrification it is establishing a community and property values go up because it becomes a place people want to move into.

kafkaesq 11y ago

I wonder if people like Anna moving in also felt the same guilt that the author of this piece does? Should they have felt "guilty" because racist whites fled en masse, terrified at the prospect of living next to someone of their skin color? I don't think so.

shanacarp 11y ago

Short answer: You are misreading history by a mile. My Grandfather actually was one of the first people to participate in one of these full section deals in the late 40s and early 50s in Dorchester and Southie in Boston on behalf of the family company and family trust. he also was one of the first of his family to go to college - for accounting, courtesy of the GI bill, post ww2. 2 things pushed these deals together 1) almost all the buyers were becoming/were middle class blacks/on their way, courtesy of the GI bill/backwages of ww2 and Korea. Southie wasn't redlined, and they went through friends of friends to buy in order to become landlords, not to live there. 2)As part of housing shortage/great society issues, section 8 was introduced, and a number of buildings involved were going to be zoned/legally obliged to take and early version of section 8. Group 1 didn't run the numbers very closely, my grandfather did. The buildings would have become effectively slumlord properties. My grandfather wanted no part of that. He also assumed the following: Surrounding 1-2 family house prices would start to drop as the rumor mill started to fly. Which would buy him time to move. That prediction proved to pretty much be true with the passing of multiple laws in the 60s surrounding housing and the creation of HUD/expansion of the FHA. As a result, my father actually spent the first 2 years of his life in Southie/Dorchester before his family moved to Milton. The primary buyers my grandfather sold to did not hold onto the property for very long, for obvious reasons. People like Anna, especially if they were first wave buyers, did not feel like they were dispossessing anyone since at the time it wasn't clear if these sorts of housing acts were going to pass/what was going to happen involving integration (which was happening roughly towards the end of the 60s). At best, from what I can tell it was about starting to join and integrate into the country, not dispossession.