Thursday, February 26, 2009

Is anyone else gloating?

Because I am, and I'm one of those Johnny-come-lately gentrifiers.

Frankly, the idea of moving to a neighborhood with the sole intention of changing it annoys me. I don't see how the "creative class" wanting to replace the muffler shops and martial arts studios with art galleries and coffee bars are any different than the suburbanites who move out to the exurbs and start bitching about the smells coming from the 100-year-old family dairy farm next door. Why are the latter scorned and the former hailed as saviors?

Am I a big fan of the Sysco mashed potatoes at the old-school diner down the street? Not particularly. But I do see the parking lot full of trucks and Buick sedans just about every morning, which signals that me and my biodiesel-driving brethren aren't the only life in this neighborhood. Just because we had the poor timing to pay more for our houses doesn't mean we're entitled to make over this corner of the world in our image.

I guess I have enough handmade soap, too, Mr. Waldie.

1 comment:

HutchDeluxe said...

Awesome. Now I'm searching for a term for the sad failure of irony, when suburban blancos are way too well versed for their own good in "urban culture," a.k.a., hip-hop.