I caught this post yesterday on one of the blogs I read and later caught the news piece on KMOV. (Just to say - when I really want to know what's going on in St. Louis neighborhoods, I read Steve Patterson. Also, you know that blogging has arrived when the networks get info for their top story from a blogger.)
Normally I'm all kids, boobs, and poop over here, but this issue strikes close to home as a) Chris is co-heading a much-publicized rehab that qualifies as "gentrification," plus, we're also preparing to move back to the city into a rehabbed area. I want to move back into the city for the diversity and to escape the lily-white hicks who live and die by "Freebird." However, I want to move back into an area where the buildings don't look decrepit, where homeowners take care of their property; a neighborhood that's safe in which my kids can play.
I'm enraged by people like this ("Good for them?" Are you JOKING?), excellently described in Patterson's comments as:
"... represents
an anti-gentrification zealot usually no more than ex-suburbanite
turned 'bourgeoisie radicals' who took one too many social science
classes at university, and now feel compelled to appoint themselves as
a guardian of what they perceive as a victimized class, by making
victims of another."
FYI - the market determines the price of those "over-priced condos," you butthat.
It's amazing that there are people who think that you must stifle
growth in order to maintain diversity. I say "SOCIAL!" you say "IST!"
"SOCIAL!" "IST!" "SOCIAL!" "IST!" Yes! Say "no" to an increase in your
tax base! Say "no" to more tax dollars for schools and public works
thereby condemning yourself to increased property taxes to shoulder the
ever-increasing burden! (While whining about the rising taxes.) Dude,
that's redneck reasoning.
GENIUS.
That mindset truly doesn't understand the city and is determined to ruin it. That, THAT is the real threat.
