"Get a Shave, a Haircut, and Grow Up": Hipsters Criticized (Washington: 2013, renting)
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The fancy new libraries. The modern dead-tech new design high schools. Did you ever think that DC invested money in these projects because they want to spread gentrification to Wards 5, 6, 7 and 8? Did you ever think that maybe glitzy new public buildings is an enticement for outsiders to buy into DC real estate? That just maybe those beautiful schools were built for more wealthier, more non-black students moving into neighborhoods many years down the road? Working class black kids might be in those new buildings today but tomorrow...who knows.
U Street, DC was the center for black culture and arts for many decades. Busboys & Poets is not the only place on U Street where black professionals and artists mingle. But I will bet you that many black patrons have homes in Prince Georges, Montgomery Counties or NoVA. Don't take my word for it, just read the posts from another recent thread in the DC forum.
How strange that you brought up the street car topic. BTW...how's that street car project coming along now? It should be ready to open in 2014, right? Or is it 2015? 2016? Maybe before we all die of old age? All of this heart ache and millions of tax dollars down the drain because white yuppies and hipsters don't want to ride a crowded Metro bus with poor people and minorities. If Gray was really, really enthusiastic about the H Street Car project, he would be cracking the whip on bureaucrats to get this done like yesterday. He may voted "yea" on this project but I don't see him angrily pounding his fist on the lecturn during a press conference about project delays either.
I believe you about the growth of black college-educated professionals moving into Anacostia, SW DC and other areas. It's happening in real time. But I think you overstate this population shift because the overwhelming new entrants to the DC home and rental markets are predominately white and Asian professionals.
If beating me in an argument makes you feel good then OK. But you have accomplished only some convincing to this point. Your DC education and "welfare" budget numbers have not been sourced and it needs further investigation. The pretty pictures shows progress and you got me good there. DC is making an investment in improving public schools and you have convinced me that wealthier residents and DC-located businesses can bring significant benefit to the local population. But a question: how many DC public school teachers lost their jobs so the DC government can fund more school building projects? It's never a clean, clear happy ending because the Devil is Always in the Details. A supposed nuanced, logical thinker like yourself would understand that.
I am not a libertarian. I am not a communist. I do not cite Karl Marx nor do I apply Milton Friedman's philosophy in my arguments. See, you make an assumption and you happen to be wrong. Yes, I am a racist...all white people in America are racists. And you are too if you are white.
Why in god's name is a thread about the creative class in the DC thread? What's the next thread, brontosauruses stomping around Logan Circle? Those 2 things are equally pertinent problems in DC in 2013.
I sometimes actually think you have the heart of a capitalist with your "never say die!" competitive nature but the mind of a communist (or far left socialist, if that makes you feel better), which must be torture.
You're welcome to look at DC's budget numbers. The source is: DC's budget. It's public information.
Black people with money who were often raised in a tough urban environment leave the city for the same reasons you did: bigger home, less cost, better schools, safer neighborhoods. They're not being pushed out. The only reason U Street became such a thriving community was because it was the only place black people could thrive in that era. I'm pretty sure you would agree that the 1920s is not a great model for race relations.
I guess I just don't see any way to satiate your anger. If DC invests nothing in poor communities, you rightfully rise up with indignation. If DC invests, literally, billions, you concoct a conspiracy theory without evidence that they must be secretly doing it for rich people who, more than likely, will never live in some of these corners of the city. There's not enough teacher salaries to dent the capital budget for the number of schools being rebuilt around the city.
I sometimes actually think you have the heart of a capitalist with your "never say die!" competitive nature but the mind of a communist (or far left socialist, if that makes you feel better), which must be torture.
You're welcome to look at DC's budget numbers. The source is: DC's budget. It's public information.
Black people with money who were often raised in a tough urban environment leave the city for the same reasons you did: bigger home, less cost, better schools, safer neighborhoods. They're not being pushed out. The only reason U Street became such a thriving community was because it was the only place black people could thrive in that era. I'm pretty sure you would agree that the 1920s is not a great model for race relations.
I guess I just don't see any way to satiate your anger. If DC invests nothing in poor communities, you rightfully rise up with indignation. If DC invests, literally, billions, you concoct a conspiracy theory without evidence that they must be secretly doing it for rich people who, more than likely, will never live in some of these corners of the city. There's not enough teacher salaries to dent the capital budget for the number of schools being rebuilt around the city.
I think the article uses the term hipster when it should have used yuppie. And if there are no/few jobs in a given city (like Detroit as it says), there won't be any yuppies.
The fancy new libraries. The modern dead-tech new design high schools. Did you ever think that DC invested money in these projects because they want to spread gentrification to Wards 5, 6, 7 and 8? Did you ever think that maybe glitzy new public buildings is an enticement for outsiders to buy into DC real estate? That just maybe those beautiful schools were built for more wealthier, more non-black students moving into neighborhoods many years down the road? Working class black kids might be in those new buildings today but tomorrow...who knows.
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If beating me in an argument makes you feel good then OK. But you have accomplished only some convincing to this point. Your DC education and "welfare" budget numbers have not been sourced and it needs further investigation. The pretty pictures shows progress and you got me good there. DC is making an investment in improving public schools and you have convinced me that wealthier residents and DC-located businesses can bring significant benefit to the local population. But a question: how many DC public school teachers lost their jobs so the DC government can fund more school building projects? It's never a clean, clear happy ending because the Devil is Always in the Details. A supposed nuanced, logical thinker like yourself would understand that.
There was an extended period where public housing projects and new schools for poor urban students were built to look as cheap as possible (in some cases, the poor urban students attended beautiful old, but crumbling, schools like Cardozo that were originally built when the students attending the schools came from the middle class). Urban design can influence how people feel about their surroundings, and urban schools are now often in the forefront of building design (designers of suburban schools, since they generally are working with larger sites, typically don't feel called upon to be as creative).
You do raise a very important point, which is that it's easier to build fancy new buildings than it is to operate a first-class school system where teachers know what they're doing, have the proper support, and are held accountable for results. But they don't have to be mutually exclusive, and places like DC (where the enrollment in public/charter schools continues to be flat, or perhaps even slightly down, despite the growing population) need to start somewhere. If the end result is that some newcomers settle down in DC and send their kids to the public schools, rather than treat DC as a post-graduation temporary assignment, the city will benefit - and some of those same longer-term AA families who have been leaving DC for what they've seen as better opportunities in the suburbs may stay put as well.
I agree with JEB77. New architecture does lift the attitude of parents, students and others in the community. No one wants to learn in dumpy, moldy buildings with malfunctioning air conditioning and poor insulation.
However, no matter how fancy and hi-techy the structure, the students inside those buildings continue to struggle. For me, it's about people more than physical structure.
If students are still dropping out of school.
If students are still failing classes because they are having a difficult understanding the material.
If students are fighting in the hallways or bullying other kids. If students are cutting classes.
Then a high school building designed by the most innovative architectural firm in the US won't make a big difference.
Tackle poverty first. Reducing poverty means more money, more confidence, better parenting, less crime, kids less likely to join gangs or quit school etc. Reducing poverty means stability at home. Reducing poverty means the parent doesn't have to work 2 or 3 jobs to make ends meet. She can actually spend quality time with her kid on week nights and have enough money to buy her kid school clothes and supplies. May even have enough time to attend parent-teacher conferences.
Tackle improving public education next. Focus on teaching practices, curriculum structures, early childhood learning and pre-school development, and find out what works at the administrative level. Kids coming from home impoverished homes will almost always struggle. If the government can make inroads against poverty then educating the children becomes a much easier task for administrators and teachers.
Then blow your billions on vanity building projects.
The big project priorities of the DC government have been quixotic and backwards during the past decade.
But I hope JEB77 is right in that the new buildings may rub off on administrators, teachers and students. Maybe the collective will be motivated to change things. Somewhat pessimistic though.
right now DC still has a higher percentage of poor people than any other jurisdiction in the region. It has the responsibilities of both a city and a state, at a time when the federal govt is not increasing its support for the poor (medicaid expansion aside). DC needs its affluent taxpayers, whether parents or singles, whether millenials post college or boomer empty nesters, whether condo dwellers in NoMa or SFH lovers in upper NW, to pay for the services its provides to the poor.
Push a good chunk out to PG (or VA). Maybe one of these days they can even lower the state income tax a smidge. The idea of my tax dollars subsidizing people living for "free" makes me sick. Get robbed in the taxation process, then (literally) robbed again by the same people your tax dollars are supporting.
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