Who are the people in your neighborhood?

This afternoon on a way to a meeting a walked through a neighborhood that is in the midst of serious gentrification. Passing each brick row home, I would glance at the door. Either they were shalacked in shiny new paint and adorned with bright brass knockers, or their varnish was peeling and the 1950's-era burnished stars still hung around the peep hole. On the window sills there were dying spider plants, silver candlesticks, geodes, china boxes, Pottery Barn-framed pictures, and yellowing papers. In the shadows of one entryway I spotted a stroller, and outside another home was a metal folding chair with a mangy pillow that had a big greasy spot in the middle. I walked around two painters' ladders just on one block.

Every time I move in an easterly direction in this city, I'm stuck by all the new construction. One the one hand, there is a real excitement I feel looking at these fixed up row-houses and renovated buildings. Their freshness conveys hope and energy in areas that to me appear dull and depressed. But my enhusiasm is tempered.

Across the street from the organization I work for (here after referred to as The Org), two new condominium buildings have been erected and the penthouses are going for a million bucks. Ironically, The Org chose its location because the area was home to many of the people we serve, ie: low-income families. These families are now getting pushed into other poorer, more dangerous areas of the city, and The Org's long-range plan now includes a likely move to a new site, least we become inaccessible to those we are trying to support.

There are studies that show school children living in poverty who attend mixed-income schools perform better. It's an asset for children to become aware of a variety of economic circumstances through their peers at a young age. But my experience of these new mixed-income neighborhoods makes me appreciate what a delicate balance it takes to create a thriving, economically-diverse area.

Do I believe in mixed-income housing? Absolutely! As these new neighborhoods boom, boom, boom... explode! families who have been living there for the last decade shouldn't be uprooted because their rent is skyrocketing now that they live in a newly desirable area. They should be able to benefit from the economic turn-around, and their kids should be able to benefit from going to school with more affluent kids, and spending time around over-academically-educated adults. And in theory, I want to live in one of these mixed-income areas. But in reality, when I leave my friend D's house at night to walk home, alternately passing picket fence and chain link fence, my sense of safety vanishes, and I hail a cab to take me the 1/2 mile to my doorstep.