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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]DC, particularly the walkable core of the city.  [/quote]

:XD: joke of the day[/quote]

I'm guessing you haven't spent time there in the last decade.  Or maybe you're just a Republican?

I've found that the urban core attracts some of the most friendly, unaffected, independent thinking, interesting, and interest[u]ed[/u] people I've ever known.  These are mostly highly educated, intellectual-leaning, dual career families who have opted not to lose an hour or two of each day to commuting; instead, they (and I) spend that time with the kids and each other at one of many local playgrounds.  There seems to be very little cattiness and pressure to keep up with the Joneses, in part because people don't seem to be as bored and lonely here as they are in the 'burbs (boredom breeds nastiness, don't you think?) and in part because one can only accumulate so many toys in a downtown rowhouse (even a 1-2 million dollar rowhouse).  I also think urban core-dwellers feel less of a need to entertain and define themselves with the mall-bought trappings of success because there are so many small pleasures and adventures just outside the front door, and we all get to share them.  There are definitely times when I think about trading my independent coffee shops and steps-away restaurants and frequent stroller trips to Whole Foods for room-sized closets and expansive parking lots with no meters to feed, but if "good people" is the only test, I'd stay in the urban core any day--specifically Georgetown, Dupont and Logan Circles, Shaw, Greater U Street, and Ledroit Park/Bloomingdale[/quote]

That would be lovely, if only it were remotely true.  The urban core is largely where insecure, mostly white careerists who are afraid to be more than 10 minutes away from their current jobs have gathered.  They have no qualms about displacing older, AA residents of the city, nor any reservations about engaging in cut-throat tactics to get their children into "desirable" schools and local charters.  In larger numbers, their overwhelming sameness and smugness becomes almost unbearable.  They talk a good game when it comes to matters of diversity, but are profoundly uncomfortable among those of lesser means.  Their sanitized, Whole Foods version of urban life has redefined what it means to be "cookie-cutter" today. [/quote]

NP here.  I live in the area PP defined as "urban core" - specifically in Bloomingdale.  I've lived there 10 years now, and certainly haven't displaced any older AA residents - though I have renovated a blighted home that was previously unoccupied.  In 10 years on my block I don't know of any older AA residents who have been "displaced".  I know several who have died, some who moved to situations where they could have their health needs met (with family, or in care homes), but none who have been displaced.  In fact, in many conversations with said "older AA residents", they have welcomed the changes in the neighborhood.  Remember, these are people who lived through the crack years, heavy crime and a time where people but bars on their windows and boarded up the skylights/roof access hatches to keep out intruders.  These are stories they have shared with me, along with descriptions of how everyone knew each other and looked out for each other back before crack hit, and that earlier last century (and some families have been there that long) in the 40s or so, the neighborhood was predominantly white.  Times change.

But what second PP is missing is that it's not just "white careerists" who are staying in the city, or buying up homes in areas like Bloomingdale.  Gentrification isn't a "white" thing.  Many of the new home owners on my block are affluent African Americans.  Bloomingdale in particular attracts many Howard graduates, for example.  The "new" residents who are supposedly "displacing" the older residents (who, BTW, generally own their homes outright and are now sitting on a small fortune and property prices have sky rocketed) are of all races and ethnicities and national origin, not to mention a variety of ages, gay, straight, with kids and without.  What they are less likely to be, is poor.[/quote]

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