There is someone moving into the neighborhood today, who in 5-10 years will complain that gentrification moved them out. This thought came to me after a quick conversation with an older woman (maybe not quite senior citizen) who was moving into a rental house. A house that has been ‘affordable’ since I’ve been in the neighborhood. And it has had a fair amount of turnover (but that’s because the landlady is horrible) so it remains a housing option.
There is little purity in the gentrification that happens in this neighborhood. All the poor people do not move out at the same time to be replaced by people with more money. Not all the landowners sell when the market is hot, some keep holding on, maybe through greed or apathy, and then the market cools. There is loss, there are fewer housing options for lower income groups, however there isn’t a 100% loss of affordable housing from the market.
I write this from what I’ve observed on my block. At least three houses (there might be more) in the six years I’ve been noticing appear to fall in the ‘affordable’ category and they though the crazy RE market and it’s current cooling have had some turnover with tenants and yet have had the same kind of tenant.
Day: July 23, 2007
What is this?
So before the renovation, I threw seeds in things and on the ground. So the front yard is whatever survived construction workers throwing stuff on top, stepping on, etc. The backyard is whatever was there before and this thing.
Look at the picture. What the hey is this thing? It is in a pot so there is a 70% chance I put it there. At first I thought it was a cucumber because the plant is kinda small and it is a clingy plant. Well when the fruit got bigger than a golf ball I knew, not a cucumber. Cuke has little thorny bits, this has soft hairs.
So I had Jimbo come over and used his plant superpowers to determine what it was. First guess was watermelon. But the leaves were wrong for watermelon. Second answer, don’t know. Then somehow Jim put on his landscape architecture hat and made all sorts of suggestions of turning into some garden with a water feature.
So I’m taking this to the people. Any guesses of what this is?