People in your neighborhood

MB and I were in Little Tokyo last night when we ran into a friend of ours, Devon Paulson, in front of Spitz. It turns out he designed and built the interior, including the amazing metal sculpture that hangs next to the back counter. Devon is partially responsible for us moving downtown. They don't live here, but Devon has regular shows and performance at Bert Green's gallery and we first got to know downtown when Devon invited us to Art Walk. So a very cool encounter and another reason we like downtown--you run into people you know on the street--what a concept!

The G-word

From Time magazine:

Gentrification: Not Ousting the Poor?

People tend to think gentrification goes like this: rich, educated white people move into a low-income minority neighborhood and drive out its original residents, who can no longer afford to live there. As it turns out, that's not typically true.

A new study by researchers at the University of Colorado at Boulder, University of Pittsburgh and Duke University, examined Census data from more than 15,000 neighborhoods across the U.S. in 1990 and 2000, and found that low-income non-white households did not disproportionately leave gentrifying areas. In fact, researchers found that at least one group of residents, high school–educated blacks, were actually more likely to remain in gentrifying neighborhoods than in similar neighborhoods that didn't gentrify — even increasing as a fraction of the neighborhood population, and seeing larger-than-expected gains in income.

...

The new study found that while gentrification did not necessarily push out original residents, it did create neighborhoods that middle-class minorities moved to. The addition of white college graduates, especially those under 40 without children, was a hallmark of gentrifying neighborhoods — that much fit the conventional wisdom — but so was the influx of college-educated blacks and Hispanics, who moved to gentrifying neighborhoods more often than they to did similar, more static areas. Two other groups tended to move more often into upwardly mobile neighborhoods as well: 40-to-60-year-old Hispanics without a high-school degree, and similarly uneducated Hispanics aged 20 to 40 with children — a counterpoint to the common conception of gentrification, if there ever was one. The only group that was less likely to move to a gentrifying area was high school–educated whites aged 20 to 40 with kids.

Really fascinating. I guess I fit the profile since I'm a college-educated Nuyorican who's lived in gentrified neighborhoods most of her adult life (with a brief detour in Brentwood when I first moved to LA--aiee!). I've always enjoyed living in neighborhoods that are economically and culturally diverse, and that's what you find in gentrified neighborhoods.

It's also interesting in the context of the Historic Core since this is not your typical gentrifying neighborhood. Most of the loft buildings were abandoned before developers came in and renovated them. Very few people have been displaced and the residency hotels show no signs of going away. Even the retail businesses catering to poor/working class Latinos shows no signs of going away anytime soon. Bert Green insists that it's not gentrification but revitalization, and I think he has a point.

Update: A developer's POV on gentrification. Via the LA Times.

Random Stuff

Met Bert Green at a friend's daughter's birthday party. He rode his bicycle to the party in Griffith Park. On Saturday. When it was 100 degrees. That's way more hardcore than I'll ever be. Bert is bursting with energy and in about ten minutes we got the complete scoop on downtown. It's very cool knowing someone who's been in the nabe since the beginning of the revitalization.

Bert told MB and I that there are periodic blogger get-togethers downtown, so hopefully I'll meet the people on our blogroll sometime soon.

...

Heard from the building manager this morning that our roof pool will now be shutting down at 9 pm. Apparently there are people bringing 100 of their closest friends to the roof and partying until the wee hours. They're also bringing glass to the pool area, which is not a good idea given that broken glass in water becomes invisible. At least we're not the only building with pool problems. Pool misbehavior is apparently common downtown.

Meanwhile, after a month and a half, the building is almost completely rented. This includes two apartments in the basement where the only light comes from skylights (as MB puts it, a "dim blue glow from the ceiling"). I'm not sure who would want to live down there, though I suppose if you're a studio photographer, not having much natural light could be a good thing.