The Reality of Selling Cultural Diversity

http://www.citylab.com/housing/2015/in-gentrifying-neighborhoods-diversity-can-be-decorative/390390/?utm_source=nl_daily_link4_042015

Columbia Heights neighborhood, near Howard University
Washington D.C.
dc.teachforamerica.org

Hello Everyone:

Once again we are going to visit the issue of diversity and gentrification.  We first looked at this subject on April 20 in a post titled "Unintended Positive Consequences."  In this post, we looked at Héctor Tobar's New York Times opinion-editorial, titled "Viva Gentrification" which identified the City of Highland Park as an example of gentrifying diverse community. (http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/03/22/opinion/sunday/viva-gentrification.html?ref=opinion&smid=tw-nytopinion&_r=3&referrer=).  Tanvi Misra takes up the subject with her City Lab article, "In Gentrifying Neighborhoods, 'Diversity' Can Be Decorative."  Ms. Misra looks at how diversity is used as a selling point rather than reflect the reality of the community.

Foggy Bottom neighborhood at night
Washington D.C,
clubglow.com

Tanvi Misra describes her own neighborhood, "If you look up my D.C. neighborhood on Craigslist or AirBnb, it's often going to be tagged with the word 'diverse.'"  Mexican and Salvadoran restaurants are sprinkled around...Over the last few years, trendy little cafes and gourmet pizza places have cropped up on the street corners."  Her neighborhood has become a magnet for young professionals like Ms. Misra.  It should sound familiar because this is precisely what Mr. Tobar wrote in his editorial.  However, instead of taking the typical route, bemoaning gentrification as curse of ethnic neighborhoods.  Mr. Tobar found a silver lining, he argued "it's unintentionally become an antidote to racial segregation:"

In Highland Park, as in other Latino barrios of Los Angeles, gentrification has produced an undeniable but little appreciated side effect: the end of decades of de facto racial segregation.  It's possible to imagine a future in which the hood passes into memory.  Racial integration is on the upswing; for that, a cry of  Viva gentrification! is in order.  (Ibid)

Woodley Park/Cleveland Park at night
Washington D.C.
washington.org

This sounds like the exact opposite of yesterday's post on self-segregation, which discussed how affluent suburban communities separated themselves, literally and metaphorically from their urban. low-income neighbors.  In this case, the segregation was intentional because there seemed to be no incentive for suburbanites to interact with urbanites.  However, in Ms. Misra's article, we find that diversity is a real estate selling point. Forget the number rule of real estate sales "location, location, location," now it is diversity sells.

Takoma Theatre
Takoma neighborhood, Washington D.C.
dc.urbanturf.com

Héctor Tobar makes an excellent case for bubbling enthusiastic, but as Tanvi Misra writes, "...it's important to point out that 'cultural diversity' can mean lots of things to lots of people."  A recent paper published in Urban Studies, by Miguel de Oliver of the University of Texas, San Antonio; titled "Gentrification as as the appropriation of therapeutic 'diversity': A model and case study of the multicultural amenity of contemporary urban renewal," argues that "'cultural diversity' has become a decorative feature instead of social ideal-a superficial label used to attract bohemian and upper-middle-class residents rather than a signal of equality for all residents." (http://www.usj.sagepub.com)

According to Mr. de Oliver, A lot of these neighborhoods are selling cultural diversity...Often the term is being marketed as an amenity to the upper-middle class in environments flavored with minority aesthetics which contrast with suburbia.  Aaron Wiener of the Washington City Paper wrote, That doesn't make someone who wants to live in a diverse neighborhood a bad person.  But once a neighborhood does change, the original residents feel the pinch,...while the newcomers can usually afford to stay.  (http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs.housingcomplex/author/awiener/)

Homes on L Street NE
Carver Langston neighborhood, Washington D.C.

dc.urbanturf.com

On an optimistic note, Ms. Misra writes, "If former residents also manage to keep living there, they too can benefit from upgrades in the area-but to what extent and for how long is questionable."  The last part of this statement is key because once long-time residents leave the neighborhood, they cease to benefit from the improvements, while their former neighborhood continues to be sold "with a seal of diversity to others."  Ms. Misra fails to point out the irony of this situation-once the very people and businesses that made a neighborhood "culturally diverse" leave, the neighborhood loses the very thing that made it attractive to begin.  Thus the "seal of diversity" is totally hollow.

One result of this hollow "seal of diversity," according to Miguel de Oliver, is low-income and minority have been relegated to the back of urban renewal bus that is fueled on a cultural diversity ethic for which they were once first in line...Way to the back.  At times, they are not even on it.