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City life, the new version #gentrification #race #washingtondc #columbiaheights #diversity #disparity #cities #suburbs (at The Wonderland Ballroom)
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Where The Creative Class Lives. The Brain & Nervous System of America?
From The Atlantic. Interesting lede & thesis: “In a fascinating 2011 study, the economist Todd Gabe identified the key factors behind this creative class wage premium. He found it is less the result of working around people or firms in the same industry and more about interacting with other creative workers who reside in the same region. Creative class wages are also higher in larger cities and metros that offer more diversity across different kinds of creative work.”The article ranks metro areas where it pays to be a member of the creative class. “Professionals in the fields of science and technology, design and architecture, arts, entertainment and media, and healthcare, law, management and education.” The unemployment in that sector—one that President Obama claims he represents, and Mitt Romney has skirted to court the redneck/ban evolution/anti climate change vote. The Number One place: San Jose, CA. Silicon Valley.
Diversity? Somewhat. The number one region’s tech sector anchor isn’t exactly a font for people of color, but others are, such as the Boston to DC Megaplex, or Raleigh-Durham, Houston.
Perhaps the candidates ought to pay attention. Yes, hardhats, displaced public sector employees, gum chewing Wal Mart clerks, are the keys to swing state votes. But the vital nerve center of those states and this nation, increasingly, are the creative class. How European!
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Gentrification: Blackfolks, Whitefolks, Other Folks, by the Numbers
Here are the top 25 zipcodes in the nation registering the largest increase in percentage & change, even switcheroo, in “NonHispanic whites.” Yes some nice old live-oak neighborhoods in Chattanooga, or Columbia, SC or Charleston, SC are in play, but look at the number of zips in Brooklyn and here in Washington, DC. Note the Chicago zipcode shows any remaining poor folks north of Printers Row…and any empty warehouses…being shown their hats (or tin roofs). So there we have more a species of urban redevelopment than true gentrification. Indeed that’s likely what’s going as Harbor East, Fells Point and Canton expand in Baltimore. No one is moving into W. Baltimore Street & Fulton Avenue, I assure you. Now you know why Fish in the Hood changed it’s name…
The Textual, Tactile, Tittilating, Tantrum-ridden, Totally multimedia musings & sometime portfolio of Dangerfield Newby, by and through is instrument on Earth, Christopher Alan Chambers. Newby died in 1859 in John Brown's raid on the federal company town of Harpers Ferry. White townspeople fed his dead body to pigs. He joined Brown to forstall the sale of his wife, not to start a revolution. And in dying, he started a revolution. His body's long disintegrated into loam; his consciousness survives in bits and bytes. Enjoy. Engage. Enrage.
Chambers is alive, of course, and lives 80 miles from Harpers Ferry in Washington DC. He teaches at Georgetown University, contributes to RT America, MSNBC and Smithsonian Magazine.
