There’s a swell article about gentrification in New Orleans by Tulane Perfesser Richard Campanella online at New geography.com. There’s been a lot of it post-Katrina and it’s a mixed bag. I have no issue with people renovating houses, opening galleries and such, but *some* of the new arrivals are hipster douchebags who want the locals to be grateful that they deigned to move here. I’m a transplant myself but I chose to *become* a local instead of hectoring them about how life is better with trend hopping Trustafarians pricing old hippies, black folks, and working class whites out of the Bywater neighborhood.
I may have officially become an old fart this evening. Frankly, I cannot decide who has been worse for New Orleans in the post-K era, hipsters, planners or NIMBYs. Let’s call the whole thing off:
Bingo. There’s nothing like another community’s hardship to prove one’s own self-worth. Maybe a hat map would help.
I may be an old fart too, but you speak the truth and that’s worth a hell of a lot more than a poseur.
And if the hipsters moving in leads to increased property value (becomes increased property taxes which push out the folks who have been there for generations) – no problem.
And if in the pursuit of the French-Quarter culture of NOLA they push out that culture – no problem.
And if they are left with a bunch of folks who have eradicated the culture but sit around pretending their facade of that culture is real – no problem.
I saw this happen in the Carolina coast and admittedly take it rather personally.
Just ignore them. Take heart. They eventually find somewhere more hipster.