Is It Still The "Hood" if the Neighborhood is Being Gentrified??

[newworldafro]

What makes it the hood are that it is lower income, "seemingly" more crime, lower property values, and a host of other disparities................oh yeah it is black or Hispanic. Now take the same community and throw in a couple of whites with some money or college students and a smattering of other races, who are now walking their dogs, jogging, biking, tearing down old homes to build new ones, filling in vacant lots with new townhomes, opening a cafe here or there......is it still the hood??

I ask this question, cause I live in "hood", but the "Gentrifiers" are making their way here quite gradually. Every time I drive or bike through the neighborhood, I see a new rendering of some town homes, a house under renovation, a brand new beautiful gated home, a white guy jogging in the afternoon with with his dog. I got a new employment opportunity with more money and was thinking about leaving, but I actually like being here, cause it is close to so many amenities. I could try and pay for some overpriced new dwelling or rent here, but it ain't financially smart of me to do so right now. I could move further out and be stuck in a regular apartment complex, and look out my window and see nothing but a parking lot and 10-15 minute drive from where I am now.

Long story short, I brought a chick to crib and told her, she was in Third Ward, Houston. She said that's the hood. I said is it still the hood if white people are moving in here? She had no response. BTW, Third Ward, actually has a massive area with large nice homes with middle and upper class blacks living there, this is Beyonce's area, but then there is the part of the same neighborhood that looks like Hurricane Katrina hit, literally. I sorta live in the middle ground.

Spoiler

Yes I smashed that AKA p*ssy

Is it still the hood if white people find the area attractive?? No c00nism.

 

[newworldafro]

Another thing that is funny about living here in Houston the last two years. Is that besides the obvious stereotype of Third Ward is that businesses will claim they are in other neighborhood on their advertisements. There is the new bar that opened up frequented by older black people. When it first opened up, they advertised that they were in Midtown, which is about 7 or 8 blocks on the other side of the freeway... .. That tells you right there, what's in a name. Nobody wants to be associated with something, deemed negative.

So I got a funny feeling that there will come a point...as the gentrifiers take up more of the population, when the real estate industry will start to refer to the neighborhood as SeaDo as in Southeast of Downtown.......mark my words on this, not anytime soon, but if its starts to hit 40% Gentrifiers .There is already an area called EaDO as in East of Downtown that is basically one big gentrifiers paradise.

I don't have problem with improving areas....hell I like to see urban areas get better, but provide for those existing residents too. ...I just wish more young middle class black folks could reclaim these urban areas, but I guess either the population isn't there, the income isn't quite there to pay for these more expensive new digs, and maybe the desire to have a yard and relatively affordable large home is deemed better than buying a condo, renting an apartment or skinny 3 story townhome. Amenities be damned.

 

[scarlxrd]

I don't think so. I lived in Cutler Ridge, subdivision of Miami before Hurricane Andrew pushed everyone out back in the 90's. Going back now, it's the same houses but different owners.