Do We Really Need Another Starbucks?
I have only been in Washington D.C. for two and a half years while studying at The George Washington University, but in the short amount of time that I have been here I have witnessed many changes in the D.C. neighborhoods. The gentrification scenario for many of these neighborhoods is a similar process. First, luxury apartments are built and then a Starbucks pops up along with a Chipotle. The income of new businesses attracts similar business, and suddenly other cafes that want to separate themselves from mainstream Starbucks, although they are equally as pricey, pop up along with small restaurants. Eventually the neighborhood’s social demographics change because of the enticing “revitalization” of the neighborhood. But what happens to the original residents of the neighborhood?
As time goes on the locals, who are no longer able to afford the prices of the area, are pushed out along with the original local businesses that simply cannot compete with the new commercial businesses. Although the neighborhoods do benefit from less crime and cleaner streets, the original residents cannot afford to reap the benefits. Slowly but surely, the neighborhoods are transformed into a hipster paradise. If you do not believe me, take a walk on 7th Street from Howard University to Chinatown and you will feel like you are traveling at light speed through two different areas of the same city simultaneously. For two blocks you will be surrounded by run down buildings and then for the next two blocks there are luxury apartments, and this pattern continues on and on. The U-Street corridor, once a black mecca, is now surrounded by new clubs, new luxury apartments and new cafes populated by hipsters that want to a part of the revival of U-Street.
Even the HBCU Mecca, Howard University, has not been spared from gentrification. Howard has leased land to Jair Lynch Real Estate Partners where the Meridian Hill dormitory was located at for 99 years (now closed). For 22 million dollars the firm will create luxury high-rise apartments. Another dormitory at Howard, Carver Hall, suffers the same fate. With limited housing, Howard students are left with non-guaranteed housing after their freshmen year, and they must find other means of off-campus housing by dealing with the high cost rental market in our Nation’s capital.
The main thing lost through gentrification is culture; once gentrification sweeps through a neighborhood all that is left behind is a Starbucks, cafés that distance themselves from Starbucks, overpriced restaurants that lack diversity, and unaffordable luxury apartments. Gone are the ethnic restaurants and the local family-run stores, and I cannot help but wonder: Where are these individuals whom have been kicked out of their neighborhood, and where are they going? Their once affordable lifestyles become unaffordable, and they must find other means of living, usually lower means, in order to survive in D.C. I constantly hear stories of U-Street before the gentrification occurred, and I must say I get jealous since I will never be able to appreciate what it once was. This piece is not to inform you on gentrification, as it is a process I am pretty sure most of us have experienced or witness, but rather it this piece is to show just how aggressive this process is.
Douglas-Gabriel, Danielle. "Howard University Signs Deal to Turn Meridian Hill Dorm into Luxury Rentals." Washington Post. The Washington Post, n.d. Web.
