Check out the whole post “Woolly Mammoth’s Clybourne Park Looks at Gentrification” it all out at Borderstan (Dupont-Logan-U Street).
Gentrification and Borderstan
Gentrification is a topic of discussion in DC because the city’s demographics are changing: less African-American and more white, Asian and Latino. More upper middle class and few working class and poor.
The Logan Circle, Shaw and U Street neighborhoods have all seen huge influxes of new residents, many of whom have more education and higher incomes than many of the long-time residents of the area. Moreover, the majority of the new residents are not African-American.
Some of the change is due to the newcomers moving into existing residences where African-Americans previously lived. However, it is also due to the huge number of new—and expensive—residential buildings constructed in the past five to 10 years. The rapid demographic changes in the Borderstan area in the past decade are astounding. (Also, see “DC’s 600,000 People: The Redistricting Angle.”)
The change in local retail is another one of the major shifts that comes with gentrification. The recently arrived expensive restaurants and boutiques on the 14th and U Street corridors are examples. So is the 1400 block of P Street NW (yes, there was life before Whole Foods). If you have lived in the neighborhood less than seven to 10 years, it is difficult to fathom the enormity of the change. It is not just the number of new businesses, but how different they are in terms of their customer base.”
