Neighborhoods change, and change is hard

In the early aughts when I decided to research my neighborhood's history, I didn't realize that would make me the authority for the history of 19 blocks in the nation's Capitol. In addition to diving into the history, I also was, and after a 2-3 year break am still, operating a blog observing the "gentrification" taking place in those 19 blocks, and in the larger neighborhood. The TruxtonCircle.org website and the InShaw blog reflect change over 138 years.

Shaw, specifically the Truxton Circle neighborhood that is part of Shaw, went from a randomly and diversely populated area on the edge of Washington City in the post- Civil War years to a dense and sometimes crowded African American neighborhood in the 1930s. In the last 20 years it is becoming diversely populated again. The city and its native population has not always been thrilled with whatever wave of newcomers come crashing in with whatever war (Civil, First and Second World Wars, or the ongoing War on Terror) nor with the refugees from slavery or the Great Migration. Just when the natives get things the way they want it, all these new people come in and change things up.

Now that demographic change is called gentrification. Evictions and displacement due to crime go fairly unnoticed in the parts of the city where the bloggers and journalists and their audience do not live in large numbers. However, in the neighborhoods where the creative class lives, evictions and displacement due to market forces are keenly analyzed with a library of books, articles, blog posts and tweets written on the topic.

Gentrification is a reward for the owners who lived through the rough years of high crime. Unless they are in some sort of protected housing, renters lose out. The lower income inheritors and the working and middle class owners who managed to hang on have won the housing equity lottery, with a massive transfer of housing wealth provided by their neighbors and developers.

It is also a shot in the arm or a boost for a neighborhood long suffering from disinvestment. The 1968 riots scarred the neighborhood with burned out and abandoned buildings falling apart via demolition by neglect. What gentrification has done was bring in waves of contractors, builders, roofers, plumbers, electricians, masons, welders, and very enthusiastic DIYers who brought homes and buildings up to code (or parts up to code) and breathed new life in the housing stock. This was not going to save every building (some were torn down) but for the buildings shown the the photos here, it took dilapidated buildings and gave them new life.