Cities, Neighborhoods, and Communities

[Emiliano]

New York probably isn't any better though, if not more defiant.

That really depends on where you are. I think of the biggest misconceptions about NYC is that it's just a big city. This is more like a city of many tiny neighborhoods, and each one is very distinct and different. It's very obvious when you cross from one into another. Just traveling a few blocks in NYC and it can feel like you're in a whole other country. So I mean how people treat you depends so much on where you're at, and if you're a face they recognize or not, or if you're clearly not from around there.

I've basically lived in two neighborhoods - the one I was born in and grew up in, and the one I moved to about 5 years ago. My old neighborhood is mostly immigrant and black, lower and working class, but pretty tight knit. When I walk around with my mom who still lives out there, it can take an hour to get 3 blocks because people are always stopping and chatting.

Where I live now is a neighborhood that's rapidly gentrifying. And even in the time I've lived here, I've seen a big change not only in the demographics, but in the behavior of the street. It's a mostly black neighborhood still, and is just blocks from the historically sort of artsy black neighborhood of Fort Greene. So you see a lot of old school people hanging out on stoops and with folding chairs on corners talking to people. But more and more young white people are moving in and there's less and less of that.

People get off the bus or their bikes and go inside. They are carrying whole foods bags, trader joe bags, not the black plastic ones from buying things in the bodegas or supermarkets in the area. You don't really see the new people hanging out on steps or participating in any aspect of the culture of the street. There's a group of guys that hang out on the corner playing cards - old guys, not like selling drugs or being intimidating or anything, and I heard them talking about how someone called the cops on them recently for suspicious behavior... So there's some major cultural misunderstanding going on here.

I wouldn't call white people in the area I live in as a neutral force. Not that gentrification is a straight up bad thing or that I'm saying that white people are aggressive or don't have a right to live in these neighborhoods. But I still wouldn't call it neutral.