Posted on 05/07/2012 9:02:38 AM PDT by ruralvoter
For a year, Julio Benitez, 61, has complained to his landlord about the unpatched walls, leaky bathtub and broken electrical outlets in his apartment. Down the hall, where Paul Fisette, 28, moved in a month ago, everything is new, from the paint to the appliances. When the garbage disposal broke recently, the landlord replaced it by 11 a.m. the next day.
Welcome to the New Hampshire, where the underprivileged and upscale exist under the same roof, part of a shift in the District’s housing stock that experts say is likely to change the face of the city for decades to come. Fueled by a strong job market for young professionals and a credit crunch that has made condominium conversion difficult, low-income apartment buildings are undergoing rapid makeovers to meet the demand for upscale housing.
As a result, low-cost rental housing is now disappearing at a faster rate than it was during the height of the housing boom, according to a new analysis of census data by the D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute. Median rents soared by as much as 50 percent between 2000 and 2010, with much of that increase taking place during the downturn, the analysis found.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
What they’re really complaining about is the lack of affordable Section 8 housing. Anyone can google what the percentage of well-paid government workers vs. what the percentage of low/no income (save EITC, etc) DC residents is. The media is just trying to drum up controversy and an air of ‘things are well and good’.
Gays and yuppies- the new urban pioneers
The rest of the country is suffering while our tax money is funneled to DC, driving up the standard of living and costs there.
Gentrification is being driven by people who are sick and tired of spending most of their non-work waking hours in their cars. Sitting. In something that would be called “traffic” if it were moving.
As more and more city neighborhoods get the yuppie to junkie ratio headed the right way, this process accelerates. If we vouchered the schools, it would become a stampede.
I know !!!
What say we cut the FedGov back to Constitutional size?
That'll sure change the DC housing market ...
Believe it or not according to my relatives that can remember that far back, Minnesota Ave and Anacostia used to be where the professionals used to live in DC. It was real nice about 60 years ago.
Agree, to a degree. Minnesota had a good category of resident, but Ward 4 (top of DC on the map) had and has the “Gold Coast” and Silver Coast. Very upper class black. Minnesota was a level down. East of the Anacostia River has always been one level down. And $100K-$200K less than the same house in Ward 4. Face it, Prince Georges County is just next door. 30-40 years it was heavily Southern Maryland “cracker”. Now PG is mostly where those Minnesota Avenue folks went. Some very nice places out there, as well as some not so nice garden apartments.
Things are very dynamic at this point, and gentrification is not slowing down. BTW, gentrification also includes black people from outside of DC. The local community doesn’t know how to handle them either.
DC is “gentrifying” at such an alarming rate that the Black Democrat power structure is starting to freak-out about the potential loss of their “chocolate city”.
Gentrification - The process of transforming a garbage strewn, crime ridden, drug infested neighborhood into a nice place to live.
I spent a week in DC/NoVa in April.
I was impressed how prosperous things are there.
You don’t see the AVAILABLE and FOR RENT signs on all the commercial buildings like here in the heartland.
Lots of big cranes on the skyline and new buildings going up.
Help wanted signs all over.
Restaurants busy, busy, busy.
The Fedgov is bleeding us to death.
We’ll have to go there with pitchforks and Molotov cocktails someday.
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