“Gentrification” is one of the big places where the left exposes their insane white guilt. It’s really funny actually, on the one hand, they want to be super progressive and multicultural and that means moving into “diverse” (i.e., nonwhite) urban neighborhoods. But no sooner have they unpacked their bags there, and they are on to feeling guilty that their very presence there is resulting in the displacement of the people who are already there, and somehow have some God-given right to exclusively be there.
And then being the good liberal white people that they are, of course they are going to want to contribute to the general health and well-being of the neighborhood by fixing up houses, starting businesses, calling the police on hookers and drug dealers, and then as soon as they do that, they are feeling even more guilty not only for their very presence, but now they’ve actively worked to rid the neighborhood of its rightful owners.
It’s pretty funny . . .
It was only in the 1920s that the demographics, there, changed. And in the past few decades, whites have been moving there, so it's now quite a "diverse" neighborhood.
And since he teaches in Jersey...what was he doing in Harlem anyway, don't the have burger joints in N.J.?