Help With iPad/iPhone and iPod Touch's With Mike: 10 Neighborhoods That Were Redefined By Gentrification

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This post originally appeared at Networx.

You know the old saying, "There goes the neighborhood"? In today's urban American real estate climate, it's more likely to mean that yuppies are moving into a lower-income neighborhood which ultimately will succumb to higher real estate prices, than that a neighborhood is becoming blighted by crime.

See 10 Neighborhoods That Were Redefined by Gentrification >

Pockets of my own neighborhood are getting gentrified, and I wanted to learn more about how the process played out in other neighborhoods. I interviewed three experts in urban gentrification research, who told me stories about 10 neighborhoods and enclaves that were redefined by gentrification.

What I learned is that the process is complex, and rarely (but occasionally) totally changes the character of a neighborhood or enclave. Did what they tell me make me less nervous about the possibility of getting priced out of my own neighborhood? Honestly, no. Still, it is interesting to see that the process of gentrification operates slightly differently in each city and enclave.

This list is just a sample of parts of cities that have been changed by "urban pioneers", real estate developers and commercial expansion. It's by no means exhaustive, and I invite you to discuss other gentrified neighborhoods and enclaves in the comments.

"There were several different waves of gentrification," said Dr. Japonica Brown-Saracino, a faculty member in the department of Sociology at Boston University whose book A Neighborhood That Never Changes: Gentrification, Social Preservation, and the Search for Authenticity (The Fieldwork Encounters and Discoveries Series of the University of Chicago Press, 2009) explores the Chicago neighborhoods Andersonville and Argyle.

Andersonville, Chicago

Andersonville's retail strip has become a destination for gourmet eating and one-of-a-kind boutique shopping. It's also known as a destination for lesbians and to a lesser extent gay men. Dr. John Betancur, Associate Professor in the Department of Urban Planning and Policy at the University of Illinois at Chicago, tells the story: "Andersonville has always been pretty much working-to-middle class…In that particular strip there was a large concentration of immigrants from Northern Europe, Swedish in particular. And therefore there was a strong Swedish identity and Swedish retail strip, but it was pretty much limited to that strip. The rest of the neighborhood had very different, distinct areas."

"First lesbians had moved in and participated in the gentrification of the neighborhood in the late 1970's early 1980's. After that the neighborhood started to become attractive to others. Artists moved in around the same time. Later more white, middle class families moved in and by the time that I was studying the neighborhood a lot of gay men had moved in and it was becoming quite expensive and more and more of a destination, whether it be for tourists or people within the city looking for a place to shop or go to dinner. So, on the one hand we could say it was sort of an organic process of resident-driven gentrification, but on the other hand there was a chamber of commerce, a coalition of business owners, that was really thinking about how to expand the commercial district of Andersonville to keep it hot and profitable. So they were strategically thinking about how to extend at least the neighborhood's commercial district north and south," Dr. Brown-Saracino said. She added that the city invested Neighborhoods Alive! funds to "beautify" streets and sidewalks.

According to Dr. Brown-Saracino, Andersonville has expanded into multiple portions of Uptown (to the south) and Edgewater (to the north). Neither has disappeared; they have just been made smaller by the changing boundaries.

"Uptown is a very racially diverse neighborhood in Chicago with a relatively high poverty rate with pockets of gentrification and pockets of concentrated poverty. The Argyle portion of Uptown has a [relatively large] population of Asian immigrants; a lot of Vietnamese and Chinese residents; a fair number of African Americans [and Latinos]; a long tradition of 'Lefty' activism in the neighborhood as well; and a lot of SRO's housing people with various disabilities," said Dr. Brown-Saracino. While some residents of Uptown have been pushed out by rising real estate prices, Dr. Brown-Saracino said that some of the housing there has remained affordable due to community activism.

Halsted Street North, Chicago

"Halsted Street North is a part of Lakeview, which used to be very much kind of deteriorated corridor and now it has become a destination for anyone who wants to go and have a night of gay life, or a day, because there is a clustering of gay-oriented retail, and that has made that strip change identity completely," said Dr. Betancur. "Now it is viewed as a gay enclave which is mostly because of the retail, not because of who lives there. It is a very expensive neighborhood and it's not a necessarily a residential gay enclave, it's more like a gay motif that gave identity to that strip," he said.

"It's also called 'Boys Town'. It goes from Belmont Street to Grace along Halsted Street –

a quite long strip. If you get out of that strip it is a whole different world. Clark Street, which is the next large thoroughfare and retail street west to it, is geared toward people who go to the Cubs games," said Dr. Betancur.

Pilsen, Chicago

"Pilsen is one of the best-known communities in Chicago and the last identity was Mexican, and before that the identity was Czechoslovakian. The east side of Pilsen has been very much gentrified and the main core and identity has been art," said Dr. Betancur.

"There was the formation of an art colony there that concentrated on open galleries that started doing shows and catered to the public. It became a cultural enclave destination within a Mexican neighborhood, carved out at the expense of Mexicans; now it's predominantly white. It didn't take the whole neighborhood, it took a corner of it," Dr. Betancur said.

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