In the reading “Building the Frontier Myth” Smith gives an overview of how certain neighborhoods had evolved from time to time. The reading talks about various example of NYC neighborhood, such as Lower East Side, SoHo, Ludlow Street and etc. This reading really surprised me. It shows me how gentrification has changed certain neighborhood physically as well as how it changed people’s attitude toward these neighborhoods.

Real estate people were using the phrase “The Taming of the Wild Wild West” to describe their project of building new condominium two blocks west of Times Square. They declared, “West 42nd Street has been tamed, domesticated and polished into the most exciting freshest, most energetic new neighborhood in all of New York.” Times Square has gone through many large transformations. From a neighborhood where people didn’t even want to go at night, to today the most glamorous area of the city. It caused the nearby property value to increase, and eventually there weren’t a lot of people who can afford to live there.

Another interesting part of the reading is about the gentrification process took place in SoHo. I had been to SoHo couple times, but I didn’t really like it. It has so many fashion boutiques and art galleries. It was interesting to know that SoHo has gone through gentrification, yet some of the surrounding neighborhoods still seem to be not affected by this process. I know Chinatown is near SoHo area, however, I am not sure if gentrification of SoHo has significant impacts in certain area of Chinatown’s property value or other nearby neighborhoods. Compare to many years ago, when SoHo first got famous, it might have increased the nearby property value.

This reading also talks about frontier, which is constantly changing. “The new urban frontier motif encodes not only the physical transformation of the built environment.“ Smith says that the changing of frontier does not occur only through the physical transformation. At the same time, through the process of gentrification, people’s attitude toward certain neighborhood also changes. Eventually people started to accept them, and want to live in the area where they didn’t wanted to live before.

Gentrification has happened in many part of New York City neighborhoods. As Smith mentioned in his chapter, areas include Lower East Side, Ludlow Street, SoHo, and etc. Gentrification was mostly a result of upper class or middle class buying a lower class area of the city, and renovates them to completely change their property value. Because of change in the property value these lower class people couldn’t afford to live there anymore; usually they were forced to move out. I think somehow, gentrification is good to certain neighborhoods because it may promote diversity. And gentrification also resulted in change of attitude toward certain neighborhoods of the city, which I think is a good thing for the city as a whole.