For my planning project i plan to look into the neighborhood known as “The Lower East Side”. The title “Lower East Side” refers to the neighborhood in Manhattan located south of East Houston Street and west of the East River. Generally, it has always been an poor immigrant neighborhood, however, it demographic has undergone a change in the last 30 years or so. Previously, it housed European immigrants (Italians, Poles, Germans, etc.) and is now home to a large hispanic population alongside an “alternative” (new, young, white, hip) culture. It was once home to a plethora of tenement houses and although the people there experienced their fair share of trauma, the neighborhood was theirs and so culturally rich. Despite the maintenance of a blue collar presence in the neighborhood, it is in the process of going through a massive gentrification phase. One of the most historic places in the country  is slowly losing it character to greedy developers. Slowly but surely long time residents are being pushed out.  Just to get slight inkling of what is going on, over 8,000 units of affordable housing have lost there in the last decade and rent costs are rising far faster than average household income. For my project i plan on delving into the major details of the transformation that is occuring there from three prospectives: one of pure fact, one from the the prospective of newcomers, and one from the prospective of long time residents.