Brooklyn Gentrification: Spike Lee Has Right Message, But Is The Wrong Messenger
In an article titled “Brooklyn Gentrification: Spike Lee Has Right Message, But Is The Wrong Messenger“, Palash Ghosh reacts to film director Spike Lee’s profanity-ridden rant on the gentrification of his native neighborhood of Brooklyn. The basis of Lee’s argument is that he grew up at a time when the neighborhood of Fort Greene in Brooklyn was made up of mostly minority groups and lacked good facilities and services. As of late, there has been a huge growth(29.6% from 2000-2010) in the number of middle and upper – class white New Yorkers moving into these previously poor areas. Lee is angered that it took an influx of young, rich people into these places to bring about better policing, sanitation, and schooling.
In his article, Ghosh describes the 70s: “the era of near-bankruptcy, rising violent crime, white flight, a heroin epidemic and relentless danger lurking around every corner.” He remembers the “the grim, decaying neighborhoods replete with garbage-strewn lots, bodegas, liquor stores, check-cashing joints, etc.” of Brooklyn in the 90s. But he also says that it is the deprivation, desolation and violence of NYC neighborhoods that brought about great artists and movements from that time such as the Ramones and the hip-hop movement. Ghosh sees Lee as a hypocrite, saying that Lee has made contributions to these changes in by popularizing Brooklyn in the his films and cashing out on it. Now that these neighborhoods are cleaned-up and more orderly, there is no longer an “edgy” vibe to these places, but they are safer and less dangerous. Ghogh poses his ultimate question about gentrification which is whether we would prefer neighborhoods to be crime-ridden and cheap but interesting and eccentric, or neighborhoods that are rich, dull, and filled with consumerism. However, it isn’t as black-and-white as Ghosh makes it out to be. The biggest issue that I see with the latter option is that the working-class people who live in these neighborhoods are forced out of their homes by landlords, often through unlawful methods, and there is less affordable housing when these places are gentrified. Things may be better for the newcomers, but many of the people who lived there previously do not always benefit in these situations.
I concur with your final assessment on the cogency of Ghogh’s reasoning. Im sure that most would agree that the major issue surrounding gentrification is not the alteration of living conditions in gentrified neighborhoods, but rather the displacement of less affluent residents, who are never given the opportunity to appreciate said amelioration.
You both make excellent points. Also, who are the neighborhoods interesting to? Who sees these neighborhoods as edgy and exciting? Usually these are people who consume the neighborhood as newcomers, who view the neighborhood as a commodity of sorts. Not the people whose true home it is, who have roots and identities wrapped up in the geography. Then the commodification of the neighborhood in this way brings first artists and then developers to the neighborhood, eventually threatening the ability of people already there to pay ever increasing rents. This is what happened on the Lower East Side, for example.