As Sharman wrote, “The people transform the streets and the streets transform the people.” Communities are never static, although residents certainly wish they would be. What awed me about this week’s readings was a sense of cyclic history. What Five Points was in the late 19th century, became what Brownsville was in the the mid 20th century.
In Pritchett especially, one can really see how a neighborhood can shift. As Pritchett described, in a matter of years, the local demographic had made a complete 180… the Jewish and White population had completely been replaced with Puerto Rican and Black population. The number of Whites and Jews who actually decided to stay in Brownsville, faced violence and discrimination themselves, pressuring them to leave- It goes to show you that nobody wants to be a minority. Can that perfect 50/50 demographic ever be reached? It seems that whenever the scale is tipped, one side gets the short end of the stick so to speak.
Like Maryam mentioned, the hospitals and the good schools have a tendency to follow the whites…(aka the money) once they leave. In America where economic status and race are intertwined so closely, racism is so easy to “justify”. The fact that housing is off-limits to those who reach a certain income…as Pritchett wrote, keeps away those people who are the chief candidates to advocate for change. The people who wouldn’t be worrying about their next meal would consequently start worrying about the big picture.
Sharman described the next phase in the cycle- gentrification. Housing then becomes only available to those with high incomes. This can cause a degradation of a culture, and an essential “re-location” of a slum. Sharman, however, has some hope for the future in East Harlem, believing that there could very well be an influx of social advocates and Puerto Ricans whose families had once lived in East Harlem.
