All You Need is Shopping
A new Target can fix a troubled neighborhood, The Washington Post says.By Jesse Singal
March 5, 2008
The entrance to the new Target store in Columbia Heights, Washington, D.C. (Credit: Sommer Mathis/ DCist.com)
The Washington Post generally provides its readers with comprehensive coverage of gentrification in Washington, D.C.—articles that acknowledge the complexities inherent in rapidly changing neighborhoods. One recent story followed a group of immigrant families that banded together to keep their homes after their apartment building was converted into condominiums. Another examined two girls from neighborhoods undergoing tumultuous demographic shifts who won an essay-writing contest about gentrification. The paper also ran a two-part series that effectively examined the culture shock that has resulted from young, wealthy, white professionals flocking to what had long been a black neighborhood.
Given all this top-notch coverage, you wouldn’t think that the Post would publish a piece that emulates the hyperbolic language of real estate developers and that largely ignores the impact of gentrification on those most likely to be on the losing side of the equation—the established, longtime residents of affected communities. But yesterday, the paper did just that in an article that examines a long-awaited Target that opens today in Columbia Heights, a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood in Northwest D.C. where luxury condos are sprouting up and a new shopping center, developers hope, will draw people from all over the District. Written by Post reporterPaul Schwartzman, the piece takes a substantive, well-rounded look at what the future holds for Columbia Heights—that is, if you’re an upper-middle class shopper. (Schwartzman was contacted for this article but wouldn’t speak on the record.)
The article’s headline alone, “A Rapid Renaissance in Columbia Heights: Retail-Based Renewal A Contrast to ’60s Strife,” sets up a rather shameless juxtaposition, as though the opposite of poverty and violence were shopping. Things get worse in the body of the piece:
To stand at 14th Street and Park Road in Northwest Washington is to behold a new world created at whiplash speed.
A billion dollars’ worth of development, including a Target-anchored shopping center opening tomorrow, is rising in Columbia Heights, erasing the last vestiges of scars left by riots that ravaged the neighborhood 40 years ago.
And the renaissance is all by design, one intended to create a new city within the city and keep Washingtonians from traveling to the suburbs to splurge.
Even within the rush of construction that has swept across the District, Columbia Heights’ renaissance is singular, not only because of its scope but because of its locale, a residential neighborhood that is among the region’s most economically and racially diverse.
The language is breathless and PR-ish: A “renaissance” is afoot as a “new world” is “created at whiplash speed.” This would be bad enough, but it’s not as embarrassing—or offensive—as the assertion that while things used to be bad, the new shopping center is “erasing” Columbia Heights’ troubled past. Schwartzman is a journalist, not a developer, and yet he writes as though he truly believes that, thanks to a few new shiny buildings and big-box retailers, Columbia Heights—a neighborhood still plagued with crime and home to pockets of persistent poverty—will be reborn as a happy shopper’s paradise.
Schwartzman claims that rapid development will further the causes of diversity and cross-cultural understanding in the neighborhood. “Columbia Heights’ rebirth is not only about the arrival of bricks and mortar at a crossroads that long struggled to recover from the looting and arson that followed Martin Luther King Jr.‘s assassination,” he asserts. “It’s about the blending of cultures and classes.” To balance his doe-eyed optimism, it would have made sense for Schwartzman to quote someone—anyone—from the neighborhood, the D.C. government, or a housing non-profit who, say, fears that rising housing costs could lead to re-segregation. Those concerns would certainly be justified. The D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute recently released a report concluding that Washington, D.C. has “two economies,” a robust one for the well-off and white, and a faltering one for the poor and black. Even as “the number of jobs in the District has increased and median household income has risen,” the report notes, employment among blacks is falling, poverty is “at the highest level in nearly a decade,” and the gap between high-wage and low-wage earners has never been wider. But instead of addressing these disparities, Schwartzman instead decides to accept the premise that a new shopping center will pave over the decades-long problems that have hampered Columbia Heights and its residents.
Almost as telling as Schwartzman’s overheated language and glib treatment of the neighborhood’s persistent problems is how Schwartzman and his editors have structured his story. A key component of news writing is not just who is quoted in an article or what details are mentioned, but how far down in the piece certain elements appear. The general rule is that the further down something shows up, the less important it is. (Every new journalist has the “inverted pyramid” formulation, in which a story’s most important details go near the beginning, endlessly drilled into his or her skull.) Near the beginning of his story, Schwartzman quotes two political figures who have thrown in their lots with the area’s redevelopment and speak approvingly of it (though one does lament that the neighborhood is still considered too risky for the likes of Saks or Whole Foods), then quotes the president of Grid Properties, the developer behind the new shopping center, who, shockingly, is also excited by what’s going on.
It’s not until 23 paragraphs into the story that a resident of Columbia Heights is quoted. And though Schwartzman does mention, in passing, the neighborhood’s issues with crime and poverty and the fears some have about its rapid makeover, this is all pushed to the end of the story—complaints from residents are relegated to the final 250 words of the 1,466-word piece.
To be sure, it would be ludicrous to argue that every story about Columbia Heights’ revitalization must be written entirely from the point of view of its longtime residents, or that gentrification in this and other cases always hurts the poor. (For one thing, Target will definitely bring some new jobs and cheap goods to Columbia Heights.) But ultimately residents have to be a big part of a story like this one, and the question of how the poor are impacted deserves equal time with other concerns. But Schwartzman is too focused on Columbia Heights’ developers and potential shoppers to provide his readers with the larger picture.
And what is that larger picture? The article itself hints at it. Schwartzman writes that the neighborhood’s proportion of black residents is decreasing and that the median income of home buyers in Columbia Heights shot upward between 2000 and 2005. But he proceeds to almost completely ignore the question of how these changes will impact those with the greatest stake in the neighborhood. Will some folks be priced out? Has there been pressure on people to sell row houses and apartments their families have inhabited for generations? Columbia Heights is going to get more expensive. It’s going to get whiter. Without a doubt, these changes are going to greatly impact a diverse, high-crime community where rich young people live in newly renovated row houses that sit on the same blocks as public housing projects. But the Post’s coverage of this momentous moment in the new Columbia Heights is star-struck by construction cranes. The paper would do well by its readers, and by the vulnerable residents of Columbia Heights, to avoid this sort of myopia in the future.
Jesse Singal is an Associate Editor of Campus Progress.
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Comments
““sets up a rather shameless juxtaposition, as though the opposite of poverty and violence were shopping.”“
For what it’s worth, that juxtaposition tends to be true.
Also, the ‘stakeholder’ idea is fundamentally flawed.
When you’re renting, you’re not the one who owns the property — someone else is. If the demand for that property changes, it only makes sense that you’ll have to pay more to continue living there.
The real route out of poverty is property ownership. The cycle of renting and paying and renting and paying is a poor substitute.
There’s no way we can construct a magical shield that protects renters from the fluctuations of the market place, and it would be silly to do even if we could — it’d trample all over the property rights of the people who actually own the land in Columbia Heights. Solutions to poverty come by expanding property ownership, not by screwing over the property-owners.
— Joe - Mar 5, 06:55 PM - #A few other questions:
““Without a doubt, these changes are going to greatly impact a diverse, high-crime community”“
Isn’t Columbia Heights becoming more diverse, rather than less?
Or are you making the (bigoted?) assumption that white people moving into a largely non-white area can never add to the area’s diversity?
More fundamentally, presumably you’d feel a bit of shame about ominously noting that the proportion of blacks in an area was rising. Why, then, do you not feel a similar shame at ominously noting that the proportion of whites in an area is rising?
The idea that blacks are entitled to ‘keep an area black’, but whites are not entitled to ‘keep an area white’ is silly — the proper progressive position is that nobody is entitled to demand that the ethnic composition of their neighborhood ‘should be’ one thing or another. America The Melting Pot and all that.
— Joe - Mar 5, 07:04 PM - #Interesting that you relegate the possible benefits of this economic development to a single parenthetical sentence near the end of the story.
Yes, “Target will definitely bring some new jobs and cheap goods to Columbia Heights.” Just as the recent addition of a Giant grocery store brought massive benefit to the community. But this story uses the “complexity” of gentrification and economic development as a sort of talisman. You wave the word around, but present just as single-sided a story as the Post reporter.
I, for one, don’t think that burned-out lots sitting vacant for decades is somehow better than the new retail.
— Nathan - Mar 6, 11:32 AM - #yo hey
— hh - Mar 6, 12:31 PM - #what up
— hheeeeennnah - Mar 6, 12:32 PM - #I have lived for over 13 years in DC, of which 10 years in neighborhoods adjacent to Columbia Heights: Mount Pleasant and Petworth. I’ve been overjoyed about the new retail and entertainment possibilities in my neighborhoods, particularly as I try to keep my purchasing in the district as much as possible to help support our tiny tax base and reward retailers that choose to locate here. But I am very sensitive to the dislocation and problems of gentrification, so when I read your blog post, I was concerned about the article.
Then I read the article.
Your post is pretty off-base – the article, while celebrating the renaissance of what truly was a nasty, grungy awful part of town (when the metro first opened, it really was hardly safe to walk the block between 14th and 16th on Irving) into a very good example of what decent urban planning can yield – a concentration of shops and restaurants in walking distance of good housing stock – including affordable units – and public transportation. I think it’s interesting what you didn’t quote from the article, namely:
“In exchange, city and community leaders hatched a holistic vision for the individual parcels. They extracted from the developers commitments for luxury housing that would include affordable units and the kind of large-scale retail for which Washingtonians have long clamored — all of it across from the Metro stop that opened in 1999. Donatelli agreed to share with the city 25 percent of profits generated by sales and leasing of its apartments.”
Let’s see: people in disadvantaged neighborhoods finally have access to a good grocery store and department store without having to drive to the suburbs; people aren’t using their cars to run errands, thereby cutting down on carbon emissions; the project is creating jobs; it’s high-density and thus more environmentally friendly than suburban sprawl; the city is getting 25% of profits from the condos, which will help it do things like improve the schools and provide additional support for low-income housing; there are low-income/affordable units in all the buildings…
I’m not quite sure what your problem is, exactly, apart from the general gripe about gentrification. Yes, there is always some displacement when an area goes through development. It’s good to be aware of these issues and create policies and programs that help people adjust. But to suggest that the article is somehow glib because it correctly reports the hope and optimism that most residents of the neighborhood feel (in part because of the collaborative planning process that went into the development) is just naive. Oh, and that columbia heights resident quoted in paragraph 23? Here’s what he had to say: ““Columbia Heights potentially is the manifestation of Dr. King’s vision,” said William Jordan, a resident of more than 20 years. “You have the potential not just for token integration but for a critical mass of old and young, low-income and affluent. But Jordan questioned whether that spectrum can withstand economic pressures. “Can this last longer than half a generation?” he asked.”
Seems pretty balanced to me.
— Heather - Mar 6, 05:03 PM - #Thanks for this important article, Jesse. As someone who lived the next neighborhood from Columbia Heights, this is a story that needs to be told more often.
As you note, there are fascinating stories of people within neighborhoods like this banding together to resist gentrification — which is not, as Joe racistly asserts, a process that increases the number of white people, but one that prices out low-income folks (who may or may not be people of color; in DC they usually are, due to a history of structural racism) for the benefit of upper-class folks. Across the street from where I used to live, there was a tenement apartment whose residents joined together to sue the slumlord who was asserting his “property rights” (as Joe would have them) over their human rights. They won, and the apartment building is now under the collective management of its tenants.
The point of this article, to clear up Nathan’s dim view, is that the Post’s article needed balance — gentrification isn’t an easy thing to discuss or investigate by any means, but it requires more than a one-sided “shopping solves poverty” mindset. There are complicated, sometimes contradictory elements that make a neighborhood “successful” — often, it can be explored by asking the question “successful on whose terms?” That the Post’s analysis was on Joe’s and Nathan’s terms isn’t surprising, but it’s refreshing to see Campus Progress editors exploring different ways to look at a difficult problem.
— GeorgiaAve - Mar 6, 05:09 PM - #Seriously, what’s your point? Would you prefer all DC residents to keep having to drive down to Virginia just to buy cheap toilet paper and underwear? Do you actually think that’s good for DC? Honestly, you’re being just as “racist” and dimwitted as you charge the Post author to be. Communities must progress, change is inevitable, and just because it’s happening in the district you can’t automatically blame it on racism. It’s about damn time a Target exists somewhere in this city, and it’s about damn time we replace our trashed buildings. You’re right, the riots are a huge part of this city’s history, and you’re right, the blacks, whites, asians, hispanics, and etc. all have a right to call DC their own. But your issue is with something a lot larger then a simple Target, especially a Target this community desperately needs. I’d expect a deeper understanding of the issue from someone who claims to be on the front lines… I’m a progressive-thinker too (and a Mexican), but I don’t let it cloud my judgment.
— Danny - Mar 6, 06:04 PM - #It gets rather tiresome when young “radical” folks move to the neighborhood and think they are ‘stickign up” for the long time poor residents. I have lived here a long time and neighbors who’ve lived here for 40 years + tell me they are all so happy that real retail is back on 14th street. And yes, they are black. So sorry to pop your “progressive” bubble that this big box gentrification is victimizing all the poor black folks in CH.
If you really want to write a progressive article about CH, why don’t you start with how we can defeat the violent drug dealers that could care less about the community and only want to make a buck, cause they have the same greedy, anti-social world view of the evil corporate republican fat cats a la Enron and Haliburton. They’re the ones killing young people of color on in our community.
— Tee DeeinCH - Mar 6, 07:51 PM - #great article!!! don’t listen to them haters Jesse. i think it’s interesting how offended they can get over the flaws you’ve pointed out in the Post’s reporting and the other issues you bring up. seems like they feel the need to defend a system that benefits them by finding some logical way that they are not to blame. why is it so hard to see that we can be part of a problem without then saying that the problem doesn’t exist? i just moved in to a DC neighborhood that is also gentrifying, and as a young, white man it is blatantly clear that i did not grow up here and am contributing to the gentrification of the area. although my rent is below the average for the area, i can still see how i am potentially contributing to the “changing nature” of life here and potentially forcing long-time residents out. its important to recognize, not refute, the problems that others, especially those that lived here first bring up. if person A is stepping on person B’s neck, and we want to measure the pain of it, who are we going to ask? its time we all start listening to person B more often, and this pointed article focuses our attention on a major media outlet that is not doing such. thank you.
— Jonathan Tucker - Mar 7, 02:12 PM - #Great job with the Article if for nothing else showing the unbalanced viewpoint of the article.
— Raymond Embry - Mar 10, 01:22 AM - #I agree with your dissenters. This is an intellectually immature piece that shows no understanding of the reality in Columbia Heights.
I’ve lived here long enough to remember when the entire area around the current Target was vacant, littered lots, unsafe for anyone. The Post’s coverage is accurate — those plots were scars on the landscape (maybe consult an aerial photgraph circa 2002 if you disagree with the metaphor) that in no way were productive for anyone in the community, save maybe the dealers and hookers. The development of the last 3 years has been astonishing in its speed, literally transforming the streetscape at the core of Columbia Heights in a way rarely seen in a residential area of a major city, and all according to a planned design that emerged from public-private partnering. Yet you look past the general factual accuracy of all this (I’ll grant you that old wounds still aren’t healed), all too eager to get to make your way to conclusions that are based on erroneous premises about who’s benefited and whose “stake” in the neighborhood is greater.
Ever think that in a world of column inches, that might be a Post story for a different headline? A change as big as what we’ve experienced on 14th Street will have reverberations throughout the community, including those you suggest and many that likely aren’t as obvious right now. These issues should be considered in the communal light of day, of course, but you betray yourself by marginalizing the good things to a short parenthetical — a sin for which you condemn the Post — while you push outdated arguments against gentrification that were better suited to an earlier era of urban studies. People — rich and poor — ARE excited about the new resource within walking distance from their homes and its potential greatly to reduce certain costs of living for basic items like food, clothing, and medicine. And if you listen to what locals are saying, the competition for the jobs created is fierce, perhaps signaling an appreciation for these opportunities. Perhaps you missed that while you were wrapped up in your self-appointed role as the non-native intelligentsia for those who have been living here the last several years while you finished up your college education. Thank goodness they have someone who’s read Marx to look out for them!
— CH Res - Mar 13, 11:43 AM - #““As you note, there are fascinating stories of people within neighborhoods like this banding together to resist gentrification — which is not, as Joe racistly asserts, a process that increases the number of white people”“
...Except in fact it was Jesse that noted that in the last paragraph of his article, quoting Schwartzman. Whoopsie!
““Across the street from where I used to live, there was a tenement apartment whose residents joined together to sue the slumlord who was asserting his “property rights” (as Joe would have them) over their human rights. They won, and the apartment building is now under the collective management of its tenants.”“
Err… details? And what makes someone a ‘slum lord’ in your view?
— Joe - Mar 14, 07:23 AM - #熟女
— アダルト - Apr 4, 07:24 AM - #test
— test - Apr 7, 11:14 PM - #テスト
— test - Apr 7, 11:18 PM - #