Is it Time to Eat The Black and Rich?
As a child, I primarily grew up living in various parts of greater metro Atlanta between the years of 1998 and 2013 until I went away to college and then graduate school. During that time I was away, a lot changed in the city of Atlanta, as major real-estate development and projects like The Belt-Line created massive and explosive growth in the city. So much so, that when I decided to move back within the city limits of East Atlanta in 2016, I was shocked by the changes. From the raised rent prices to the insane traffic, this was not the Atlanta of my childhood.
Unpacking the large moving truck outside my new residence in Edgewood, an older Black man walked by and immediately noted that it was sad to see another Black family leave the neighborhood. Alluding to my roommate and I in the packing process, there was an assumption (and still is) that the city had been completely changed by an influx of gentrifiers who were new to the city and lacking in melanin.
Walking away shaking his head, we never got the chance to tell him that we were moving into the neighborhood, not moving out (although the ownership of the house in question was very much so an example of more traditional definitions of gentrification).
Now, this was not the first time that I thought about the relationship between race, class, and gentrification. I had many…
