I guess this view is probably different around the country, but there is a distinct connotation in the minds of those who dwell on the North Shore of Chicago. Although it may be frank, many people define a good neighborhood as somewhere that has wealthy people and fancy homes. If one were to use direct logic, they could say 'good' people live there. But, in a 'nice' neighborhood do nice people really live there? This is not always the case at all.
On the flip side, I've often wondered what is means for a place to be considered a 'bad' neighborhood. While a bad neighborhood be poorer and not as well-maintained as others, it definitely does not contain 100% bad people.Gentrification also plays a tricky role in this word war. When a city becomes gentrified, I don't think that it necessarily means that bad people and buildings are forced out with the influx of good, nice people, but I also wonder how people can really change (if at all) from being gentrified.
As seen in the image above from the American Gentrifier Magazine's December 2004 issue, some consider to gentrify is to force minority races out and whites in in order to make the neighborhood, 'nicer'. This debate and word war will plague America for a long time, especially since an African American president lives in the White House. What do you think?
I think you bring up a lot of good points. Not all "nice" neighborhoods have nice people living in them, and the same goes for "bad" neighborhoods. Like Mr. Bolos and Mr. O'Connor mentioned in class, it's important to really think about how you're using those words and if they really apply to what you're trying to say. Even "nice" neighborhoods could be classified using different words, such as affluent, prosperous, or even well-off. I think using more descriptive words can help any argument you're trying to make as well. As for the word war, I agree that it is an issue that we will likely face for many years to come, especially because many cities are still being gentrified today.
ReplyDeleteThis is such an interesting blog, because many people, including myself use the terms "good" and "bad" carelessly when describing neighborhoods. I agree with Nicole, and I think we should definitely try to start using more descriptive and different words to explain different neighborhoods. Bringing gentrification into this post, also brings up many good points. Many people think that gentrification is extremely positive but not everyone thinks about both sides of the argument. Hopefully we can continue to discuss these issues in class because they are extremely interesting.
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