An entrepreneur saved a poor neighborhood by replacing everyone in it with affluent twentysomethings

[wyldwolf]

Just one year ago, East Shellwood was one of the poorest neighborhoods in America. Its public schools were buckling under budget cuts and the crime rate was steadily increasing, while property values had hit an all-time low.

Today, all of that has changed. East Shellwood is thriving, and shows no signs of slowing down. So what happened?

It all started when a community-minded entrepreneur by the name of Jackson Klemmer had the innovative idea to replace every single one of the area’s longtime residents with affluent twentysomethings. The rest, as they say, is history.

“I knew if we could just find some way to increase the cost of living so that poorer residents had no choice but to move out, we could completely revitalize the neighborhood by filling it with predominantly white twentysomethings,” said Klemmer, a real estate investor and community activist. “People said East Shellwood was a lost cause. But I never stopped believing in this place and the people who could potentially live here once we got rid of all the poor people.”

Klemmer’s plan started with making small but powerful changes to the urban landscape. Putting an overpriced clothing outlet here. A Starbucks there. Small seeds of progress that, over time, would drive the rent up and longtime residents out, paving the way for an influx of young bohemians from affluent backgrounds.

“We went door to door, asking people if they were struggling financially,” said Klemmer. “Then if they said yes, we encouraged their landlords to raise the rent when their lease ended, forcing them out, and making room for wealthier tenants who would be attracted to the area’s cool, urban vibe.”

“I don’t think we could’ve expected the overwhelmingly positive response from the community’s opportunistic property owners,” he added. ”An outpouring of thanks and evictions. People wanting to get involved. It was really amazing.”

http://www.clickhole.com/article/one-incredible-entrepreneur-saved-struggling-neigh-746

[Brickbat]

1. .

[NYC_SKP]

2. Not the Onion, but similar. I almost fell for it. Of course, this describes a real life dynamic.

Gentrification...

This quote was the dead giveaway that the story was, well, a story:

“We went door to door, asking people if they were struggling financially,” said Klemmer. “Then if they said yes, we encouraged their landlords to raise the rent when their lease ended, forcing them out, and making room for wealthier tenants who would be attracted to the area’s cool, urban vibe.”

“I don’t think we could’ve expected the overwhelmingly positive response from the community’s opportunistic property owners,” he added. ”An outpouring of thanks and evictions. People wanting to get involved. It was really amazing.”

The result of his philanthropic efforts is the miracle of East Shellwood today: a beautiful urban enclave of upper-middle-class privilege where there was once a culturally diverse and economically unprofitable community.

“It’s amazing what you can do when you get a community to come together and vacate their homes so that young, rich people can live there instead,” said Klemmer. “You can change the world.”

Recommended.

[MADem]

3. Ha! The dump I lived in years ago is now a "luxury condo!"

I can relate to this joke, actually.

[NYC_SKP]

8. Me, too. My former $290/month dump on the Lower East Side in now a trendy condo.

And the neighborhood has lost all its charm, judging from Google Street View shots and what friends are telling me.

That, and the developments with "rich" and "poor" entrances and what's been done to Disneyf what little was left of NYCs unique character, well, they can have it.

[MADem]

9. I went back to my "Don't walk alone at night--RUN" neighborhood a few years back...

And the thing I noticed was that there was a lot more dogshit than there was back in the day.

We weren't allowed to have dogs as renters, many of us, and those that did were better at curbing their dogs than nowadays!

Everything was in really good repair, too--lots of fresh coats of paint, blasted stone and brick, shiny new windows, that kind of thing...but it didn't have much soul at all!

[moondust]

4. Couldn't find an exterminator?

[House of Roberts]

5. He didn't 'save' a neighborhood, he 'gentrified' it.

The winners: Property owners and the city's tax coffers.

The losers: Poor residents who lost their community of shared experiences.

I live in a neighborhood that underwent this transformation about 25 years ago. It was built as a mill village and the cheap, run down houses had attracted landlords, who snapped up property for rentals to low income people. There was a certain thug element here when we moved back from Atlanta in 1989, but remodelers began to upgrade the houses at the beginning of the 90s. The rents rose, the poor left, and more money poured in to continue the improvements. We're close to downtown and young professionals who work there like the convenience. Then we were reclassified as a Historic District. Now you can't remodel the exterior without permission from the city. The property values rose, but so did the property taxes.

[Gormy Cuss]

6. As a resident of West Shellwood, I'd like to add that

The twenty-somethings keep complaining about how their neighborhood has changed and no longer has the character that it did when they moved in last month. Now they're all in my neighborhood, shopping and eating in our little ethnic restaurants. I wish that they'd go back to the east side.

[GeorgeGist]

7. Next up ...

Peckerwood.

[Jazzgirl]

10. I thought it was an Onion article!!

nt