To wrap up "Inside the Bricks: My Changing Neighborhood," I partnered with my colleagues at Ideastream Public Media's "Sound of Ideas" to host a live event at Happy Dog Cleveland — a bar, restaurant and cultural event venue that's become an anchor of the Gordon Square neighborhood. It was the first live, in-person Community Tour event that we've hosted in more than two years.
The event was a chance for a panel of guests (residents and experts alike) to voice their views on the neighborhood. But just as important, it was an opportunity for members of the live audience to weigh in with their own questions, stories and reactions to the podcast.
To judge by the sign-in sheet from the event, the vast majority of the more than 120 attendees were neighborhood residents. To me, that was an indication that the topics of neighborhood change and gentrification resonate deeply among my neighbors, and that people are interested in grappling honestly with the podcast's central question: Can a fast-developing neighborhood remain welcoming to all?
There were many moments of deep and sometimes uncomfortable honesty. Panelist and neighborhood resident Ben Dieterich talked about the steep rent increase he's likely to face, and his uncertainty over whether he'll still be able to afford to live here in a few years — and whether, by then, it'll still be the diverse neighborhood he's come to love.
Chaundrea Simmons, a vegan chef and neighborhood resident who's dealing with similar concerns, coined a tongue-in-cheek new term, "gentrification charcoal," to refer to what seems to be developers' practice of painting new buildings and renovated houses a uniform shade of dark gray.
"Our streets are so lively, all of our houses look different and there are different colors," said Simmons. "And then you see this, as I call it, the gentrified charcoal color." She said the color can send a visual message of sameness and conformity that goes against the neighborhood's current reputation for diversity.
Simmons and Raymond Bobgan of Cleveland Public Theatre also noted that most in the audience appeared to be white, and challenged everyone present — including me and Ideastream — to work harder to engage people of color on how the neighborhood redevelops.
Others acknowledged the challenges of gentrification while arguing that we need development and rising property values in Cleveland.
"In a city that has seen over five decades of population decline, deterioration of our infrastructure, of our roads and in many ways in our civic system — at some point, if we want those things fixed, we need to grow our our tax base. We need growth," said Bradford Davy, the city of Cleveland's chief strategy officer, who recently moved to the neighborhood with his wife.
This capstone event for "Inside the Bricks: My Changing Neighborhood" left me feeling both unsettled and reassured. Unsettled, because there are no clear "solutions" — if indeed gentrification is a problem here. Reassured, because there is clearly deep willingness to grapple with the difficult questions that redevelopment raises.
Maybe the grappling itself is a meaningful first step toward thinking in new ways about how Cleveland's neighborhoods can and should change in the future.
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