Below, our favorite stories of the week. Kindle users, you can also get them as a Readlist. Sign up to receive this list free every Friday in your inbox. * * * 1. Death by Gentrification: The Killing That Shamed San Francisco Rebecca Solnit | The Guardian | March 21, 2016 | 21 minutes (5,317 words) […]
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A Reading List Inspired by Seattle
Seattle was cool and sunny. The flowers were more vivid than anything I’d ever seen on the East Coast. I touched the Pacific Ocean for the first time. I slept on a goddamn sailboat. Washington, I love you.
A Simpler Cup of Coffee
From backlash to counter-backlash, coffee culture endures in all its glorious fussiness.
A Reading List Inspired by Seattle
Seattle was cool and sunny. The flowers were more vivid than anything I’d ever seen on the East Coast. I touched the Pacific Ocean for the first time. I slept on a goddamn sailboat. Washington, I love you.
Gentrification and Historic Preservation in LA’s ‘Black Beverly Hills’
Long known as the Black Beverly Hills, Los Angeles’s View Park park neighborhood is a symbol of African American success. A recent effort to put the neighborhood on the National Register of Historic Places has blown up into a contentious fight, with some residents seeing the designation as a ploy to lure white buyers.
The Battle for the #SoulofOakland
How the brutal beating of a poor black man at an Oakland Whole Foods became a symbol of the city’s gentrification struggle.
Longreads Best of 2016: Under-Recognized Stories
We asked a few writers and editors to choose some of their favorite stories of the year in various categories. Here, the best in under-recognized stories.
The Many Deaths of California
When “the big one” strikes California, the state isn’t going to fall into the Ocean the way so many Arizonans who want beachfront property like to imagine. But there are many ways to die. In The New York Times, author Daniel Duane writes about what he calls the Golden State’s “sense of unraveling” and its […]
The High-Water Mark: The Battle of Gettysburg, the Jersey Shore, and the Death of My Father
Contemplating history, family, and today’s America, Dane A. Wisher tells the story of spreading his father’s ashes on the battlefield at Gettysburg National Park and coming to terms with his life and death.
Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s Thoughts on a Gentrifying San Francisco, In Honor of His 96th Birthday
Fifty years later, he awoke one fine morning like Rip Van Winkle, and found himself again with his sea bag on his shoulder looking for anywhere he could live and work. The new owner of his old flat now wanted $4,500 a month, and many of his friends were also evicted, for it seemed their buildings weren’t owned by San Franciscans anymore, but by faceless investors with venture capital. Corporate monoculture had wiped out any unique sense of place, turning the “island city” into an artistic theme park without artists. And he was on the street.

