In this essay supported by the Economic Hardship Reporting Project, Joseph Williams investigates the increasingly deft mechanisms at work evicting lower-income apartment dwellers in rapidly gentrifying cities, while chronicling his own descent from white collar Politico reporter living in a luxury apartment, to jobless, homeless man.
gentrification
Posted inArts & Culture, Nonfiction, Quotes
Can Detroit’s Legendary Techno Scene Survive Gentrification?
On the growing tension between techno’s gritty origins and its current velvet-rope tendencies.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Grenfell Tower: London, England’s ‘Katrina Moment’
How gentrification, apathy, and government negligence failed the residents of Grenfell Tower.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
The ‘Creative Class’ Were Just the Rich All Along
Urban theorist Richard Florida seems to have realized he was wrong about the broad benefits of attracting creatives to depressed cities.
Posted inEditor's Pick
Richard Florida is Sorry
Sam Wetherell analyzes urban theorist Richard Florida’s apparent about-face on the benefits of luring members of the “creative class” to depressed cities in need of revitalization. Governmental leaders in major cities around the world have used Florida’s 2002 book, The Rise of the Creative Class: And How It’s Transforming Work, Leisure, Community, and Everyday Life, […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
Grenfell Was No Ordinary Accident
Henry Wismayer reports on the aftermath of the Grenfell Tower fire. The worst fire disaster in London since the Blitz during World War II, the blaze claimed 80 lives. To outsiders, London, England may appear to be a “a paragon of functioning multiculturalism,” however the Grenfell fire has become England’s “Katrina moment” — the catastrophic […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quote Posts, Quotes
‘Oakland Used to Be More Funky’: Where Have All the Artists Gone?
The staff at Laney Tower take a close look at the past, present, and future of Oakland’s artistic community.
Posted inEditor's Pick
Vanishing Point
“Without the right kind of help, Oakland could lose yet another piece of its vibrant, artistic legacy.” As affordable residences and art spaces are becoming increasingly scarce, artists in Oakland are forced to move elsewhere. Laney Tower journalists take a look at the history, present, and uncertain future of the city’s arts and culture scene.
Posted inEditor's Pick
Mourning the Low-Rent, Weirdo-Filled East Village of Old
A chapter excerpted from Vanishing New York: How a Great City Lost its Soul, by Vanishing New York blogger “Jeremiah Moss” (the pseudonym for activist and psychoanalyst Griffin Hansbury). Moss traces the current wave of what he calls hyper-gentrification back to the Koch era.
Posted inEditor's Pick, First Chapters, Nonfiction
Mourning the Low-Rent, Weirdo-Filled East Village of Old
An excerpt of Vanishing New York: How a Great City Lost its Soul, by Jeremiah Moss.