Bring on the Gloss

My fiancé, perfectly happy with our new location in Park Slope, Brooklyn, nonetheless has begun thinking about the next home. I don’t blame her, of course, since it’s time we start planning to join the ranks of homeowners. Predictably, our current neighborhood is not in our price range – at least for the type of home in which we envision ourselves. With that reality, my fiancé has explored other places that may fit our needs at a more affordable price. The neighborhood she has pinpointed, and thus become enamored with, is Red Hook, an area rough around the edges along the Brooklyn waterfront. It’s what realtors like to call a “transitional area,” a place at the edge of New York’s line of gentrification. We find ourselves over in Red Hook from time to time, to enjoy one of those outposts in the trend towards glossiness – the Fairway specialty supermarket. As we drive through the changing landscape of Red Hook, my thoughts often stray towards the matter of neighborhood upheaval, and the constant change areas face as the needs of a metropolitan region shift and morph.

Back in our former home of Los Angeles, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has unveiled two ambitious plans to revitalize the city’s moribund downtown. The Grand Avenue Project, comprising three acres across from the Frank Gehry-designed Walt Disney Concert Hall, will include residential units, retail and commercial space, all designed by Gehry. Along with the development, the project calls for a 16-acre park to stretch through the heart of the downtown district. Gehry has called the plan an “attempt to find” a downtown for the sprawling metropolis. On the southern end of downtown, work continues on the Los Angeles Sports and Entertainment District, which will expand and integrate with the existing Staples Center and Los Angeles Convention Center next door to create a mega-complex of entertainment spaces, residential units, hotels and restaurants. Together, the two projects seek to polish the image of Los Angeles’ "downtown," an elusive concept in a region of decentralized nodes scattered across a vast basin.

Amongst this chaos is the trend of people moving into the L.A. downtown area, adding a significant number of residents over the last several years. Out of a more organic movement, people have decided to populate this once desolate area after dark and form a viable community. Also included in the equation is “Skid Row,” the stretch of homeless service centers downtown that has created a colony of homeless persons occupying the area, not to mention the place for hospitals to dump destitute patients. On top of these realities is being placed the glossy image of the mythical downtown, which creates a question as to what will define this intricate neighborhood a decade from now. Predictions point to a Skid Row squeeze, and the rise of another area oozing with “desirability.” Granted, all types of neighborhoods are required in a bustling, thriving metropolis, including a grand nexus of commerce and open space, to celebrate and define the place. And who doesn't like glossy things to look at and enjoy? But are these the kind of projects to which public entities should devote its resources, and support in their efforts towards viability? Los Angeles has devoted tens millions of dollars in support for the two construction projects, mostly in the form of below market leases and tax rebates. This question is particularly acute considering downtown Los Angeles has already seen an evolving trend towards community without the proposed mega developments. Wouldn't it still be economically profitable to build as proposed without the added incentives?

On the other side of the proverbial tracks, in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans, a neighborhood is rising above the floods – at least it’s trying. Last week, the nonprofit organization Acorn, in conjunction with loans from a California bank and support from Andres Duany, a Miami-based New Urbanist architect and planner deep in the Gulf reconstruction process, completed the first new homes in the neighborhood since Hurricane Katrina. Although admirable, the hopes of these pilot projects stimulating a return of the rest of the neighborhood are guarded at best. There are significant commitments from government funds for the Gulf region, but it is still unclear whether any of these resources will reach the Lower Ninth Ward. Without fancy towers or theater spaces, the reality of a neighborhood rebirth seems far out of reach.

When it comes to revitalizing a neighborhood, there are many avenues to follow across a spectrum of public and private support. Sometimes it makes good sense for localities to stimulate development using various incentives at their disposal. But regardless of how it's done, the simple matter of green must be present for a project to proceed. Be it downtown Los Angeles or Red Hook, Brooklyn, it takes the will of money to get anything done, and only then will the development follow. Money doesn’t flow towards projects that only serve to house people who work hard for little in return. At least, not enough. This isn't exactly a new problem, but it certainly hasn't been solved. And the bottom line reason behind it all is that such projects simply aren't glossy enough. The prestige of landmark level construction or of creating "the next Park Slope" is what draws the support. So while downtown Los Angeles and Red Hook, Brooklyn see bright futures, Skid Row and the Lower Ninth Ward face gloomy outlooks – until, of course, the will of money pushes into these neighborhoods, no doubt seeking a way to bring in the gloss and clear away their “undesirable” pasts.