There Goes the Neighborhood

Neighborhoods and places never stay the same. A new restaurant opens up every day, it seems, in my neck of the woods. But as with any good story, scribes tend to look for the conflict in such changes and trends. The other day I heard my neighborhood being called "transitional," which is not only off the mark (the transition has already happened), it suggests within that loaded word a level of resentment at the "newcomers." It's an inevitable, natural response. And yet, oftentimes, change is good. As we approach the anniversary of the Katrina nightmare in New Orleans, the media is trying to find signs that the city is in fact alive and on its way back to wellness. According to one report, two to three thousand young, well-educated professionals have descended on the city over the last year to blend into the city's fabric. Most have decided to make New Orleans their permanent home. Called the "brain gain," the newbies have integrated into various sectors of the city's community. As one new arrival describes it, "I believe in the power of place." Maybe a bit high and mighty, but needed in a place that continues to strive towards normalcy.

Of course, not all of these types of stories can be friendly and heart warming. West of Washington, D.C., in Loudon County, Virginia, the continuing push into the countryside, which has exploded in the last decade, has prompted the small, leafy towns in the western part of the county to fight off the newcomers. The "line in the sand" is Route 15, which currently separates the more developed eastern portion of the county around Dulles International Airport from the more rural western sector. Using ploys such as forming nonprofits to acquire targeted property and applying to the National Park Service to designate large swaths of land as a national Civil War battlefield, western Loudon residents are trying their best to keep out the unwelcome carpetbaggers with their traffic and McMansions.

Even worse, and the one thing all neighborhoods must be vigilant of, is the unwelcome newcomer of "blight." It was long a word associated with "urban renewal," which justified the wiping away of vibrant urban neighborhoods in the disastrous policies of "slum clearing" in the first few decades after World War II. Now, in light of the foreclosure fallout from the subprime mortgage market disaster, as we first discussed in "In With the Old . ." from March 28, 2007, "blight" is a term of art for vacant, foreclosed homes in otherwise vibrant neighborhoods. In Southern California, where one hundred houses a day are foreclosed on, there's the unique problem of what to do with the pool. Unattended pools are becoming mosquito breeding grounds, opening up the door to West Nile virus potentialities. In addition, another breed of newcomers, brazen squatters, is looking to take advantage of empty houses in prime locations. As one police officer noted, "If you know what you're doing, you can get six months in a place with a kick-ass view."

As one who is seeking to buy a home in the near future, the thought of all the issues that are raised when you commit to a place are mind boggling. Sure, you have to contend with all of the little and big things that need to be fixed and tended to in connection with the structure itself. But you also have to take the risk that your neighbors will be just as interested in preserving the neighborhood as a whole. With that to contend with, it's not surprising that the first reaction when the newcomers arrive is one of suspicion, rather than of welcoming with open arms. That only seems to happen when, like in the case of New Orleans, they are desperately needed.