GENTRIFICATION, an INFESTATION
by Caroline Petersen
INTRODUCTION.
Gentrification, an Infestation is inspired by a desire for a better understanding about the pressures placed onto an urban fabric, both implicit and explicit, by its working-middle-class to upper-class inhabitants. While cities, today, are known to carry heavy concentrations of wealth and power, we must realize that they haven't always.
Every day, the idea of the American Dream is "worked on." Emerging generations are redefining their aspirations. While suburbs and "space" were dreamt of and desired by the masses before us, new generations hold agency to form their own vision of this transitional ideal.
As the desire for domesticity has evolved from suburban to urban contexts, this structural shift of interests has put pressure on infrastructure and communities previously inhabiting these now-longed-for landscapes. The disruption and displacement of these previous residents is a spatial representation of a real-time growing social justice crisis at play throughout our country, formally known as “gentrification.”
In a short three weeks, I will be packing my bags and moving to Greenpoint, Brooklyn. I will be moving to arguably one of the most gentrified locations within the country, and I am moving there because of the opportunities that have been afforded to me by the creative metropolitan community that exists in its location. Equally, I am moving there because of the connections I have built and the security that these connections have offered me upon my transition across the country. In my own way, I am a victim of the systemic pressures of consumer markets in the ways that I find locations for possible employment. Creative types, alike, tend towards settings where their talents can be put to use or are appreciated. In a more serious case, however, the tendency of these conditions to draw new people in to an urban fabric, only to kick others further away from it, is a demonstration of a trickle-down injustice that plays out worse at its end than its beginning.
GENTRIFICATION, an INFESTATION addresses the position of the oblivious. Not all who cause gentrification know that they are participating in its processes. The underlying emphasis behind this body of informal research is not to point fingers and play the blame game on a modernizing, middle class society. Rather, it works on reconnecting the new cultural condition with its pre-existent in order to realize a set of roles and responsibilities one takes on in their transition to a gentrifying state. The research attempts to bring attention to the processes of gentrification and to generate an awareness of the ways that it might manifest within the current conditions by paying more attention to the little things around us. The project uses non-traditional ways of analyzing a landscape, such as mapping traces of fashion, building development, and bikes, in order to contribute to the more formal conversation about gentrification.
In many ways, the political theory of intention versus impact plays a big role in the conversations within the following pages. GENTRIFICATION, an INFESTATION is messy and imperfect, but works on trying to reconnect the middle-class city dweller to their impacts, reminding them to more carefully consider their intentions... Which is as equally, a messy and imperfect concept in itself. Social injustice issues are unsolvable in the littler picture, but can be worked on by the masses. NOT, though, until the stakeholders are connected with the narrative and conditions of the issues at play.