Morning Belz, March 1

Oakland City

Spent time on Friday and Saturday in Oakland City, the neighborhood in southwest Atlanta I mentioned last week.

We talked gentrification with people, because it’s happening there. One home is for sale for $489,900. The homes on either side are abandoned and waiting for either the wrecking ball or a renovation. There are yellow “stop work” orders posted on several homes on the same block, including this one, which is for sale and listed for $399,900. Contractors are skipping permits and just getting to work. Up and down the block, nice homes sit next to abandoned ones, and the general consensus is the whole block will be nice (and expensive) by 2025.

The neighborhood is almost in the shadow of Mercedes-Benz Stadium (where the Falcons and Atlanta United play), it’s three blocks from the beltline (Atlanta’s bike trail), and all kinds of yuppy stuff is in the works nearby, including a new brewery and a new shopping center. But it’s still “the hood,” as several people put it to us. Lil Baby grew up two blocks away, and then moved his whole family out. Here he is talking about his relationship to the place. A home at the end of the block is a drug house, and people duck in and out of abandoned homes looking a little, um, wobbly. I’m assuming they weren’t just smoking marijuana. Kids ride four-wheelers and a dirt bike up and down the street, popping wheelies. Up by Lee Street, where there’s a busy Texaco and an auto mechanic named James, there’s a lot of trash strewn about. But people there are friendly! Everyone we spoke to was friendly.

Most of the block’s residents are black, only a handful of them homeowners. Maybe five. We spoke to two of them. And they were not horrified at the prospect of gentrification. Yeah, it’s going to lift property taxes. Yeah, it’s going to drive some people out. But what’s the alternative? Continued urban blight? That’s the message we got. One guy, an Army veteran and electrician visiting his mother on the block, said he minds when a “thriving” black neighborhood is gentrified. That’s happened in Atlanta, he said, but that’s not Oakland City. It needs to change. 

So the takeaway was not electrifying. People tend to cheer economic growth. There are concerns about it, and there are concerns about the way developers are going about renovating homes, but ultimately those are on the margins of what most people we spoke to think is a positive thing: homes being reclaimed and rebuilt on a street that needed (and still needs) investment.

I hope to have that video ready this week. Might have to make one more trip to Oakland City. Not sure yet.

— 
Oops. Britain is actually doing pretty well right now — Guardian
Toronto-area child quarantine guidelines are insane — Toronto Sun
Female workers hit harder than male in pandemic — NBER
WATCH: McConnell’s speech after Trump’s acquittal — PBS
Japanese convenience store testing robot shelf-stockers — Sora News
Calves stranded at sea for 2 months likely all dead — Guardian
Speaking of calves, here’s one of the golden variety — William Turton

Quotes
“You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you. You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” — Jesus, Matthew 5:38-44

About: I was a newspaper reporter for 14 years, most recently at the Minneapolis Star Tribune. I explained why my family left Minneapolis here. Now we live just outside Chattanooga and I work on Scuffed News, a project that either succeeds by July or will have to be abandoned. This is my newsletter. Please share it with anyone you think might enjoy it. You can support all of this work with your money on Patreon.