Gentrification: Reply to Jenissee Volpintesta

In last month’s issue of the Riverwest Currents, Jenissee Volpintesta said in an interview that the Currents is “welcoming of gentrification.” She didn’t explain exactly what she meant by this, but she did say that “the ‘bohemian yuppie’ [is the Currents’] targeted demographic.” I can’t judge the accuracy of that statement since I do not know what Ms. Volpintesta thinks a “bohemian yuppie” is. However, Ms. Volpintesta did mention that “two-page articles about gentrification and advertisements for private schools” make her “feel alienated from the community that [she] care[s] so strongly about.”

The only two-page article on gentrification to appear in the Currents is the one I wrote for the July issue. That article said nothing favorable about “bourgeois bohemians” (AKA “Bobos”), which is probably the type of person Ms. Volpintesta meant when she said the Currents caters to “bohemian yuppies.” I thought it was quite clear in the articles I wrote for the June and July issues of the Currents that the future I would like to see is not a Riverwest homogenized by “Bobos,” but a more economically vibrant neighborhood that still has great diversity in the socioeconomic profiles of its residents.

Perhaps if she read the Currents more closely, Ms. Volpintesta would have seen this. As for her feeling of alienation in response to ads for private schools, should the Currents prohibit local private schools from advertising?

There is no reason to feel threatened and alienated by private schools. They are not monopolized by affluent “bohemian yuppies,” “soccer moms” or what have you. That stereotype has never been accurate, but it is much less accurate now thanks to the school vouchers that make it possible for low-income families to send their kids to private schools. Vouchers, a topic of great concern to many low-income, city residents, have also have been the focus of a special feature in the Currents.

-Dan Knauss

Riverwest Currents - Volume 1 - Issue 9 - October 2002