Gentrification: A perspective from a long time resident

This article by Dr. Tim Gilmore of jaxpsychogeo.com explores the redevelopment of Jacksonville's Brooklyn neighborhood from the perspective of long time resident Les Paul Garner.

“The city might tell you your house is worth $15,000 and they might offer you $5,000,” Paul says. “And you never knew what was coming. Homeowners was afraid to invest in their own properties. It made more sense to leave, for the old folks to go to a senior citizens’ facility, for you to relinquish your own community.”

The last house on Price Street

Paul sold papers block by block, mowed lawns, taught school, served in leadership posts for Brooklyn community councils, coached basketball, preached, and advised young men in trouble.

He also served more than a decade in the Army and says, “I fly my flag on Veterans’ Day.” He understands why Americans are concerned about the Middle East, but not why his country ignores its own richly experienced historical neighborhoods like Brooklyn. And deciduous winter trees drop branches among telephone poles now swarmed in forests of new pine saplings.

Even today, Paul’s one of two or three longtime residents who know Brooklyn best. Standing at the intersection of Jackson and Oak, half a block from his house, he points to the tall security fence that severs Oak Street where the road should enter the open central area of The Brooklyn Riverside. Oak Street once ran naturally north to Stonewall Street and Leila.

The fencing of The Brooklyn Riverside expresses clearly its separation from the community of Brooklyn. The Brooklyn Riverside is a housing bubble, located one mile from Riverside and severed from Brooklyn with benign disdain. The Brooklyn Riverside is neither Riverside, nor Brooklyn.

The 220 Riverside, the apartment project whose parking lot occupies the site of Paul’s first home, is anchored by an amphitheater and pond called Unity Plaza. 220’s developers said the plaza would “unite the people of Jacksonville.”

The website for The Brooklyn Riverside includes a page called “Neighborhood,” which locates the apartments “at the heart of everything in the Riverside community,” though they’re a mile from Riverside. The “Neighborhood” page lists banks and schools and shops as distant as Jacksonville’s newest suburban shopping mall 14 miles away.