Washington, D.C. is inexorably on its way from being a "chocolate city" with a rich vanilla swirl to becoming a majority-white city.
Residents know the process of gentrification has been going on for some time now, and the results haven't been all bad, I have to admit (if you can afford its prices); but I can't help feeling the city will lose a lot of its flavor and vibrancy when it becomes accessible only to the wealthy and priveleged.
Then again, when D.C. becomes a virtual gated community for the rich, then the city will be more genuine, as a perfect analog of the pay-to-enter Congress and White House which dominate it, instead of the city being used as shabby servants' quarters.
By Alex Kellogg
February 16, 2011 | NPR
February 16, 2011 | NPR
