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"...“To say it plainly: there is a definite increase in the number of white people I see walking around,” she tells me. “L.A. is an extremely segregated city. When I was growing up, it would be rare for me to see a white person grocery shopping at the Ralphs in the Ladera Center or grabbing a smoothie from Simply Wholesome. Now it's rare for me not to see a white person in these types of places.”
There isn’t anything wrong with different people beginning to appreciate all that this area has to offer. However, the dangers of the changing racial demographics were recently hammered home by a segment on KCRW’s local news show "‘Which Way, L.A.," in which a young white woman vented her frustration over her family’s inability to afford housing even in “transitional” neighborhoods like Windsor Hills.
Roberts heard that interview and it gave her pause.
“Transitioning from what? This area has been home to stable individuals and families for generations," she said. "Did she mean it's transitional just because the majority of the families living there happen to be a different color?”
To those of us who have lived there, the neighborhoods surrounding Crenshaw Boulevard are more than just real estate investment opportunities. Where else can you find this large concentration of black elders, black artists, black youths and black business owners? It isn’t rare to find the third or fourth generation of a black family living in a house or apartment along Crenshaw. Roberts says that new residents spurred by gentrification might not understand this when they move in:
“I worry that the new development may encourage people from outside the black community to indulge their prejudices without acknowledging the rich history and assets that already exist here,"..."
LOS ANGELES TIMES: A calm before the storm of gentrification on Crenshaw
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