More from East L.A.

Growing Pains Across the River: Rough Rider blog advisor "Mr. Gertner" has watching the fort as his Track C students are on holiday hiatus. He supplements a Dec 24 LAT article "Foreclosing on Christmas" ––that profiled a family "caught in the nationwide mortgage meltdown"––with his own post Housing Crisis in Boyle Heights.  Gertner compares how the affordable neighborhoods of East LA and Boyle Heights are at a "critical point" due to incoming gentrification, and the Gold Line Extension, while comparing it to the other cities he has known.

 

You can see the same thing in London, my birth city, where the area just east of the financial center, including Spitalfields, Shoreditch, and Hoxton, has seen waves of immigrants over the years: French Huguenots, Eastern European Jews, and Bangladeshis. Now the area is another center for artists, designers, musicians, and professionals looking for an edgier environment close to the center of the city.

 

In Los Angeles, the equivalent area up until recently was Silver Lake and then Echo Park. Then came the Downtown loft phenomenon, where the median income of new residents is just under 100 thousand dollars a year. Just across the river.

He adds that how Councilmember Jose Huizar wants to bring a Starbucks to Boyle Heights, "even though we have a wonderful, homegrown cafe that could use his support, Arctic Hotspot". He then moves the post forward to new neighborhood developments that have been on the cho-lo-sphere radar. He adds:

 

Some have even speculated that the mayor’s Partnership for Los Angeles Schools is a scheme to make the neighborhood more attractive to developers and wealthier homebuyers. Yes our schools need to improve, but the question is for whom?"

As it happens, his Dec 27 post was on the same day as the "Gold Line work upsets East L.A. Merchants" that follows the 3rd St footprint where a section of Gold Line is under construction. According to the LAT, "Merchants are saying  the roadwork and street closures have all but halted commerce in the area. Some merchants say they have been forced to skip rent payments and lay off employees."

<snip>

 

"It is proven to be the case almost anywhere else where you build this kind of light rail system, it does create an opportunity for businesses to flourish," said Los Angeles County Supervisor Gloria Molina, who represents the area.
 
Molina added that not everyone is unhappy: "There are businesspeople who have been there for a long time and want it to stay exactly the same, and there are others who look forward to the Gold Line."

2008 just may be a critical year for the direction East L.A. takes for the next several generations.

Comments

[jim winstead]

slate recently covered why starbucks is good for independent coffee shops (http://www.slate.com/id/2180301/), so i'm the folks that want to support arctic hotspot may want to join huizar's lobbying.

[militant angeleno]

Those Eastside businessowners should have a chat with the Hollywood businessowners sometime. They had endure Metro construction for not three years, but six or seven. And remember, Hollywood back in the 90s was not the same Hollywood you see today.

[City Terrace Resident]

For all this talk of gentrification in Boyle Heights & East LA, I don't see much sign of it in in the latter. Yes, those lofts are going up in the Hollenbeck area of Boyle, but I haven't seen anything further east than that. Anyone else?

[e@v]

Jim: I like that article. The intent for Starbucks to run out the mom and pop shops was always obvious. Interesting to see it has a reverse effect in some cases.

Militant: Are any left?

City Terrace: Modification of a neighborhood isn't just lofts, but who is buying the homes. The eastern edge of East LA has been chipped away. It's one reason why some residents want to make that unincorporated part of the county the City of East LA