Friday, November 11, 2016

White Privilege and Gentrification: El Paso and Denver




White Privilege and Gentrification: El Paso and Denver



I was recently reading “White Privilege and Gentrification Denver” (The Guardian, July 14, 2016) and could not help compare what has happened in Denver to El Paso.

Caroline Tracy, the author talks of herself, a White person gentrifying Denver neighborhoods. 

However, when I thought about it, I specifically I thought of young Hispanic professionals being “used as tools for landlords to gentrify neighborhoods.” In Denver, Tracy says Whites, even progressive Whites are used as tools.

She talks about I-25 and I-70 cutting off neighborhoods, similar to I-10 and Highway 54 cutting off the Chamizal, Barrio del Diablo, and Lincoln neighborhoods.

Also mentioned is a beautification project done in north-east Denver. The city took out dumpsters and replaced them with cute trash bins like you see in better neighborhoods. Is this similar to what has occurred in Union Plaza, the city built it up, but now has marked it with demolition carefully excluding properties of the rich, a U.S. congressman, and the El Paso Times.