As a part of our New Orleans Neighborhood Blog Series, this blog will unpack some thoughts to BE the Church in New Orleans. Last month’s blog highlighted Uptown. You can read it HERE. This blog will focus on experiences in the Freret-Milan neighborhood, which is one collective neighborhood association, although these crossover into the Uptown and Central City regions of New Orleans.   

Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans in August 2005. Almost a decade after this disaster, our city is transitioning into a new phase of rebuilding. The early stages included house repair and new businesses moving in or starting up. This new phase that is occurring will be one of the most important ones. Involved will be new developments and different social reforms. One of the important institutions will be the New Orleans school system, which includes various charter and public schools.

The process of gentrification continues to flood our American cities, bringing both good and bad. The question we are faced with is what can or should be done. I have written about some of the negative outcomes in “When the Reality Sets In.” Dannette Lambert, a community organizer and political consultant in Oakland, CA, states, “it isn’t the mere act of moving into a neighborhood that makes you a  gentrifier; it’s what you do once you get there.” She gives some real practical advice to those gentrifying urban communities. These 20 ways to not be a gentrifier can be summarized in the following:

For several years after moving to New Orleans I romanticized the city and urban living, a classification Tim Keller discusses in Center Church. Although I still firmly believe living in an urban area is the best place for my family, over the past year being exposed to some of the negatives effects has changed this romanticism. One of my biggest reality checks came when it occurred to me that I was in fact a “gentrifier.” It was at that point that my theology, philosophy, and view of the city was rocked.

I remember exactly where I was sitting and what I was doing when I was introduced to the word “gentrification.” As a recent seminary graduate, I was reading A View from the Urban Loft by Sean Benesh. He mentioned it in a way that indicated that every urban student should know exactly what it was and what it meant. I didn’t! So I noted the word and decided I needed to study the topic more.