Cooltown Studios
The official blog for crowdsourced placemaking

Thursday, June 02, 2005

Lofts on Art Avenue in downtown Minneapolis, MN

$70K lofts in Minneapolis?

Now this is the best solution to gentrification - beautiful housing at prices for people at 50% below the median income, like a $70K loft in the recently completed Lofts on Art Avenue in downtown Minneapolis, which also happens to be a star creative class city.

How’d it happen?  A strong sense of community.  The Stevens Square Community Organization, a local nonprofit focused on the best interests of the Stevens Square neighborhood, agreed that attainable owner-occupied housing was needed

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Posted by Neil Takemoto in • Housing & Lofts | (0) Comments | Link |

Wednesday, June 01, 2005

Rittenhouse, Philadelphia, PA

The little known catch 22 of gentrification

Gentrification: The restoration and upgrading of deteriorated urban property by middle-class or affluent people, often resulting in displacement of lower-income people.

With a dictionary definition like that, what good is there in a bunch of rich people pricing a bunch of poor people out of their neighborhood?  In a place like Harlem where only 10% of all residences are owner-occupied (average in New York City is 30%, nationally it’s 67%), not much at all.

However, in neighborhoods where

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Posted by Neil Takemoto in • Attainability | (1) Comments | Link |
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