The mask of progress

For someone who takes pride in being analytical and somewhat perceptive, its crazy how I have been blind to the effects of gentrification. With wide open arms, I had dumbly accepted all the rhetoric that developers spew, thinking they were restoring the crumbling "feta-buildings" back to its natural charm. To be honest, I found the newly furbished buildings rather pretty.

But thank cupcakes (they're my idea of a perfect god) for academics who write papers on the effects of gentrification. Never mind that they can be over the top with making a point, (Yes Bunge, its you I'm talking about), its just crazy how seemingly free floating entities that supposedly have their own unique identity get sucked into the capitalist economy, exploited for their artistic capabilities or alternative lifestyles, and then brutally chased away with the broom made of dollar bills.

Well, this post isn't meant to discuss the paper. I just wanted to say I'm starting to see how evil gentrification is, and how its been so well masked as a necessary and not-bad-at-all step towards progress, that it evaded my detection. Abhorrence.