I hate gentrification.
Living in a black neighborhood. Our neighbors were older black folks. They sold their houses.
They had two beautiful bougainvilleas or whatever against our mutual wall. With our own plants, this created a gorgeous “jungle”. It was a perfect and large natural buffer against the southwest sun. It looked good, and smelled good too:
There’s only a wall and trash cans now. Goddamn.
The new neighbors, which are all non-black, decided not to trim the bushes, but to remove them all. Not sure if it’s due to insurance or just aesthetics (who doesn’t want to see a slick cinder block wall instead of having gorgeous plants hiding it?), could be both. But now I have to use the AC in March on a hot day because the natural protection is gone. I used to turn it on only on a few afternoons in the summer.
Where is the let’s be good neighbors to each other energy? Where is the we should have greener cities? Where is the we should reduce our energy consumption by being smart with nature?
Fuck all of y’all.