I don’t blame the tenants I mostly blame landlords and real-estate management firms.
Today, as I go on a daily walk with my daughter’s dog, I notice a distinct difference between the upkeep of owner-occupied homes and the growing number of rental properties. Everyone owned their homes, and that made a difference in terms of neighborhood upkeep. When I first moved into Washington Park, college professors lived next door to postal carriers, clerks and city employees. These and other predominantly Black communities began as segregated neighborhoods because of Jim Crow laws or practices, but later, because of the quality of housing and their proximity to their downtowns, they became attractive places for diverse residents to live, work and play. The story of the growth and development of Washington Park, followed by a two-decade dry spell in the 1990s and 2000s and then a renaissance following the Great Recession, is similar to that of other neighborhoods like Biddleville in Charlotte, N.C., Bronzeville in Chicago and Fourth Ward in Houston. Sadly, this is too often the case with newcomers moving into historically Black communities. Today, the history of this important community is facing a threat of evaporating into thin air because the new residents don’t seem interested in the neighborhood’s rich past. Washington High School.įor many decades, the area remained predominantly African American with mainly single-family homes and a nearby thriving commercial corridor called West Hunter. The neighborhood and the park from which it takes its name were built on land donated by African Americans in 1919 and used to be home to college professors affiliated with the Atlanta University Center and teachers and staff at nearby Booker T.
I moved into this two-story brick home two miles from downtown 42 years ago. My home is in Atlanta’s Washington Park in a historical Black community named for Booker T. What I have seen plenty of lately is gentrified communities. People of all races and incomes living in harmony sounds like a good thing, doesn’t it? But most of my life I haven’t seen many places like that. (Photo: The Conservancy at Historic Washington Park)Politicians have long extolled the importance of diverse, mixed-income communities.
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