Description
Is gentrification a crime? What happens to deteriorated city blocks when investors endure the neighborhood in order to reap maximum housing profits? This is a profile of such a neighborhood and the children who grow up dealing with new integration and learning their street smarts the hard way. While the parents join community improvement organizations and have neighborhood barbecues, the children are left with the reality of those streets, which are defined by the dangers and populations therein. Every child new to the neighborhood must learn the rules, even while the rules are changing. Where does one hide money, and can one pay a toll for safe passage? Of course, there are islands of neutrality, but the children must still navigate their way home. This all makes for a good survival story as the third wall is broken, and the narrator confronts the author of such a book. Can one further exploit the stories of such exploited children? And who owns the neighborhood and its stories? Each building has a story and history. As it is remade, it is also rebranded and erased.