But the general process of neighbor-hood change entails a loss of urban cohesiveness and the growth of a new pluralism among residents that will compel congregations to reexamine their identities and play new roles

The rapid-fire changes that can reconfigure neighborhoods during gen-trification (whether from rezoning laws or the closing of long-established retail outlets) makes transitions between niches both a problem and a pos-sibility for congregations

Mainline congregations seem best able to bridge the gap between old-timers and a segment of newcomers; their openness to the neighborhood and their liberal positions on women in leadership, gay rights, and other social issues seem a natural fit with new residents

he evangelical lifestyle enclave’s demand that members hold to a common belief system lends itself to the formation of social networks of like-minded believers who define themselves against an unbelieving society

the stress on intimacy, authenticity, and community that strikes a powerful chord among young urban newcomers arriving on the current wave of gentrification

The thirty congregations are compared according to nine analytic dimensions: (1) primary identification, (2) neighborhood attachment, (3) membership compo-sition, (4) neighborhood investment, (5) neighborhood activism, (6) prospects for growth, (7) tenure, (8) member proximity and commutation to congrega-tion, and (9) sources of funding and other resources

All of these congregations have sought (some more self-consciously than oth-ers) to find their own niche in the religious ecology of Williamsburg and Greenpoint.

Following the model of social ecology, these neighborhoods have experienced long-term organizational mortality and adaptations and, most noticeably, the birth of congregations

Such a growth in the number of nontraditional families is partly tied to the young age of the newcomers–the median age of the new arrivals between 1990 and 2000 was thirty-five. The study found that older Italian, Hispanic, and Polish communities were in danger of being displaced.

Far more than belonging to the same neighborhood, congregations tend to attract those of particular age groups or generations as well as those with similar beliefs and worship styles, even eclipsing the importance of denomination (i.e., it is more important to have a born-again experience than to be Methodist, Baptist, etc.)

This chapter looks at how congregations meet the needs of both newcomers and longtime residents in a period of drastic neighborhood change

Most social scientists who study gentrification tend to see religious groups and particularly congregations as largely marginal and passive by-standers in the larger structural processes of neighborhood change

Yet Ley and Martin admit that while conventional congregations may suf-fer losses and even shut their doors, alternative spiritual groups

David Ley and R. Bruce Martin (1993) argue not only that the creative class moving into gentrified zones is secular to begin with, but also that the establishments (such as restaurants and entertainment venues) they bring into neighborhoods force congregations out of these areas.

This raises the question of not only how congregations adapt but also how they influence these gentrified zones and their residents.

In many cases, new residents coming into a neighborhood through gen-trification are viewed as potential members with identifiable needs that a con-gregation can meet, as well as talents that a congregation can use.

This brief encounter between the puzzled hipster and the Roman Catho-lic participants in the procession of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel in Williams-burg, Brooklyn, during the summer of 2008 illuminates the ongoing cultural disconnect between newcomers and old-time residents in this gentrifying neighborhood.

For this report, an initial test determined a tract was eligible to gentrify if its median household income and median home value were both in the bottom 40th percentile of all tracts within a metro area at the beginning of the decade. To assess gentrification, growth rates were computed for eligible tracts’ inflation-adjusted median home values and percentage of adults with bachelors’ degrees.

The District is home to some of the county’s fastest-gentrifying communities.

Neighborhoods gentrifying since 2000 recorded population increases and became whiter, with the share of non-Hispanic white residents increasing an average of 4.3 percentage points. Meanwhile, lower-income neighborhoods that failed to gentrify experienced slight population losses and saw the concentration of minorities increase

In the District of Columbia, for example, 54 neighborhoods were found to have gentrified since 2000. Back in the 1990s, just five neighborhoods had gentrified in a decade when the city was dubbed the nation’s “murder capital.” 

Portland, OR 58.1% 36 26 80 142 Washington, DC 51.9% 54 50 75 179 Minneapolis, MN 50.6% 39 38 39 116

Compared to lower-income areas that failed to gentrify, gentrifying Census tracts recorded increases in the non-Hispanic white population and declines in the poverty rate.

Gentrification greatly accelerated in several cities. Nearly 20 percent of neighborhoods with lower incomes and home values have experienced gentrification since 2000, compared to only 9 percent during the 1990s.

Gentrification still remains rare nationally, with only 8 percent of all neighborhoods reviewed experiencing gentrification since the 2000 Census.

Early efforts to renovate the rowhouses raised concerns of displacement among poor black renters. In a 1972 Washington Post article, rowhouse tenants in the 1800 block of Eighth Street NW predicted their eventual replacement by wealthier whites, a forecast that became reality in a few short decades

Mostly, renewal efforts resulted in construction of a few high-rise federally subsidized low-income apartments sponsored by church groups

The 1968 riots gave birth to Shaw in a previously unnamed neighborhood of 1910-era rowhouses. There were African-American churches, and small businesses concentrated along U Street

The neighborhood “reminded us of the meatpacking district of New York,” said Kai Reynolds, a JBG partner. In their search for what he calls “authentic,” they also visited the Venice neighborhood of Los Angeles and the Pearl District of Portland, Ore.

Although the standard models of rhetorical situation can tell us much about the elements that are involved in a particular situation, these same models can also mask the fluidity of rhetori

The weakness of "conglomeration" models is tacitly exposed in Smith and Lybarger's analysis of Bush's "war on drugs" speeches, for instance. Wh

his explicit definition, Bitzer writes that a rhetorical situation is "a natural context of persons, events, objects, relations, and an exigence which strongly invites utterances. ..." (385). As ma

Warner tells us that this is why the overly simplified models of communication - often represented through the triangulated terms sender, receiver, text - are nothing short of a conceptual paradox. H

Cosby didn't want the movement to become institutional and frozen by inertia

After decades of bringing white, middle- and upper-class people into neighborhoods around Columbia Road and Adams Morgan to serve the poor and lecturing to seminarians and faith leaders, Cosby has concluded that societal change might go in the other direction.

"We've got to move from believing so deeply to doing," he preached. "We've got to keep in mind the discrepancy between belief and embodiment."

“The tunnel’snot bad. The tunnel’s a good place if you want to find out who you are. But when you find out who you are, you have to move out or the tunnel will eat you up like it ate me up for several years. Like I say, I built everything up around the tunnel. Now I have to learn to build it around myself.”

On a global scale, Debord not only views this as a way in which capitalism maintains the society it has created, but also argues that thepeople of anti-capitalist countries must question power instead of accepting reforms. Without the abolition of capitalism or any oppressive order, the working-class continues to struggle within the boundaries imposed on them by the system in place.

Homelessness is not truly the condition of not having a home. Because the homeless indeed have a home they build on the streets or in the tunnels, their condition is more accurately described as the absence of a stable home.

Because the public trusts in commercial messages, they seek out the materialitems that double as signs of privilege. In this mindset, the material is demanded based on publicity-created fixation rather than need (or even want), for prior to the publicity, the individual is not aware that he or she either requires or desiresthe item. This distracts from an awareness of the populations Morton interviews because their lack of resources cannot be approached with the commercialistunderstanding of the material

Graeme Gilloch

habit, we

twork, or

In the opening pages of this book, I stated that sustainable thinking must be capable of thinking across multiple and asymmetrical networks

unconnected