Gentrification is something every nice neigborhood has to face at one point. It has nothing to do with Gentlemens or Genetics, but comes from the verb ‘to gentrify’ which means according to our friends at Oxford: 1. rennovate and improve so that it conforms to middle-class taste; 2. make more refined or dignified. We might call it pimping the neighborhood or, as many politicians call it, cleaning up the neighborhood.
In Amsterdam I live in one of those ‘dirty’ neighborhoods, De Baarsjes. Five years ago nobody wanted to live there because it was filled with low-class religious people like our beloved Morrocans and Turks. But after some hip cafes and boutiques opened, I have seen the raise of those scumbag richy rich yuppie wannabe bums with their playfully torn Asics shoes, greasy American Psycho hair you want to wipe your ass with, Dockers pants and their annoying accent within no time. Of course like anyobdy else who isn’t part of their clique I wanted to smash their heads in with their annoying hockey sticks (in Amsterdam that’s field hockey sticks). Because I’m a chicken and am too scared of getting ass-raped in jail, I didn’t do anything, untill now!
I’ve been thinking about this phenomenon for a long time and truth is, it’s not the fault of previous mentioned Money-is-everything-that’s-why-we’re-greedy-like-Jews kids. It’s the fault of the creative and progressive thinking artist! What? Yeah, it’s the creative person that screws us over and makes a ghetto-like area turn into the new Greenwich Village (if that isn’t passe already). I’ll tell you how:
Take any slum that is close to the city center and has low rents. Put a couple of creatives who barely have money to pay high rents, but need a lot of space for their artsy fartsy thought explosions, in some of the empty spaces and you have the beginning of gentrification. What happens is that soon these ‘pioneers’ will talk to their very creative and cool friends about their new neighborhood and how it still is so raw, meaningful and not corrupted. Most of these friends will think that their ‘ghetto’ friends are crazy for living in an unsafe environment where ninetypercent of the people is on welfare. Nonetheless they will spread the word about these courageous and bit goofy friends who have moved to the dark side of town. Because people always want to be the first and want to be pioneers, out of all the people that hear about this (and remember, this rumour only stays in a select group) and soon you’ll have posers that have absolutely no creativity or talent, but have been wanting to be seen as creative for such a long time, and they will take the risk of moving to Gentrification Village. They know that in five years they can claim to know the neighborhood before all the famous people moved there, it got too trendy, and you couldn’t find a parking spot anymore. Because these wannabes are basically greasy hockey kids with parents that are so rich that they never have to work in their life and therefor could look for their non-existing creative side, their dads will buy an appartment block for them to live in and they will rent out the rest to make some pocketmoney.
Soon the rumour about this new ‘Brooklyn’ will spread like a fire and everybody will want to move there. Brokers will see the opportunity and renovate some buildings to sell them tenfold. Conclusion gentrification!
So you motherfucking wannabe slut, look what you’ve done did to my De Baarsjes. You raped it like a priest and now I can’t pay my rent anymore and have to move. At least the real creative didn’t MTV his crib. He really liked it and he found it inspiring. That’s creativity. You are the annoying guy who brags about the ‘nice’ bars and turn them into pieces of shit with overpriced drinks and gold-digging bitches who look for their life provider!
The solution is easy though: the real creative people have to shut the fuck up about how nice their neighborhood is and hide their canvases or Moleskine and MacBooks when they’re outside. This way nobody will find out, not even me, where the next place to be is! And tomorrow I will not spit in their already greasy hair. I will not yell ‘whore!’ at those annoying blond girls drinking rose who have a raspy bass in their voice. Nor will I pee on their stoop or kick in their carwindow of their trendy 80’s secondhand Volvo they got from their dad as a present. No I will do all of these things to the first not so-trendy failed wannabe creative that I see. So if you live in De Baarsjes you better watch your step faux-Van Gogh because I’m ghetto-ing the neighborhood again!
