A dynamic force that reinvigorates cities with exploding cultural significance, or a Trojan horse displacing the underserved in favor of the chaffing corporate state, I am of two minds about gentrification. And so I am of the Short North, an area that finds me loving and loathing, has me energized and exhausted, fills me with fantasies of--and frustrations for--the future.
Named after police slang for the area just short of downtown, its boundaries are not well defined as planners, residents, and developers have there own geography. Columbusites usually defined it as the strip centered by High Street between Park/Front Streets on the west and Pearl Alley on the east. It starts at the 5th Avenue intersection and ends at I670, though The Cap, a development that hides the freeway, effectively extends it to Nationwide Blvd.
You can identify it by the arches spanning High. These are facsimiles of historic ones that were put up to light Civil War vets on reunion in the late 19th century. Later they supported trolley cars and were placed throughout the city giving the nickname Arch City.
Visitors will compare it to the likes of Carson Street in Pittsburgh or other art districts in cities throughout America. Full of fading bourgeois boutiques, specilty stores, gastropubs, furniture shops, hangouts, and fashion. Many of the top restaurants and pubs in town are here, too many to list off. A few off the top of my head is the meadry Brothers Drake, the chef designed Rossi, the irresistible Le Chocolaholic, and the brunch-tastic Tasi.
A transplant, I found the area in the 1990s when the process was in its infancy. I loved the cacophony of architecture, the multistories close to the street, and even the grittiness of its urban culture. Gallory Hop, a tradition alive today, had the gallories open ever first Saturday of the month, was cutting edge and thick with creativity then. It once had the most bohemian coffee houses in town, though it still has great coffee spots.
Gallory hop is still an event worth experiencing even if its former greatness is relagated to nostalgia. I still suggest vistors come here, though beloved spots have closed in the last 15.
Sure the process brings blight to bright; but, if left unchecked, there is a point it can turn neighborhoods south again; sterile sameness has the same void of soul as distressed dilapidation, maybe even more so. Think of it as a yelp score on a graph, the Y-axes is the star ratings, the X is the level of gentrification. Gentrification makes a bell curve: we start out as one star-- then the artist moves in eventually bringing to three; later, indy restaurants and bars come and we reach 4; at some point, when the cool balance of art, new indy shops, and the old time biz is perfect we have primo neighborhood. But add a little more gentrification and suddenly rent increases, artist are praiced out, and it start to fall. Four-stars, three-stars. The unique local joints move out and close and we reach 2. All the usual chains, cloaked in posh trimings move in, and we have returned to a one star neighborhood which I derogatorily name 'Easton Downtown'. (A good mall yes, but a neighborhood, no.)
I think the SN today is right of the appex, four stars heading to three. Hopefully I am wrong, but a look at trend setting cities says I am not. See: Manhattan. read more