jim – regarding realtor practices, I’m referring to broad practices, nationallly, over the last 50 years. There’s a really large historical literature on this, and some of the language I referenced in ways that I find troublesome. Does it happen in Cville? In the past, I’d say almost certainly; for the present, I’ll defer to your experience.

As far as jim’s most recent post, the first part was quoted from the bubble blog. After that, I was making a point (and trying to challenge) what I saw as the logical implications of the statement I quopted. But Jim’s point about what’s desirable about Belmont is exactly the way I feel about the neighborhood, and it’s why I took issue bubblers’ attacks on it (and sorry, but they do come across as about more than just house prices). Belmont has different qualities than Rugby Rd (and yes, a few challenges that Rugby doesn’t) but it’s those positive qualities are why people love it.

Maybe Cville does have a gang problem, but as Larry states above, it’s intertwined with a poverty problem, and a segregation problem (btw, is there another neighborhood that is as racially integrated as Belmont? This is informational, as I’m not sure…), and an affordable housing problem. I’m not sure that hyperbolic, racially charged language is a terribly constructive way to deal with it.

Anyway, sanctimonious or not, just had to stand up for my neighborhood.

FWIW, anybody bold enough to call a part of the city a ghetto is going to raise anger in some quarters.

The fact is, Friendship Square fits the def of ghetto from high school civics class: a densely populated area typically filled with people of a minority group, often as a result of socio-economic restrictions.

Things need to change–we need more “Affordable Housing,” real affordable housing. But it’s almost impossible now due to the boom, when wage-to-price ratios for houses got so out of whack.

What’s the solution?

Regarding this –

It will always have the ghetto nearby … So on this set of assumptions, Belmont Ave. is a bad place to live because it is near the ghetto. This one is barely even coded about its racial assumptions

Who’s making the assumptions about race here?

Belmont, Monticello Avenue, Elliot, etc – are among the most desirable locations in the City primarily because of their locations – in the City. People want diversity and non-homogeneity and … this is perhaps most important – the location close to the Downtown Mall, Mas, Beer Run, ACAC, the Warehouse District, etc, etc, etc – strictly from a market point of view, race and class matter notsomuch when one can walk anywhere in 10 minutes or less.

One point regarding this –

the sad reality is that realtors have for years, all across the country, used the language and assumptions displayed by the bubble bloggers to reinforce racial and class norms about housing. Were/are those realtors responding in part to the market? Of course they were – but they are also reinforcing the norms and assumptions that produced that market.

I’ve never seen nor heard evidence of this in this market, nor would I tolerate it. This is a pretty broad and sweeping generalization that is in accurate in it broadness. Some Realtors may, just as some private citizens may as well; accusing someone (speaking of myself) of “coded” language speaks more, I think to stereotypes rather than reality.

This is the kind of long-standing realtor practice that I’m referring to, designed to provoke panic.

Panic? Please provide evidence of this, as again, I have not seen this in my admittedly short seven years of experience.

On a related note, this is an interesting article that shows both sides of the fair housing coin (read the comments).

It’s not fair to try to trap him into “defending” himself from what are bogus mis-readings from someone who seems hyper-sensitive.

And why aren’t you posting all this on The Bubble Blog?

Though we have to say, you seem intent on misreading certain posts.

When we said the following about Belmont:

“We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: BELMONT will never be the RUGBY ROAD area. It will always have the ghetto nearby, and it will always have the dumpy aluminum-siding shacks built on the tiny spaces where folks sold their yards. It is an economically stratified area, not a “diverse culture.” It will always be old working class & poverty vs. new bourgeois money.”

We are referring to the fact that the PRICES ARE TOO HIGH for what you get–aesthetically and otherwise, and that there’s a lot of HYPE about “diversity” that is just that for the area–”hype.” It’s not happy lovey-dovey land.

Can you argue that Rugby Road area is equivalent to Belmont? Not unless you want to start writing fiction.

Again, we invite your vitriol over at the Bubble.

Cheers

You’re even more sanctimonious than we are. Impressive.

We’re not opposed to “heterogeneous neighborhoods.” As we said in a post just yesterday, in re: the 10th & Page neighborhood, “We’re big proponents of “diversity” in neighborhoods, meaning mixed racially, ethnically, economically, religiously, aesthetically, and in terms of “life-style” choices.”

What we ARE opposed to is HALF MILLION DOLLAR HOUSES–a ridiculous asking price when The Ghetto is a block away. Don’t kid yourself by calling that place anything other than what’s a politically charged word. It doesn’t change the reality.

And what you call “one incident at Friendship Court”? That was a MURDER. Charlottesville has a Gang Problem–and part of it is because of the division between the “Haves”–those who can afford HALF MILLION DOLLAR HOUSES in Belmont–and the HAVE NOTS–those in Friendship Square and The Belmont Apartment.

And how’s this for a racially charged statement? When a WHITE PERSON gets killed in gang related activity, THEN there will be adequate attention paid to the problem.

Cheers.

On May 24, referring to an MLS listing on Avon St., the bubble bloggers refer to gang tagging, and then close with the point that “Garrett Square is just one block away.” [emphasis original]. Seems to me this is pretty heavily racially coded – operating on an assumption that the property can’t be this valuable if there is a housing project nearby. Granted, they don’t make a specific reference to race here – but with all the coded language they don’t have to. This is the kind of long-standing realtor practice that I’m referring to, designed to provoke panic.

On May 17, referring to an MLS listing on Belmont Ave: “We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: BELMONT will never be the RUGBY ROAD area. It will always have the ghetto nearby, and it will always have the dumpy aluminum-siding shacks built on the tiny spaces where folks sold their yards. It is an economically stratified area, not a “diverse culture.” It will always be old working class & poverty vs. new bourgeois money.” [much of this is italicized in the original ]. So on this set of assumptions, Belmont Ave. is a bad place to live because it is near the ghetto. This one is barely even coded about its racial assumptions. And the bit about economic stratification shows a clear presumption about class as well – that everyone should live in neighborhoods with people of the same economic status, just like it is in most suburban neighborhoods. And to reemphasize their point, they close the post with the observation, in italics, that “Garrett Square is a block away.” [note that they can’t even get the name right, using the old name instead].

In a 7/1 reference to Carlton Ave property, they object to the following: “Directly behind the property is 1000 Monticello Road aka the subsidized Belmont Apartments.” And of course, no one with any money would want to live near Section 8. They also complain about the Belmont Apartments in a May 5 post (about a property on Belmont Ave) during a tirade against the fact that the neighborhood has some mixed use – they even complain about the presence of Virginia Industries for the Blind down the street – a completely innocuous operation – and about the school buses at Clark Elementary school! And of course, they work in a snarky comment that no one who can afford this house would send their kids to Clark – they might be surprised if they actually learned something about Clark, which happens to be a great school that serves a very diverse student population.

As to your point about crime: of course no one want to live in a high crime area. But Belmont is not a high crime area, and hyperventilating about one incident at Friendship Court is engaging in scare tactics designed to attack neighborhoods and people that don’t match what the bubblers see as desirable. While I commend you for turning away the racists, the sad reality is that realtors have for years, all across the country, used the language and assumptions displayed by the bubble bloggers to reinforce racial and class norms about housing. Were/are those realtors responding in part to the market? Of course they were – but they are also reinforcing the norms and assumptions that produced that market. And so are the bubble bloggers.

As I said in my first comment, I have no idea what the bubblers’ actual, personal attitudes are…but in these posts they repeatedly show major issues with mixed use, mixed race, and mixed class neighborhoods. That’s not to say they aren’t correct about some of the overpricing around town, and about some of the implications of gentrification – they probably are – but they need to be called out for the above assumptions, rather than celebrated as they have been of late. At the very least, the point should be made that not everyone in Cville is as afraid of heterogeneous neighborhoods as they seem to be.

This is not an attempt to defend …

I haven’t seen any vitriolic references to racial makeups, and if I do/did, I would draw attention to it as there’s no place for that on this site.

Is anything that they say untrue? The source of the reference to the racial makeup is the Charlottesville Community Design Center, not the bubble bloggers.

I for one, didn’t draw a correlation between racial makeup of neighborhoods and crime, but see them as separate facts independent of each other. That Friendship Court has had recent shootings is a fact as well, no?

Regarding the desirability of neighborhoods – I have never had clients say that they want to live in neighborhoods with violent (or non-violent) crime. I have had people ask about racial makeup and I direct them to where they can find that information – the C’ville Design Center, eNeighborhoods, Census data – I try to be the “source of the source.”

I have had people ask very racist questions about neighborhoods … and I’ve told them I choose not to work with them.

I don’t see talking about racial makeup and/or crime information as a “bad” thing, nor do I draw a line between the two, nor do I see discussing either as a reflection of any “long-standing assumptions.”

For better or worse, buyers do ask for demographic makeups of areas, and sending them to where they can find the data is part of my job.