Week 3- After the sweep where do you throw the dirt????

SWEAPING THE SLUMS, in today’s society is not so hidden. One might drive through a slum neighborhood and one month later drive through again and all the affordable living buildings would leveled. White people going to the slums for entertainment in the early 1900’s desired to consume the black/tan life. However, when both white men and women started promoting scare tactics into their communities, the desire for the nightlife of the slums shifted into fear of the nightlife. The slums are/were areas where people who live in poverty can afford to live, and the people in that community depend/ed on the capital brought in by the white middle/upperclass consumers. It’s similar to supply and demand, if the demand is high society keeps producing, if it is low they stop production and move in a new product. What is happening to slums, is contractors are coming in buying the land for 400,000 because the buildings are not worth anything and then they are building 20 urban lofts and selling each one for 500,000. Only people with economic capital can afford to live in the newly “highland” area. However if this was the only area affordable to live in for most people,…where do those people end up?

  I grew up in central Denver, down the street from Sports Authority Stadium, a block away from Colfax. The description of a slum that was presented in the reading, when I read it the picture of my old neighborhood appeared in my head. I grew up knowing what drugs, prostitution and strip clubs were, before I knew how to read. My grandparents live on the corner of 16th and king and across the street from affordable living apartments. This area used to be where many people would come to purchase drugs and look for people to pick up. However over the years the violence rose to an extreme level and over time less consumers would be seen. In the year 2015 the old slum looking apartments are going to be newly built million dollar lofts. Those people that lived in those apartments were bought out and pushed into the industrial area of Colorado. How many times can society push communities out before there is nowhere else to go? Freakonomics