The Short Film Losing Reachs Of Albina

example, love having more people with disposable income around. Crime tends to decline in gentrified neighborhoods. Local politicians are thrilled with increased tax bases. Neighborhood watch groups trumpet “cleaning up” the neighborhood. But more than anyone, gentrification directly benefits homeowners”(Hern, 19-20). Often the poster boy for home ownership in North Portland is the young, white hipster types; we rarely see people of color as symbols of those neighborhoods in Portland. Although the stereotypical mascot for Portland is a caucasian, dreadlocked hipster, we often can get better insight on the history of Portland’s Albina neighborhoods from black homeowners who have experienced gentrification first-hand. In the short film, Losing

Along with the completion of the construction of the Interstate-5 highway directly through the Albina district, low income communities and people of color were being systematically pushed from the one place in Portland they could call their own. According to author Matt Hern, the people who were forced to leave did not move to nicer areas of the city. They were forced to the eastern edges of the city where residents could not enjoy paved sidewalks, grocery stores and parks. As a result, the part of Portland famous for its livability—for charming shops and easy transit, walkable streets, and abundant bike paths—increasingly belongs to affluent whites (Hern,

It has been clearly established that gentrification does help revitalize once decrepit areas of a city, often creating new job opportunities, raising the value of properties, and creating cool, new areas to explore and enjoy. But we cannot mention the topic of gentrification without also mentioning the mass amounts of displacements of people. Gentrification clearly disproportionately benefits affluent, and often white people, while hampering the low-income and communities of color. This brings us back to the central question surrounding this topic, is gentrification a positive or negative process taking place in Portland? After understanding that an overwhelming amount of evidence points to gentrification as a negative process affecting Portland, we clearly see that the negative factors attached to gentrification outweigh the positives. By looking into the history of gentrification in Portland we can begin to understand how we got to this point in time where portland is gentrifying at the highest rate in the United States. By systematically encroaching on the Albina neighborhood, the last remaining area that is associated with people of color, the city of Portland has developed a unique characteristic. According to Matt Hern, as of today there is no longer a single minority-majority neighborhood left in