Imagining a different future for the gentrifying neighborhood of Historic Filipinotown
For the last few months, Noel Alumit, a writer in Historic Filipinotown, has been adopting plants from Craigslist users, moved by the plaintive note in their appeals.I’ve lived here for 2 decades and my landlord is selling my building. Please give my plants a good home.He would prefer it if his neighbors could stay. But if they can’t, at least he can give their plants a home.
Those who can afford to benefit from the changes point to rising property values, cleaner streets and falling crime, and argue that a rising tide lifts all boats. Anyone questioning the changes is labeled a naive idealist fighting the inevitable. He aspires to create a business model with three main bottom lines: generating profits for shareholders, improving society at large and having a positive effect in the neighborhood.It’s natural to be skeptical of such lofty goals, and I was, too. But I just can’t think of another developer who has taken as many steps as Lin has to make those goals a reality.
Foronda, 34, was born and raised in Historic Filipinotown. He worked as a nurse but had always dreamed of opening a restaurant in the neighborhood he grew up in. He often drove around looking for an affordable space. Lin’s offer was an opportunity he never thought he’d get.Foronda named his restaurant after his hometown. Not the old name of Historic Filipinotown, which he never really used anyway, but the new one: HiFi. Foronda wanted people to use it.
When the Time Out article came out and CNN aggregated it, Johneric Concordia’s first reaction was alarm. His restaurant, the Park’s Finest, a popular Filipino American barbecue restaurant, was highlighted in the article as well. But he knew what “coolest” would mean. Concordia fights back by trying to plant flags for the community. When a group of investors reached out to him about opening a Southern cocktail bar next door to his restaurant called Thunderbolt, Concordia agreed to partner with them and help craft the menu. The most popular drink on the menu is the P-Town Boxing Club, a coconut-washed rye with pandan and bitters.
These things matter, because what’s painful about gentrification is not just displacement. It’s also replacement — the concern that the new community wants nothing to do with the old one. It’s vitally important to fight displacement and unjust evictions with lawsuits, tenant organizing and legal advocacy, and we need far more affordable housing protections and requirements than we have.
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