People who live in gentrifying neighborhoods enjoy many new things that accompany increased investment and influxes of new people: better police protection, more places to shop and eat, and cleaner streets. The changes may be gradual or they may appear in such a short period of time that it seems like overnight.

Something as simple as the appearance of a mailbox on a corner can reinforce longtime residents’ impressions that change is occurring.

And now that I’ve been over here and we’re getting whites moving in the neighborhood, we’ve got a mailbox on the corner. We don’t have to go up to the post office ….

The mailbox is new. And pickup on time: eleven o’clock very day. Eleven o’clock every day. So you see, you get different service and you get general services and so forth and so on. — Washington, D.C., Ward 7 resident, July 2015.

Branch Ave., 2007. Credit: Google maps.

Branch Ave., 2015. Note new sidewalks.

© 2015 D.S. Rotenstein

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