Can Schools for Poor Kids Be an Agent in Gentrification?
Belmont Learning Center, the new crown jewel of the Los Angeles Unified School District. Now, also imagine that an area not even one mile away, called Echo Park, is in the throes of gentrification. For the past decade, landlords have been refurbishing apartments, and pressuring, bribing, or illegally evicting residents. Rents are rising, and the long-time residents of the working class neighborhood are being priced out. The white, generally college educated yuppies are moving in, and the brown working class families are being priced out. Of all the areas into which these gentrifiers might extend their reach, their movements are generally bordered, or impeded, by large roads and freeways. In this area, the 101 freeway has been a demarcation point. North of the 101, the hipsters with money are spreading, but south of the freeway, change has been a lot slower. That is, except in the blocks near the new Learning Center (a new term for a school). There, dumpy, ugly buildings near fixed-up b
