The affluent neighborhood of View Park between Crenshaw and La Brea, is 84 percent African-American.
It's loaded with 2,500-5,000 square foot homes, often with pools and maids' quarters, and architecturally beautiful. These days, whites are moving in, causing residents to take notice of the impact this demographic shift has on the culture of the neighborhood. The LA Times reported there's effort to put View Park on the National Register of Historic Places. This is seen to many as a tactic to make the neighborhood even more desirable to those with the money to live there.
Others, see the potential historic designation as a way to preserve the architectural integrity of the neighborhood and to improve property values. Ironically, in the 1960s, View Park was white, but when the Supreme Court lifted covenants that barred non-white owners, educated, monied black professionals started moving in. That's when the whites moved out en masse. Now they're returning.
Is that a problem? Is wanting to preserve the current cultural identity of View Park okay? What are the pros and cons of putting View Park on the National Register of Historic Places?
Guests:
Angel Jennings, Staff Reporter at the LA Times
Lance Freeman, Professor and Director of the Urban Planning Program at the Graduate School of Architecture at Columbia University and author of, “There Goes the Hood: View of Gentrification from the Ground Up”
Joe Hicks, VP of Community Advocates and former head of L.A. City Human Relations Commission