My neighborhood is an odd swatch of the city, centrally located and pretty content to be without any sort of unifying identity. But most of us like it just the way it is, with a nice mix of cute little houses and 1960’s apartment buildings. We didn’t like when they tore down our coffee shop and Greek restaurant, and most of us are less than thrilled about the shiny new condos going up in their place. We’re grumpy. We don’t like change, at least not when change equals expensive stores that none of us want to shop at anyway.

So we’re a little wary of the Wards Cove project, which aims to tear down some old salmon fishery space and some blackberry bushes, and put in some more condos and space for a few rich people to park some great big boats.
(This is an unrelated rant, but seriously, they’re turning the old restaurant supply store into more condos? Why not, say, a grocery store?)

I’m not totally opposed to redeveloping my neighborhood–that would be silly and shortsighted. And the Wards Cove development is better than some of the proposals I’ve seen. I’m just worried about phrases like “luxury townhomes,” which suggest that soon enough I–and, worse, my grizzled neighbors that have lived here for the last 30 years and have the best stories–will be forced out by young yuppies with disposable income that find places like the Zoo too dirty and Daly’s too greasy.

We’ve bit hit with a lot of building very quickly over here, and we’re kind of scrambling to save pieces of it. We’ve still got our new park, our sidewalk insets, and our strange kayak shelters. But we’re worried. And now at the bar I hear more and more stories about how the neighborhood used to be, like people are a little afraid that their memories will soon be all that’s left. And the way things are going right now, they probably will be.