How I Watched My College Destroy My Hometown

Income inequality was already a problem in Newport News, Va. The growth of my university brought that problem to its height.

Courtesy of Pilsen

Ten days ago, I packed my bags, ditched my hometown, and signed a lease in my dream city of Richmond, Va. I love Richmond and its local culture. I love the street art, the billions of coffee shops and slam poetry nights; I love the breweries, the hipster guys driving my Uber, and the dirt-cheap rent for my awesome historic home.

However, in Richmond, as I watch what we call “graffiti” get painted over with what we call “street art,” and as I hear stories of historically black clubs getting bought out by VCU and replaced with craft breweries, and as I hear stories of black families getting evicted and replaced by artsy college kids who rent by the room, it gradually dawns on me that I recognize this story. You smell the reek of an ominous, uncomfortable specter that makes middle-class white people hail a place as “trendy” by forcing the city’s longtime residents out. It’s an uncomfortable fact that I benefit from, but its reality is a considerable reason for pause. I think they have a word for it. The word is gentrification. And while I haven’t lived in Richmond long enough to judge it, the story of gentrification is a story I know. This…