white people LOVE gentrification...

...including this white person.

I found a funny blog today, Stuff White People Like, categorically documenting all the things we crazy white people love. Being a white person, it's almost painful to read and yet so true.
This post about gentrification (#73) rang very true, given the house endeavor Alice and I are starting:

In general, white people love situations where they can’t lose. While this does account for the majority of their situations, perhaps the safest bet a white person can make is to buy a house in an up-and-coming neighborhood.

White people like to live in these neighborhoods because they get credibility and respect from other white people for living in a more “authentic” neighborhood where they are exposed to “true culture” every day. So whenever their friends mention their home in the suburbs or richer urban area, these people can say “oh, it’s so boring out there, so fake. In our neighborhood, things are just more real.” This superiority is important as white people jockey for position in their circle of friends.

They are like a modern day Lewis and Clark, except instead of searching for the ocean, they are searching for old properties to renovate.

In a few years, if more white people start moving in, these initial trailblazers will sell their property for triple what they paid and move into an ultramodern home.

Credibility or money, they can’t lose!

As many of you know, Alice and I are finishing a house in the Mechanicsville this spring. Pretty soon I'll be posting progress pictures at my blog.

Every time someone says to me, "Isn't that neighborhood kinda rough? I don't know if I could live there" my ego inflates a little. I think about them, "Of course you couldn't. But that's how real we are. You know, the nitty gritty of real life." I need to punch myself in the face.