"The Gentry," a luxury development being built in a gentrifying neighborhood, is forced to change its name.
Often, when developers come to neighborhoods of color with the intent of buying up property so they can flip it to white people, they aren't particularly subtle about their intentions.
Most developers, though, have the good sense to not name a luxury building they're bankrolling after the very class of people they're hoping to replace current residents with. Not so for Chicago's Villa Capital Properties, which is behind a new office and retail project that was forced to change its name last week because it was literally called "The Gentry." (Dictionary defitinion: A person in good social standing.)
The Gentry is opening in Pilsen, long a welcoming point of entry in Chicago for Mexican immigrants, and ground zero for witnessing creeping gentrification in the city. As the neighborhood gets whiter and whiter, gentrification infects every issue in the neighborhood: yuppie coffee shops are vandalized, new walk and bike trails are regarded with suspicion, and buildings are forced to change their names.