Gentrification At A Cost: Movie Analysis

Gentrification at a Cost
“It’s a great neighborhood,” a testament to Clybourne Park said by former resident, Kevin Taylor. Kevin was a small man, about 5’8”, grey haired and with a black bowler hat. He wears navy blue slacks, a red button up-shirt with a blazer over it. He walks with a slump in his step as though something is wrong but he doesn’t quite know what. He hadn’t lived in Clybourne Park for five years, moving out in July of 2011, during a period many refer to as heavy gentrification. In 2016 Kevin came from Englewood Chicago, the location of his current home, back to Clybourne Park, to retrieve a box of personal items, he thinks were left at his old house. On his way he stopped by where a favorite place of his, a basketball court, used to be
The house was built and one by one houses in that area were replaced with larger nicer houses, much as Kevin had explained to the family moving in. The demands on houses in that area slowly got higher but Kevin and Lena had not fully paid mortgage, so they were unable to sell. Eventually the demand got so high that just one month of being late on their mortgage was enough for the landlord to evict them and suddenly they were out a house. Kevin reflected on this time by saying that the landlord just showed up one morning and said he needed the mortgage now. After Kevin explained that that was impossible, the landlord gave them 30 days to leave. The family, discouraged, then moved to Englewood, where they found affordable houses, but not houses to their liking. Kevin claimed it was a troubled area and a “tough place to grow up”, when asked to elaborate he said “drugs are trouble, violence is trouble.” He walked to his old house as he said this but when he arrived he stopped in his tracks to realise that his his old house had been knocked down and had been replaced with a condo (above). They were blue and red with a fresh new paint job, and small balconies on every floor. There was a backyard