The East Campus Innitiative and The issuses of Gentrification and Influence

There is no doubt that the east campus initiative will bring change to the College Park community. Hopefully this change will be for the better. However, a change this drastic can cause some complications for the community and its residents. Another word for change is ‘gentrification’; specifically change in neighborhood developments. Gentrification can also be code for the phrase ‘not like us’. The east campus initiative will possibly bring a whole new culture to the area. This may be a very different culture that already exists in the east campus area.

Gentrification is a very relevant term to the East Campus Initiative because of another term associated with it: displacement. The East Campus initiative calls for the demolition of many old buildings in the East Campus area. This deconstruction includes Old Leonardtown. Old Leonardtown is a student housing community that is (like all university of Maryland student housing) desperately sought after by students. UMD is currently in a student housing crisis. There is not nearly enough on-campus student housing. This causes more students to look for housing in the neighborhoods of permanent residents of College Park (which I will talk about further in the next blog post). The East Campus Initiative will cause the displacement of all the students currently living in Old Leonardtown (which is a result of the gentrification of east campus). Destroying already existing student housing when there is not enough to go around is not in the best interest of the students. However, even though the east campus initiative includes the construction of student housing, there must be a way to do it without destroying already existing housing.

This brings me to my next point. The students of Old Leonardtown have no real ‘say’ is they get kicked out of their student housing. This is relevant to the terms “Yuppie” and “Bubbas”. These terms were coined by Catherine Bisher in the article, Bubba, and the Politics of Culture. Bisher says a yuppie is someone who is usually wealthy and is in the high class of society. Yuppies are often associated with being a “market professional”; someone who has useful professional knowledge and training. In the case of College Park community and the East Campus Project, the administration of the University and the people heading the East Campus Project are yuppies. They have all the power and influence on what goes on in the community. Bubbas are the working class of the society, in college park, this could also be considered the students. These terms are relevant to the East Campus Project because it is about who controls what goes on in the east campus project. Since the yuppies have all the influence on which buildings get destroyed, the bubbas are left in the dust, and in this case without housing (until new housing is built, which could be a year or more).

Below are two pictures I believe represent the yuppies and bubbas in the College Park community. The first picture is distant shot of the administration building at the University of Maryland. I believe this well represents the yuppies in this community.

This second picture is of students walking up and down a path leaving from the student union. I believe this well represents the bubbas in the college park community.