A rising tide, it's been said, raises all the boats.
But that flood of good fortune might also drown anyone who can't afford a boat.
The economic waters rising around City Heights in the last few years have engulfed and driven out many longtime residents – an unintended consequence of a philanthropic effort that has spruced up the once-decaying, crime-ridden neighborhood.
TV REVIEW
"The Price of Renewal"
A new PBS film looks at developments in San Diego's City Heights neighborhood.
10 p.m. tomorrow
on KPBS/Channel 15 (Cable 11).
|
The sequence of events is graphically chronicled in “The Price of Renewal,” tomorrow's solidly enlightening if incomplete second installment in the PBS four-part series, “California and the American Dream.”
Produced by former San Diego filmmaker Paul Espinosa (with Lyn Goldfarb, Jed Riffe and the Independent Television Service), “The Price of Renewal” records the cleanup projects, the anti-graffiti campaigns, the meetings, efforts by police and residents, the construction projects that went into the renewal of City Heights.
Espinosa, who now teaches filmmaking at Arizona State University in Tempe, focuses on the changes wrought by Sol Price, the visionary founder of FedMart and, later, Price Club (later merged with Costco).
The usually camera-shy Price, who invested as much as $110 million into the redevelopment of City Heights, sat for a rare interview in 2004, when he was 87. “I decided that I wasn't going to be able to change the country, and I wasn't going to be able to change the state,” he says. “I'd come to the conclusion that I wasn't even going to change the city, so maybe I could change one little area.”
Underwriting a new police station, a major shopping mall, libraries, schools, recreation centers and meeting areas, Price wrought major changes in City Heights through the 1990s and beyond, all at a time when real estate prices were rising throughout the city (not to mention statewide and nationally).
It was mostly national brand-name stores, for example, who were allowed to open up shop in the new mall. Local merchants, particularly the sellers of ethnic foods who for years had supplied neighborhood immigrants with their victuals, were excluded. Low-income renters could no longer afford to stay in their old neighborhood, once known as “the Ellis Island of San Diego.”
A few local merchants whose businesses didn't get into the mall are interviewed, but the film would have benefited if Espinosa had also tracked down and interviewed one or two residents who were priced out of the area.
“This was not something we did that was universally applauded by people in the area,” Price acknowledges. “When you make a community too much better than it was, you have the problem that you're in effect driving the problem from that area to someplace else.”
By last year, $500 million had been invested in City Heights. “However, the growing prosperity is out of reach to more and more residents,” says the narration, read by actress Linda Hunt. “As real estate values rise throughout California, City Heights struggles with gentrification, a process occurring around the country, where escalating real estate prices began to force out the original residents.”
“Yeah, they're making it better, but who are they kicking out of this neighborhood,” asks homeowner Valentina Hernandez. “They're kicking out the poor people, the poor Mexicans, the poor Asians, the poor African-Americans. Where are they going to go once rents become skyrocketed?”
Price is philosophical: “Would I do it again? I'd change some things. On the whole, I think we've spent a lot of money, we've put a lot of time in. . . . I'm not sure we could have spent the money any better any place else. I think we've done a lot of good for a lot of people.”
(The first film in the “California and the American Dream” series, “California's 'Lost' Tribes,” aired last week. “The New Los Angeles” will run April 27. The final installment, “Ripe For Change,” dealing with “the intersection of food and politics in California,” will air May 4. All are at 10 p.m. on KPBS/Channel 15 (Cable 11).)
Robert P. Laurence: (619) 293-1892; bob.laurence@uniontrib.com. See past columns, and read the Remote Control Web log at www.sosd.com/tvradio.
