Gentrification: Pros & Cons in the African American Community

Vashti Mosby, Science, Northridge Middle School

Curriculum Unit (PDF)

Synopsis

This curriculum unit will make a significant contribution by exploring the pros and cons of Gentrification and the effect it has on the 4 wards of Charlotte, North Carolina. Students will explore the meaning of redlining, blockbusting, and urban renewal as it relates to communities that are in the process of being “gentrified”. Students will form their own personal views throughout this unit and decide if gentrification has a positive or negative
connotation associated with it depending on if you are white or a minority. This unit included viewing a short film that focuses on how one city’s housing authority wants to tear down a neighborhood to create a larger mixed income neighborhood with residential and business spaces. It also includes a lesson that will support students’ understanding of the gentrification process by creating a digital mapping project that will incorporate their research of one of the four wards into a historical timeline which will include pictures, interviews, and maps. The end result will have the students understand what it means to be a community and why it is important to preserve the culture of neighborhoods.