What are the borders of your neighborhood? Unless you’re a newcomer, when you think about this question, definite answers probably come to mind right away. Where did you get those answers? How certain are you that they are right? Do they describe something that’s really out there or something that for some reason or another you need or want to believe in?
Dan Knauss
Dan Knauss is principal of New Local Media, an open source web application design and development consultancy. He lived and worked in Rivereast, Riverwest and Harambee from 1999-2011. Dan built and has maintained the Currents website since its debut in 2002. During the early noughties he blogged and wrote for the Currents. He now lives with his family in Canada.
Posted inColumns
Have You Heard About Harambee?
“Harambee” is a Kenyan word. During Kwanzaa, each evening a candle with a special significance is lit by the leader of the ceremony. Then everyone says something about what the candle symbolizes–unity, for instance, on the first evening of Kwanzaa. Then the leader shouts “Harambee!” (hah-rahm-BEH) which means “Let’s all pull together.” Everyone else shouts […]
Posted inColumns
A Crock of Crocker
The Journal Sentinel’s Crocker Stephenson was busy around 9-11, turning out a bunch of his short “snapshot” columns on people in New York City rather than his usual beat here in Milwaukee. There’s one on a 58 year-old Trinidadian violin player making a living by playing national anthems in Battery Park. There’s one on a […]
Posted inCommentary & Opinion
Gentrification: Artists and Yuppies Working Together
Artists who just want a space of their own may have difficulty with the idea that their own way of life might drive them and other people out of the neighborhood. This special feature includes links to many readings on the web, excerpts from Milwaukee’s Housing Strategy, a poem about Chicago’s Wicker Park Yuppification, and Gentrification Resistance Tools for Freak Bohemians.
Posted inCommentary & Opinion
The Journal Sentinel’s Coverage of Riverwest and Gentrification
[threecol_two]Many Riverwest residents may have agreed with Vince Bushell’s comments in the Currents when he responded to Commerce St. developer John Vetter’s soft-pedaling of gentrification. Vetter’s remark, “what’s not to like about [rising property values]” concluded a Journal Sentinel article by Whitney Gould back in February. Vetter’s comment wasn’t as surprising and dismaying as the […]