As I read through the Bickford article, I feel that the main point that is being made is that any one who may be white middle class should be ashamed of that designation. Bickford has ignored the fact that there are other races that are middle class, yes including blacks that she has professed to being gated out of the "prime neighborhoods" To me Bickford is too busy pushing the agenda that the white middle class is walling themselves in and allowing the rest of society to rot. She like many others before and after her are too busy assigning blame to a particular group rather than working to provide solutions to the problems.

I live in a small town just outside of Columbus where people are accepted based on who they are as a person, not on their race, gender, or sexual orientation. It isn't how much money they bring to the community but how they work within the community to make it better for everybody. I have seen people of all races, genders and sexual orientation working side by side to solve problems. Maybe this area is some what different than the area Bickford looked at.

In my experience working with different communities, a PUD designation is given to a property to control how a development works, ensuring that there is some green space instead of wall to wall housing. I have worked with developers that do condo style units that provide quality housing for low income individuals to the extremely wealthy. Each development was done to make the area desirable, with the idea that you provide housing based on what the market needs. In Virgina,there are some new communities that are requiring that new developments have what they have termed "Mixed Income". A basic requirement that each new development have a certain percent of low income housing mixed in with moderate to high income housing. In these areas you will find families with poverty level incomes mixed in with families in the dare I say, middle and upper level incomes.

When the idea of gentrification comes up, it is a no win situation. If you want urban areas to be revitalized then you must introduce new money to the area. One cannot expect that a person or business is going to invest large amounts of money into an area and not expect to get some kind of return. If they do then they will not be investing for long. It basically comes down to the idea that you should invest in the urban areas but don't displace anyone, nor expect a return on your investment.

One moves to an area because they want to feel a certain comfort level with it. They want a place where people have similar needs and desires. I don't look at areas and think to myself, I don't want to live there or visit there because a certain type of person lives there. A neighborhood or any place is more interesting when there are diverse cultures and ideas. The same goes for public spaces. I don't want to go to areas where everyone is the same, but I also won't take my family to areas that are unsafe. People of all races need comfort levels.

I want to believe that as this article was written quite a few years back, that society has been able to move froward and that the main context of this article has become outdated. I know that in reality that there are for lack of a better term, gates that hold, or separate people by race, or income, but I don't feel that it is fair to single out one group of people as the reason that those gates exist. Anybody can be poor, just as anybody can be middle class.

What makes us succeed is the desire to better ourselves and our surroundings.