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Saying she is trying to keep her options open, Hallie Barnes ’16 can’t decide which city she wants to gentrify after graduation in the spring.
“I could see myself increasing property values and supplanting local culture in Detroit,” said Barnes, whose parents have promised to help her pay rent wherever she decides to displace low-income families after school. “Houses are so cheap there, but do I really want to gentrify the Midwest?”
Sources confirm that Barnes is also considering forcing underprivileged locals to relocate out of Portland, D.C., Austin, and New York, though she is still waiting to hear back from prospective employers.
“It’s both terrifying and exciting to think that in the next year, I’ll graduate from my expensive liberal arts college and help turn a vibrant real-world neighborhood into a bland approximation of bourgeois society,” said Barnes, adding that some of her friends have already agreed to set up a little alumni community in Brooklyn or Queens where minorities used to live. “But if worse comes to worst, I can always just move back to my all-white, upper-class hometown.”
Barnes added, “I’m confident that everything will end up okay for me.”
