Take a look at the redeveloped Union Market or the ever-expanding nightlife scene on H Street and you’ll see: Washington businesses want that sweet gentrifier money. And who can blame them—-apparently mostly rich, mostly white people have a lot of cash to spend.

But there has to be a better way to get paid than this ad campaign for the Flats at Atlas apartment complex, which celebrates people moving to the Carver Langston neighborhood near Trinidad as “urban pioneers.” Which is weird, because there are already people there.

“Urban pioneers, rejoice!” reads the ad, which was first noticed by the District Curmudgeon.

Gentrifiers have been accused before of nouveau-Columbusing—-“showing up someplace and acting as if history started the moment you arrived”—-and the ad takes that false sense of discovery to an extreme.

Interestingly, the apartment building’s ad campaign has won a marketing award. I’m waiting for a comment from Clark Reality Capital, which developed the building.

Update, 12:00 a.m.: The Weekly Standard also mentioned the signs in October.

Photo courtesy District Curmudgeon.