Tanya Maria Golash–Boza’s fascinating new book, Before Gentrification: The Creation of DC’s Racial Wealth Gap, offers an unflinching critique of the urban disinvestment policies that have destroyed both lives and communities in the nation’s capital.

Golash-Boza, a sociologist and professor at the University of California, Merced, pulls no punches in her analysis of gentrification. During a TEDxUCMerced event several years ago, she declared: “There’s one reason home values go up in neighborhoods when White people move in: racism.” 

Before Gentrification, released in September, continues this line of thinking but also takes on a personal tone. Golash-Boza, who’s also the executive director of the University of California Washington Center, documents the cultural and socioeconomic changes brought about by the gentrification of the Northwest D.C. neighborhood of Petworth, where she was raised in the 1980s. She also chronicles the fate of childhood friends who eventually became ensnared in the local criminal justice system due to many of the same flawed policies that continue to allow gentrification to flourish. 

City Paper spoke to the author ahead of her Oct. 23 event at the UC Washington Center to discuss her research and learn how D.C. became one of the most gentrified cities in the country.

Washington City Paper: What was life like for you growing up in a White family in the majority Black, Uptown D.C. neighborhood of Petworth?

Tanya Maria Golash-Boza: Growing up around Kennedy Street in D.C., I was embraced by my neighbors. I had two best friends from my neighborhood: Monique, who is Black, and Julie, who is Korean. Monique’s grandmother used to call us the “Rainbow Coalition.” My Whiteness did not preclude me from feeling like a part of the neighborhood. As a teenager, I hung out with the kids who went to Wilson, Coolidge, and Roosevelt [high schools]. We’d walk over to the Ibex for the go-go or to Turntables for the dancehall music. The 1980s and 1990s in D.C. were a potent time. There was so much rich culture. Teenagers and young adults came out with their own unique fashions, dance moves, and language. I grew up feeling like a girl from Kennedy Street—from Uptown.

WCP: In the book you describe your parents as revolutionaries. How did their views influence you?

TMGB: Today, there is controversy over whether or not we should teach White children about the brutally racist history of the U.S.A. My father taught me this history as far back as I can remember. Our dinner table conversations could easily be about how the idea of race was created to justify colonization and slavery or how the concept of private property has not always existed. I grew up knowing that the world we live in is not fair and that we have an obligation to fight for a better world.

WCP: How did you decide to write about gentrification in Washington, D.C.?

TMGB: I moved out of D.C. in 1999 to attend graduate school. Each time I returned to the city, I found it had changed. This made me think about guys I knew growing up who had been incarcerated for decades. I wondered how they would experience their return to a gentrified city. I set out to write about the enduring effects of mass incarceration on the city, but couldn’t do that without also writing about gentrification.

WCP: Your previous books, Race and Racisms and Due Process Denied, have discussed how racial, ethnic, and economic inequalities negatively affect marginalized communities. 

TMGB: Yes. I am a sociologist who tells stories that help us understand the intersection of racism, capitalism, and patriarchy, and how these forces shape our lives. Storytelling is a powerful tool that, when done well, can help us see the underlying structures at play. Before Gentrification is a deep dive into structural racism in one place: Washington, D.C. By focusing on one city and looking at specific systems—housing, the law, and schooling—I was able to identify the mechanisms through which structural racism is reproduced in D.C.

WCP: You said inequality in home equity accounts for much of the racial wealth gap, but simply increasing access to home ownership is unlikely to close the gap. Why not?

TMGB: When people own the home they live in, they have more secure housing. They don’t have to worry about being evicted or facing significant rent increases. From that perspective, increasing Black homeownership is a good thing. However, we can’t expect increasing access to Black homeownership to reduce the racial wealth gap unless we also ensure that Black neighborhoods do not experience disinvestment.

WCP: Throughout the 1980s and ’90s many Black Washingtonians believed there was a “Plan” for White people to take over the city. But it seems like the “Plan” Black people didn’t see coming was the real estate strategy and the way the Federal Housing Administration subsidized mortgages and graded the value of property in White neighborhoods much higher than in traditionally Black neighborhoods.

TMGB: Mayor Anthony Williams developed a plan in 2003 to attract 100,000 new residents to the city and it was clear that those residents would be highly educated and high-income. There is thus some truth to the idea that there was a plan and that the plan was gentrification. Politicians supported this plan because of the fiscal constraints the city faced at the end of the 20th century. Many activist groups like Empower DC have long fought against the displacement caused by gentrification.

WCP: You also depict gentrification as a repetitive cycle of the city building housing projects then financially disinvesting in the properties. The city then, ironically, invests money into policing, jails, and other carceral infrastructure. By 1998, 50 percent of Black men in D.C. were under some type of criminal justice supervision.

TMGB: Yes, money that was not available to support communities suddenly becomes available when the criminal legal system needs it. The city is still reeling from the mass incarceration of Black men in the late 20th century. In D.C. today, people without a high school education earn far less than those with a college degree. People who grew up in D.C. during this time thus often have poor prospects in the labor market. 

WCP: Another interesting stat you discussed in the book is that, by 2016, Petworth ranked first in the nation in profits you could make from house flipping. How did this impact the people who lived in the neighborhood?

TMGB: Our sense of community changed. My friends and I used to play outside for hours each day. We’d jump Double Dutch on the corner or on somebody’s front porch, play hopscotch on the sidewalk, play by ourselves at the neighborhood and school playgrounds, run through the alleys, and play at the arcade on 5th and Kennedy. My neighbors would invite me in and give me a plate of food. Everyone would speak to one another in the neighborhood. The title of the book is Before Gentrification because I want readers to know that there was a lot to be valued in the city before gentrification. Gentrification is an act of erasure and there is much to be salvaged from our city.

Tanya Maria Golash-Boza will discuss Before Gentrification: The Creation of DC’s Racial Wealth Gap at several upcoming events in the District:

Nerd Nite DC with Golash-Boza starts at 6:30 p.m. on Oct. 21 at DC9. eventbrite.com. $10. 

Before Gentrification talk starts at 7 p.m. on Oct. 23 at the University of California Washington Center. ucpress.edu. Free preregistration is suggested. For more local events taking place in D.C. through Nov. 18, see ucpress.edu.