Derek S. Hyra,

Associate professor in the Department of Public Administration and Policy at American University, Hyra spent the last six years studying the Shaw/U Street neighborhood. As he did for Bronzeville and Harlem inThe New Urban Renewal, Hyra gives a vibrant ethnography of a changing urban community. Once a center for D.C.’s African American elite, Shaw declined in the late 1960s. Recent years have seen its fortunes improve, but gentrification has meant not just safer streets, but the alienation of longtime residents. Calling these new urban districts “cappuccino cities,” for their demographics and their higher cost of living, Hyra weighs their pros and cons and shows that the causes of gentrification, like its effects, are more complicated than many realize.

Hyra is in conversation with Kojo Nnamdi.

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