of the twenty-first century, the government of Kentucky, mainly from civic
embarrassment late expressed, fostered with other parties a great cleanup
and institution of garbage collection and public inspection of sewage and
water systems.^21
Great cleanups were under way earlier in American downtowns, includ-
ing southern ones, well before the end of the twentieth century. City govern-
ments hired such famous architects as John Portman (designer of, among
other things, now-clichéd skyscraper hotels with glass elevators) to confer
monumentality and confidence on central cities from Atlanta to Norfolk
to Baltimore. Charlotte, Atlanta, and Nashville built skylines with stunning
profiles. New Orleans, Norfolk, Portsmouth, and Baltimore converted dere-
lict waterfronts into grand commercial-retail spaces that offered visitors
opportunities to walk, ride bicycles, and take boat tours. Congress, mean-
while, had aimed to spark rejuvenation of old downtowns with the National
Historic Preservation Act of , which established a National Registry
of Historic Places and offered tax and other incentives to restore build-
ings and neighborhoods. The legislation was partly responsible for ongoing
‘‘gentrification’’ of old neighborhoods: Youngish and middle-aged people
(usually white) with money saved parts of many old seaboard cities, includ-
ing Baltimore, Portsmouth, Norfolk, Wilmington, Georgetown, Charles-
ton, Savannah, and Mobile. The durability and benefit of such return-to-
the-cities movements is uncertain, however. Will supermarkets and other
stores return from the suburbs to serve the reverse pioneers? Will there be
schools, decent ones? Gentrification has tended to simplify demographics
in formerly diverse neighborhoods. The poor, the working poor, the elderly
with fixed incomes, and people of color tend to be replaced by middle-
aged whites of the professional and business class. Their costly improve-
ments cause rising taxation and market values, driving out the last of the
former resident population. Diversity is not only the standard of strength
and durability for the botanical cover of a landscape; it is (as Jane Jacobs in-
sisted) the soul of a functioning city. Too, migrants from upscale suburbs
to restored inner-city blocks often bring with them suburbanites’ super-
sensitivity about security, so they install elaborate alarm systems and avoid
walking the streets. Thus, paradoxically, some gentrified urban places are
dissimilar from suburbs only in the absence of great lawns. The gentry do
not walk their blocks but drive to the supermarket, often miles away, and
drive children (if there are any) to distant schools. They may as well live in
the (supposedly) most secure of automobile-centric suburbs, namely, gated
communities.