Some worry that if the improvements actually happen,
it will just catalyze gentrification, destabilizing the very
people whose lives should improve.
Knowing these doubts like the potholes on a familiar
street, Lawrence Calloway, a South Linden commissioner,
turns the meeting into something of a pep rally.
“Can you all say, ‘Linden’?” he asks from the stage.
“Linden!” the crowd yells.
“LINDEN!” Calloway calls, louder.
“LINDEN!” they respond, louder still.
He smiles. “This is what we’re talking about,” he says
to them. “Our community.”
Calloway asks the crowd to raise their hands if they
provided input or helped shape the plan. Most of the
hands go up. He nods. “It is an instruction on how to use
every last nut and bolt and piece of wood
and metal and brick and mortar to make
sure this thing works,” he says of the plan.
“So if you didn’t see yourself in it, maybe
you need to mention how you can be in it.”
Cue murmurs of approval.
Calloway ends by once again saying the
community’s name. A cheer of “Linden! Lin-
den! Linden!” rises like an approaching train.
Afterward, people disperse to knotty circles
of conversation. Nicole Williams is hanging
out near glossy, novella-length copies of the
plan. Two-tone eye shadow applied in vertical
patches gives her a tiger-like aspect. A friend
asks after her son, and Williams turns herPOPSCI.COM•SPRING 2019 67GETTING THERERolling Blunder
You have to go
solo and sans
cargo on a
scooter. That
leaves out
parents and
shoppers.