Locally based writer for the New York Times Tom Egan trotted out a bunch hackneyed terms and phrases about growth in an article titled “Dude, Where’s My City?” It left me asking Egan, “Dude, where’s your editor?” Here’s a paragraph that was among the worst:

Rising rents threaten to push out the quirky and creative types who make these places eternally young and resilient. You saw the pattern in Brooklyn — that urban tipping point. An average wage earner living in Brooklyn would somehow have to spend 120 percent of his or her monthly income to make rent.

There’s that word: quirky. Egan also uses “funky” too to describe the tragic and horrible impacts of a growing city. I’ve seen these phrases over and over again — Egan’s article would have been fine as conversation over coffee or as a tweet, but whining about how growth is changing our city is hardly worth hundreds of words. I even searched for the term “quirky” and “growth” and found dozens of paragraphs like this from Columbus, Ohio that make Egan look like he just rewrote someone else’s screed:

Yet what is alarming for many long-time residents is that these “luxury apartments” and the complexes they come with could shred the souls of several unique and quirky Columbus neighborhoods.

There it is, more or less the same sentiment expressed in cities facing the change that comes with growth. It’s old. It’s been said. Where’s the insight? Egan offers none.

In stark contrast a composer from San Francisco, Aaron Gervais, wrote a brilliant and useful discussion about the changes that come with growth. His question is more about how growth and change impacts artists, but it is written with a depth of knowledge and offers a unique perspective: growth can be good for artists and the “quirky.”

Even formerly unredeemable neighborhoods of Oakland have started to succumb to baby strollers, designer boutiques, and rising rents. All the while, artists and the poor get pushed out, and any last remnant of cultural life goes along with them. Or so the story goes.

In reality, gentrification has an artistic upside, even when you factor in all that bad stuff. Gentrification is not just about the disneyfication of formerly quirky neighborhoods at the expense of anything unique or original. Yes, some dumbing down does occur, but that’s only part of it.

Gervais goes on to describe the changes in the Filmore neighborhood in San Francisco from the it’s early days as Japantown through the war and into the current day. His point is one I’ve made about neighborhoods like South Park, which went from a rural area with mostly Italian farmers to a gritty industrial neighborhood with a significant Latino population. Was that change bad? Maybe in some ways and for some people, but it wasn’t a change that was engineered or favored one group over another. It just happened that way.

Gervais wisely points out that,

Regardless of how things ultimately play out, the Tech Bros have arrived, and they have to live somewhere. So they can either live in monocultural suburbs, where life is insular and devoid of contrasting worldviews, where they will vote conservatively and deprive the arts of support. Or they can live in cities, where life is much more pluralistic and full of contrasting viewpoints, where they will vote more progressively and take part in the arts. Given that choice, I’ll take what’s behind Door #2.

Me too, whether what’s behind it is quirky or not.