So Long, Skid Row, Eric Alan Barton,
New Times of Broward/Palm Beach
The residents of a low-income apartment building who will be forced
out by an out-of-town developer share their stories about their
home, and their fears about what will happen to them next. Eric
Alan Barton in the New Times of Broward/Palm Beach
tells of the dark side of urban renewal, which allowed a Miami
architect and developer to buy the property ‘for a song’ and
replace it with condominiums, without a thought toward its
residents. Barton says that while ‘Calling these men victims of
urban renewal would be too easy. Most are drug addicts or
alcoholics with filthy mouths. Many are drifters who spend their
days thinking of little more than their next beer,’ many are just
common people enduring ‘the lowest point in their lives, who scrape
together money for rent each week. The last days of the
cockroach-infested hole where they lived tell a story of simple
people pushed out by gentrification.’
–Julie Madsen
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