Tension Over Arts Renaissance And Gentrification In Barrio Logan

Does part of a very old and will establish community with a strong identity. It is done by changes. Some of which are good and some which are not so popular with the residents. Kinsee Morlan host of the Voice of San Diego's culture cast has a podcast on the changes in Barrio Logan and tells the story to people who live there. Barrio Logan is inspiration. Barrio Logan is empowerment. Barrio Logan is culture. Barrio Logan is --. Barrio Logan is home. Barrio Logan is trouble. Kinsee thank you so much for joining us. Why did you choose Barrio Logan as the focus for your first podcast? My CEO editor Scott Lewis challenge assault to look at the landscape of the beat we cover. I cover all -- arts and culture and defined the biggest most important story happening. It quite owns the was the first thing that popped into my mind because it is the neighborhood that is changing and it is changing quickly and there has been this beautiful arts renaissance going on at the same time the age-old gentrification cyclist playing out some artists are always the first people to move in and us how cool these neighborhoods are with their big cheap warehouse spaces and it doesn't take too long before they help the process of pricing themselves out. That is going on right now and it is fascinating to me. You discover there's a lot of mixed views about the changes. Let's take a listen to some of them. I think changes inevitable. I tell my neighbors that live off of 33rd Street, changes coming. Downtown can only go in one direction. It cannot go north or west. It can only come East. Change is going to come but we have to be active participants in the community. When people talk about justification of talking about a process of change as if it is this evil, horrible thing. It is like, when two things, when does change stop? If changes bad, when do we want this process of change to stop? The fact remains that the Latinos are being displaced in they are moving the forces, are buying up properties. That was Lizzie Rodriguez and John Mireles who is a landlord in Barrio Logan. Not everybody is against change. What do you think from talking to people is there a way to revitalize the area without it leading to displacement? Yes. John Mireles is a fine art photographer and landlord and bill is a musician who has played in that neighborhood for a long time. Is a difficult question because when a neighborhood goes to change often times it is improving and we think about the work gentrification anyway things are getting better and things are getting nicer. It is getting a little bit safer. Then we have people like Lizzie Rodriguez coming in and opening up a new business and adding to the Renaissance that is happening she lives there. She is one of the community member so she likes to call it and other people call it into vacation. She is Latina. This is change driven by people inside the committee. What I discovered to the process is, it is the line, it is also clear of who is an insider and who is an outsider. Who is allowed to make change and who is not allowed. What about developers who are the ultimate outsiders. How much are they getting the local folks engaged in what changes they want to see happen? In the culture cast podcast I think it is episode two in three I talked to developers and right now it is the small-scale developers. I think they are doing as much as they can to be the kind of change that they would like to see in their own neighborhood. It is when maybe larger scale developers who often follow the smaller developers when they come in they assemble entire blocks. They buy cheap houses and old buildings. Tear them down, put up a big stucco condo, extensive commercial on bottom comics -- residential on top. That is the type of change that everyone is fearful of right now. The Development so far has been pretty respectful. If the Chargers had into the building dentin that would've been an enormous change. Our people relieved? Up for an entire episode I did focus on the Chargers issue because he kept coming up. Barrio Logan is so close to Petco Park right now that for instance during games they become a parking lot for the games. I Park in Barrio Logan and want to depart. If Chargers Stadium had gone in almost everyone there was sure that it would have completely killed the emerging arts scene. Talk about is very vibrant artistic creative community and of course the mind leaps to what happened with the tragic fire which happened in Oakland where a lot of artistic people work drawn to this low cost place but it ended up resulting in many people dying in the firebrick has that affected Barrio Logan commented the places where people gather? It has and one anonymous tip to come in for one venue in Barrio Logan. Other inspections have been ongoing in the neighborhood and three venues have been affected. They are working it out and events maybe still can happen but the fire departments across the country really know, are circling back looking at the spaces that everyone knows exists but people want culture to continue to exist. There has to be affordable spaces for culture in order to happen. In places like San Diego where it is hard to live, it is hard to find places to live let alone to work and to perform. Hopefully the city and the fire department in these venues can work together to solve the issue. Let me tell people how they can find this podcast. It is of Voice of San Diego's culture cast and you can find it on your favorite podcast app. It is really worth an issue -- a listen. Thank you for being here.