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Working-class neighborhood here. I've heard older people in my neighborhood talk about "neighborhood character". I don't know what they're talking about.
If someone knocks on my door, 95% of the time it's a salesman. If I get mail, 95% of the time it's ads for things that do not increase my quality of life. I've lived in my house for 7 years and I still haven't talked with everyone on my block yet. Not for lack of trying.
I don't see a "neighborhood character" that's worth preserving. How do you describe a "neighborhood character" that's worth defending?
Assume that you are a democrat and you have progressive inclinations, and you live in a community of similarly minded individuals.
What if I told you I was going to import a lot MAGA Republicans, and not the standard Republicans, but ones who compete amongst themselves to buy Trump-labeled kitsch. Who immediately demand that the public library be replaced with a church, and the lesbian cafes with titty bars. That the buses should be sold for scrap as they take too much space on the street for their hummers to pass. And not only are they so numerous as to immediately change the demography of the town, they also vote, so that your well-meaning local representative is replaced by a used car salesman who loots the public treasury at every opportunity.
This would approximate the reaction that many people have to having the city's least desirable renting underclass moved into their neighborhood.
So I live in a Blue-ish neighborhood with a large immigrant population, I can point-for-point compare your predictions with what's actually happened.
We still have more churches than libraries. But our schools are closing due to lack of enrollment. If a church wants to move in, that's where the room is. And when it happens it'll probably be Black-led.
We had a titty bar about five miles west of my house. It got demolished, and a three-over-one apartment complex with wraparound services is in its place. I've never been to either - couldn't tell you what they're like.
We had a lesbian-owned bar across from the library. Mural-sized portraits of Frida Kahlo, Sandra Day O'Connor & other progressive saints were on the walls. They've since picked up and moved to a bigger location ten miles away. It wasn't a great place for me to drink, but others seemed to like it well enough.
We have an immigrant on city council. He's a Republican.
I won't go full Op-Ed and try to create a story about all this. It would create an incomplete map - and we know about the differences between maps & territories here.
None of this answers the original question: what is a "neighborhood character" that's worth defending?
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I'm reminded of a very pro-immigrant friend who was absolutely indignant at the Free State Project and people moving to New Hampshire to vote their values...
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'Well meaning local representatives' suck. Local governments should be small enough to be a home for deranged ideologues and criminally-inclined hotshots without causing much problem.
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Adding several hundred low-income units to the immediate area will make it much worse, I assure you. Though it sounds like you live in a pretty crappy place already.
The breakdown of social cohesion and community bonds is well underway for other reasons, yes, but this only accelerates the process, and hard.
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