Today@Dal

From the August 8 issue of The Coast:

If you ask Dalhousie planning professor Jill Grant, there are signs of both gentrification and revitalization in the area.

By her definition, gentrification is characterized by a higher-income population moving into a neighbourhood, displacing lower-income residents. The ideology and cultural desires of higher-income people drive gentrification, she explained, and developers take advantage of that.

As it becomes increasingly desirable to live downtown as opposed to the suburbs, newer, more affluent residents are moving to the north end. There’s a cultural element too—the area is attractive because it’s artsy, quirky and diverse.

Realtors have caught on, marketing properties as “located in Halifax’s chic arts district.”

Businesses get it, too. Restaurants, retailers, an organic food store and a TV station have moved in, aided by the North End Business Association’s peeling away of the area’s stigma. Agricola is bustling and Gottingen is beginning to look like it did in the 1950s.

And, says Grant, HRM is making all of this 
possible. Through policy, the municipality is promoting density in the regional centre (the peninsula and parts of Dartmouth) and attempting to make land use more efficient in order to reduce the extension of services into the sprawling suburbs.

Read the rest of this article at The Coast's website.