How gentrification really changed an Atlanta neighborhood

Kirkwood, Atlanta, looks like a standard-issue gentrified urban neighborhood, a mix of yuppies and old-timers. Josh Green moved there and found a community ambivalent about the changes in its fortunes. But the story of his neighbor's family illustrates it better than house prices or property tax records ever could.

Last autumn I saw Anita helping her brother and went across the street. She could barely look at the massive two-story Craftsman, purchased by a young surgeon and her husband, that had replaced her childhood home, though Al had tried to console her: Its just like the grave site, he said. Something died; we buried it. And something new is coming up. Complicating matters, a couple of Anitas older siblings were so incensed that she didnt renovate the property and keep it in the family, she told me, they hadnt spoken to her since Annas funeral. But renovations would have been too expensive, and Anna had given her blessing to have the home sold, encouraging Anita to take the proceeds and move back to some quieter place.