Take Back the Block

The author’s use of first-person narration establishes Wes’s importance as the protagonist and provides full access to his thoughts and emotions, even when he won’t admit his true feelings to his parents, friends, or teachers. Although the novel is written in the past tense, the narrative implies that Wes is looking back on these events from the near future. This stylistic choice gives the novel a sense of immediacy, and the story is written in such a way that Wes’s worries contribute to the suspense because there is no guarantee that all of the primary conflicts will be solved. Thus, the author emphasizes the fact that Wes’s situation is entirely realistic and that the process of gentrification is happening in multiple cities across the United States and elsewhere.

Within this context, it is clear from Wes’s initially dismissive attitude about protests, displacement, and gentrification that he will undergo considerable growth before the end of the novel. In these early chapters, he merely views events like protests as inconvenient interruptions that prevent him from pursuing his usual interests, such as video games, basketball, and fashion. However, because his mother deems the issue important enough to justify dragging him to a protest on his birthday, the opening scene is designed to emphasize The Impact of Gentrification on Communities and foreshadow the central role that this topic will play in the plot. Significantly, Wes is not yet concerned about Kari’s displacement, and he naïvely believes that the new stores poised to replace Kari’s torn-down apartment building might be “nice” additions to the area. However, his attitude will change when he comes face-to-face with the abstract “villain” of gentrification and realizes that his own neighborhood is threatened in a similar fashion. In the meantime, Wes’s envy of Mya’s new, fancier house in a different neighborhood is ironic and contains foreshadowing because as soon as moving becomes a real possibility for him, he will want nothing more than to stay in Kensington Oaks. Overall, the pointed contrast between his early lack of interest in social justice and his later fervor for such causes is also meant to be a call to action to the author’s younger readers.

To further increase the novel’s broad appeal, the author strategically refrains from identifying Wes’s home city, and the nonspecific setting implies that these events could easily occur in any American city. In her Afterword, the author admits that this fictional city is loosely based on her hometown of Charlotte, North Carolina, but the fictional city allows a wide variety of readers to imagine that their own hometowns might experience similar issues. Although Wes’s neighborhood of Kensington Oaks is also fictional, it is realistic enough to allow readers to correlate its landmarks and popular spots with similar places in their own experience, thereby increasing interest in the story and the characters.

Even though the novel has not yet used the word “gentrification” and Wes is still unfamiliar with the term, this early section introduces a realistic version of The Impact of Gentrification on Communities through the challenges that Kari must now face in the wake of his family’s displacement. Like many real-life survivors of gentrification, Kari and his family have been deprived of their former residence because, as renters, they have no say in whether or not their landlord sells their apartment building to a development company. However, the story’s message transcends the basic definition of gentrification by focusing on the cascade of harmful effects that a single act of displacement can have at an individual level. In Kari’s case, he has not only lost his home, but he has also lost important personal possessions such as clothing, and he also finds himself alienated from his friends, including Wes. These effects of gentrification often occur invisibly, and as Wes’s initial attitude suggests, most people in the area may not realize that their neighbors have been displaced; like Wes, they may only realize that new stores are coming to the area because this is the only information that public announcements will emphasize. Even those who know Kari personally do not realize the extent to which gentrification has affected him, and this dynamic illustrates the fact that although the impact of gentrification runs deep, passers-by might only notice the surface-level changes, such as old buildings being torn down or new buildings popping up.

The related issue of The Significance of Community and Cultural Heritage will also become more important as the threat of gentrification becomes more dire. The author’s description of Kensington Oaks clarifies that the community is valuable to Wes not because of its size or appearance, but because the people who live there and the memories he has made in the area are a vital part of his identity. The sign may be missing letters and the backyards may be small, but he doesn’t mind this, because Kensington Oaks has always been his home; he feels safe, comfortable, and supported there. Even though Wes claims to envy Mya because of her bigger house in a fancier neighborhood, his fondness for his current neighborhood proves that he would prefer to stay in the Oaks, and this love for his home and his community will compel him to become intimately involved in the conflict that is soon to arise.