Gentrification

[DonJuane]

You have to have more than 2 descent restaurants before you are San Miguel de Allende LOL.

If newcomers can take the back breaking stair climbs, disproportionate step distances that send so many of us flying, 250 stair climbs to various facilities and visits to friends around the perimeter, and maintain enough pairs of clean shoes to at least keep their own living room walk-able, perhaps they deserve to stay. Still there's no Sano Market, drop-dead Gourmet food court, no duck pate, nothing but goat cheese, no Beverly Hills style art openings, no theater performances (outside of symphony of course), no library open air coffee-sipping and "be seen" activities, no roof top cocktails and gourmet meals, no obnoxious rich west coast expats bored enough to allow even me to crash their fine home cocktail parties, no bonnet wearing or Panama hat wearing social events, no multi-million dollar home "walking tours", no yoga classes or holistic anything, no vegan based restaurants, no organic section .... instead our markets are removing gourmet offerings rather than adding, and since there's no place to park, much less to drive your fancy automobile, well for now it's still a long-shot.

Also most newcomers who have tried to infuse the aura of "expat mania" and drum up business to create another Gringo paradise struggle to find the participants or the venues to keep everyone interested. And it's not always that there's not that much to do here that keeps me in, as I find myself skipping meals just to avoid another walk downtown. It pays to have plenty of cans of tuna around here.

So I am thinking it will retain it's charm until they are able to get rid of all of the locals here. With all the other obstacles, I'm thinking and hoping that will be a slow process. It's happening slow enough now and with the bonus of all the graffiti activity here, requiring weekly house paintings, this keeps the San Miguel style at critical mass because a key element to that style of gentrification is to be able to show how affluent your are. If someone sprays a donkey reproductive organ on your door constantly and there's no way to show off or even park for God's sake that fancy automobile, and add to that you quickly discover that every trip to the grocery store feels like a day at boot camp, the "growth factor" here is bound to be slightly slower than seen over at our good neighbor SMdA.