“Just watch out, it’s not as safe around here as you would think,” my family and I were warned leaving a taxi in one of Chicago’s predominantly Latino neighbourhoods ten years ago. Not exactly what you want to hear in a US city with leading homicide rates and notoriously dangerous streets! Yet, upon my return to Chicago this year, the danger warnings no longer seemed to apply to this neighbourhood, and instead I was told: don’t go to the far West side and never to the South side. These two areas of Chicago, coincidentally or not, were places that had now received an influx of Latinos displaced from neighbourhoods like the one, in which I was staying. Therefore, I was curious as to what had happened to the predominantly Latino, small business feel to the neighbourhood I knew ten years ago. Although it is still possible to wander around Logan Square and Humboldt Park’s avenues and grab yourself a taco or drink a tequila or two, the rising cost of living here means that it is no longer accessible for new Latino arrivals, nor for many of the neighbourhood’s previous community. In the relatively brief interlude, coffee shops, trendy bars and brightly lit streets have replaced the once bustling and authentic Latino living space. Why had these changes occurred within such a short period of time? The answer that most people give is one worded: gentrification. Gentrification is the process in which middle-class citizens seeking lower living costs move to working-class neighbourhoods, eventually raising living costs in this area and potentially changing its working-class status. Historically, Chicago is a well-known location in which gentrification has provoked rapid changes in the social and racial composition of its neighbourhoods. A force to be reckoned with, gentrification has many forms and in the US occurs not only along class lines but often along racial lines as well. The Mexican, Black and Eastern European communities are often marked as some of the poorest and therefore most vulnerable to being out-priced by richer arrivals. As such, the increasingly unsettled Latino migrant society in Chicago, which is the second biggest Latino migrant community in the US, finds itself more often than not, losers of the gentrification process. For example, the now trendy and hipster area of Chicago, known as Pilsen or 18th Street, is the latest example of a Mexican community to be fighting for its survival. Much of Pilsen’s vibrancy is owed to its proud Mexican identity; it boasts the impressive National Museum of Mexican Art, eccentric cafes like The Jumping Bean and Efibina’s Café and socially important and visually impacting street murals. However, in the last decade Pilsen has seen an influx of real estate companies and white professional middle class inhabitants, attracted to living in a relatively cheap neighbourhood with close proximity to both Chicago’s downtown and The University of Illinois, and with of course has those priceless elements often marginalised communities imbue in their environment ‘character’ and ‘authenticity’. The arrival of higher wage earners and a revitalisation programme have transformed Pilsen’s reputation as Chicago’s crime-ridden “Mexican ghetto” to an up-and-coming trendy neighbourhood. However, this interest has come at a price for many of the community’s previous occupants; and real estate companies have been particularly aggressive in their tactics at raising neighbourhood housing prices and rents and expelling tenants unable to pay. Furthermore, a local resident of Pilsen told me that: “as soon as white people arrived in Pilsen, the police presence increased: before the police were nowhere to be seen here.” This is the argument of Chicago community organisations such as the Pilsen Alliance and the No Se Vende Humboldt Park campaigns who have protested at being priced out of their neighbourhood and other negative effects of gentrification. The Pilsen Alliance have been successful in halting some of the 1998 Pilsen Tax Increment. This was to finance the expansion of The University of Illinois and developments that were ousting working-class Mexicans from a potentially affluent suburb near Chicago’s downtown. The Pilsen Alliance also points out that the tightening of immigration laws under President Obama has seen more immigrants deported than under any other US president, increasing fear and instability within the Latino community which directly affects its willingness to speak out against changes. Of course, its not just the Mexicans who are affected by the movement of people within Chicago, Pilsen was named after a city in the Czech Republic and is the only remainder of the days in which the neighbourhood was predominantly inhabited by Eastern European factory workers. This domino-like effect of gentrification demonstrates its key controversy: when someone moves in, someone else has to move out. To think about these issues closer to home, just take a look at the changing social status and cost of living in London’s boroughs of Brixton and Dalston, and of particular resonance to the Latinos, the demolition of El Pueblito Paisa in Seven Sisters. The identity of any migrant community can be defined by displacement and movement. The Colombian community in the UK, in particular, is made up of many who have already displaced in Colombia as a result of the civil war. If they are then prevented from settling when they come to the UK, because of the ferocious property market and speculation, will they ever be allowed to settle and become truly Londoners? Are you a Latino in London being affected by gentrification? Post your comments below.