Thank you for sharing this - as someone who emigrated from Romania and landed and lived in San Francisco's Tenderloin of the late '80s and early '90s this resonated deeply with my family's experience.
This was very moving. It captures almost exactly how I feel about northwest Brooklyn, albeit with a few changes. The irony is you moved to LA when you were eight and I am fourth-generation Brooklynite yet the emotions are quite similar. (Absent your fond recollections of parking lots, of course.)
Have you seen the StrongTowns blog? https://www.strongtowns.org/ or the YouTube channel Not Just Bikes? Just throwing this out as possible inspirations, enjoyed your writing and thought maybe this might be useful to you.
Downtown Los Angeles, 21st Century: A Personal, Urban History
I would read a book's worth of this stuff
Thank you for sharing this - as someone who emigrated from Romania and landed and lived in San Francisco's Tenderloin of the late '80s and early '90s this resonated deeply with my family's experience.
This was very moving. It captures almost exactly how I feel about northwest Brooklyn, albeit with a few changes. The irony is you moved to LA when you were eight and I am fourth-generation Brooklynite yet the emotions are quite similar. (Absent your fond recollections of parking lots, of course.)
Have you seen the StrongTowns blog? https://www.strongtowns.org/ or the YouTube channel Not Just Bikes? Just throwing this out as possible inspirations, enjoyed your writing and thought maybe this might be useful to you.