Book Sampler - Vespas, Cafes, Single-Speed Bikes, and Urban Hipsters: A Biblical View of Gentrification

Here is a sampler of two chapters of a new book I'm working on entitled: Vespas, Cafes, Single-Speed Bikes, and Urban Hipsters: A Biblical View on Gentrification.

One-Sentence Summary: Gentrification as a city-shaping process straddles the line between being helpful and hurtful. Is there such thing as a biblical or theological response to gentrification?

Description: The scene opens at one of many trendy bustling neighborhood coffee shops across the city's urban central city. It's packed full of young tattooed, fashionably dressed urban hipsters. Lined up just outside the large windows are rows of single-speed bicycles and a myriad of mopeds and scooters. Barely 10 years ago, these same neighborhoods were labeled "urban blight;" but now they've been renewed and revitalized. Once in a while, there is a reminder of the way the district used to be as a homeless man pushes a shopping cart full of bottles and beer cans past the coffee shop, but the vestiges of yesterday have mostly given way to the new. It's called gentrification, and it's a scene that's being repeated in inner city neighborhoods across North America. Welcome to a biblical and theological exploration of this phenomenon entitled Vespas, Cafes, Single-Speed Bikes, and Urban Hipsters.

Click on Authonomy to read the first two chapters.