Neighborhoods

We went to a community barbecue this afternoon, which is always a little awkward. The thing is, I just don't really care that much about my little community. My neighborhood is really ncie, but it's mostly thirty something parents with fairly good jobs who own their first condos or little houses, buying up properties because prices are low in this area, since for years this is a black and hispanic neighborhood, and before that it was an Irish and Italian one. I have very mixed feelings about being part of the gentrification of a neighborhood I like: on the one hand, wealthier peoplebring money and businesses into a community, and on the other hand we push the original inhabitants out and to worse places.
At the little shindig in which I struggled to hobnob with lifelong urban gardeners (I exaggerate, but this is a type of tofu-eater I have real trouble communing with. Heh.) a state senator showed up. She's a fourteen year veteran of state politics, logn-standing ties with the black communities, very liberal, seems like a party-line Democrat, very pro-gay marriage, etc. But she's had a few shady accusations about weirdnesses (she "forgot" to register to run, so she had to run as a write-in...), some people say her time has come, she's too entrenched, and she's also the apple-of-my-eye and the cream in my coffee (see, I'm making fun of myself for using a cliché) so a young former teacher is running against her. Our neighborhood is totally for this up and comer (who is, if it wasn't horribly obvious, not black [although she's half Hispanic and half Chinese; it's not like she's a WASP...]). It couldn't have been a more obvious symbol of what our presence is doing in the area. Realty and politics--together at last!