How to Fight Gentrification With a Comic Book
Things are changing in Frogtown. A historically working-class neighborhood of single-family homes in St. Paul, Minnesota, the colorfully named enclave just north and west of downtown has welcomed waves of residents since Scandinavian, Polish, German, and Irish immigrants settled on the swampy, frog-friendly land in the second half of the 19th century. More recently, African Americans, Latinos, Somalis, Koreans, Ethiopians, and ethnic Hmong have made the area their home.
But Frogtown is transforming again, with more affluent newcomers moving to the neighborhood, in part due to the arrival in 2014 of a light rail line that connects downtown St. Paul with downtown Minneapolis. And a jolt of economic development activity is also on the way.
Last year, the Frogtown Neighborhood Association voted to refurbish the area’s Victoria Theater, a century-old movie theater-turned-nightclub now in disrepair, and make it into a gallery and performance space. Mayor Chris Coleman, however, chose to funnel funding for the project elsewhere—in particular, for a police shooting range. When a Frogtown resident asked the mayor why, Coleman replied that the theater renovation wasn’t in the neighborhood’s small area plan.
Every 10 years, many city neighborhood associations pen these plans, which outline changes and policies the community would like to see, and submit them to the mayor’s office. Ideally, some of the asks are incorporated into a city’s comprehensive plan and are implemented—but there’s no guarantee. “Often, small area plans are dry documents that few people read, and they end up sitting on a shelf,” said Caty Royce, director of the Frogtown Neighborhood Association.
The plan features two main sections: a description of Frogtown and its residents, and the policies residents want implemented. Its eight main characters embody the ideas of affordable housing, land use, transportation, entrepreneurship, education, arts, quality of life, and economic vitality—and also reflect the neighborhood’s diverse demographics. Around 75 percent of Frogtown residents are people of color, and more than 20 percent were born outside of the U.S.