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Comment by alistairSH | Hacker News Reader

The US also has additional "baggage" that comes from it's past racial problems.

I live near DC. Gentrification in the city is almost always wealthy whites displacing poor blacks. There is very much an us-vs-them feeling among those that are being displaced.

One ridiculous effect of the gentrification... Historically black churches in the downtown areas now have congregations that have been displaced and commute from the suburbs to attend services. This causes all sorts of problems with parking that didn't exist when the congregation lived in the neighborhood.

This in turn causes conflict with new residents, who want to add bike lanes. The congregation doesn't like that because it would reduce on-street parking.

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It seems a modicum of regulatory creativity would result in a marvelous new invention: a bike lane that is open to parking on Sunday mornings. This would inconvenience approximately zero cyclists, since Sunday morning is a time of low traffic.

That is exactly what was done in Philadelphia on Pine and Spruce streets. These are East-West bike lane "arterials" that allow parking on Sundays.

Except for people who ride a bike to church.

As observed above, they will face very little traffic, because most commuters are godless heathens who are snug in their beds on Sunday morning. There is nothing wrong with travelling by bicycle in the street in general, but certainly even less wrong with doing so near a church on Sunday morning. Bike lanes with no nearby churches wouldn't have this special rule.

> displacing poor blacks

That would be "redlining", another very despicable tactic used to keep cities segregated.

If you haven't read it, Ta-Nehisi Coates impressive essay on the subject is worth a read.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case...

No, redlining is something different (not loaning money), though very messed up.

As the essay I linked to discusses, there are more aspects to redlining than just loans (though that is where the practice gets its name). In any case, it's all part of the same racist attempts to keep people segregated. At least in the USA, you can't really separate gentrification, redlining, and other housing problems.

This is very much what's happening in Atlanta right now.

The city was a pretty extreme example of white flight for much of the 20th century, and the gentrification process over the past couple of decades has been just as extreme. As a result, you have expensive condos going up in historically black neighborhoods like the Old Fourth Ward (where MLK Jr. grew up).

> new residents, who want to add bike lanes. The congregation doesn't like that because it would reduce on-street parking.

One can easily imagine the bike lanes being used as stealth exclusionary devices, which depresses me as I would rather see them as empowering people through better urban transportation.

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