If I am an evangelist for anything it is my neighbouhood. I have lived in the West End of Winnipeg for about 13 years (first moving onto Spence St in 1999). It won’t be long and it will be the place I have lived longest in my life. I can’t think of a better place to live in Winnipeg. The suburbs don’t register. Wolseley is too white. The Exchange seems okay but maybe just not residential enough. Maybe parts of St. Boniface. Anyway.

I am coming to realize that the fact that I am evangelist for my neighbourhood should give me pause. How did I come into this neighbourhood? How has it shaped me, how do I effect it? I first moved into the neighbourhood in my third year of Bible college when I formed an evangelical notion of the social gospel. A Christian should be among the least of these. The West End is probably considered by most the second worst neighbourhood in the city (would I have ever considered the North End, probably not). The Gospel was meant to address material needs and not spiritual insurances. So this is where I needed, wanted, to be. I don’t really know what I did here. I worked at the community centre for a while, talked to folks on the street, and cultivated a notion of how depraved suburbanites are. Over time I found that I just liked the neighbourhood. I liked finding my identity in it. But in truth I came to the neighbourhood believing I had something superior to offer while being able to profit from what was there (sound familiar?).

My first years in the neighbourhood I learned the term ‘gentrification’. All I really knew about it was that it was bad. That it forced the most vulnerable to leave or make them even more vulnerable. I learned that gentrification in many cities was initiated by large influxes of investment capital making quickly and dramatically reshaping the landscape of a neighbourhood. This mostly hasn’t happened in Winnipeg except maybe along Main St. But if Wolseley is any example, what does happen is the slow ‘improvement’ of a neighbourhood through white investment and ownership. I like to think the West End is a little more textured than Wolseley was before its white washing. Currently it is still difficult to visibly identify an ‘ethnic’ group. Businesses and religious/community centres are diverse. Very mixed income housing. But of course the trend has started. The good part of the West End is now affectionately called North Wolseley. We are in the fortunate position to home own and are doing some renovations. Hipsters and hipster businesses are creeping up out of West Broadway. The University of Winnipeg continues to extend its influence.

So what to do? Probably nothing. Or is there? I don’t know. I still really love this neighbourhood. Maybe I’m looking for absolution, wanting to be considered native enough to be above (or below) these trends. But hipsters aren’t the only thing on the rise. The influence of the mosque is increasing. Orthodox Eritreans are moving in and opening businesses. Second generation Filippino’s are making their mark. The indigenous community is becoming more prominent. Will this all be for not. Will whiteness just win again? What are your experiences in other cities?

Perhaps in college I should have the foresight, the vision, to just move immediately to suburbs. If a white person can formulate theology with integrity perhaps it must be able to survive and respond to the suburbs and not rest on the credibility of other people’s vulnerability.