DW Gibson

The groundbreaking oral history that tells the stories of New Yorkers effecting and affected by gentrification If you live in a city--and every year, more and more Americans do--you've seen firsthand how gentrification has transformed our surroundings. It has so altered the way cities look, feel, cost, and even smell to such an extent that it's hard to imagine that it could ever have been otherwise. Over the last few years, journalists, policymakers, critics, and historians have all tried to explain just what it is that happens when new money and new residents flow in, yet we've had very little access to the human side of this phenomenon. The Edge Becomes The Center captures the stories of the many kinds of people--brokers, buyers, sellers, renters, landlords, artists, contractors, politicians and everyone in between--who are being shaped by--and are shaping--the new New York City. In this extraordinary oral history, DW Gibson takes gentrification out of the op-ed columns and the textbooks and brings it to life. Gibson explains-- in the voices of the people living through it--what urban change really looks and feels like. In the plainspoken, casually authoritative tradition of Jane Jacobs and Studs Terkel, The Edge Becomes The Center is an inviting and essential portrait of the way we live now.

An Oral History of Gentrification in the 21st Century

The Edge Becomes the Center

An esteemed journalist delivers a compelling on-the-ground account of the construction of President Trump’s border wall in San Diego—and the impact on the lives of local residents. In August of 2019, Donald Trump finished building his border wall—at least a portion of it. In San Diego, the Army Corps of engineers completed two years of construction on a 14-mile steel beamed barrier that extends eighteen-feet high and cost a staggering $147 million. As one border patrol agent told reporters visiting the site, “It was funded and approved and it was built under his administration. It is Trump’s wall.” 14 Miles is a definitive account of all the dramatic construction, showing readers what it feels like to stand on both sides of the border looking up at the imposing and controversial barrier. After the Department of Homeland Security announced an open call for wall prototypes in 2017, DW Gibson, an award-winning journalist and Southern California native, began visiting the construction site and watching as the prototype samples were erected. Gibson spent those two years closely observing the work and interviewing local residents to understand how it was impacting them. These include April McKee, a border patrol agent leading a recruiting program that trains teenagers to work as agents; Jeff Schwilk, a retired Marine who organizes pro-wall rallies as head of the group San Diegans for Secure Borders; Roque De La Fuente, an eccentric millionaire developer who uses the construction as a promotional opportunity; and Civile Ephedouard, a Haitian refugee who spent two years migrating through Central America to the United States and anxiously awaits the results of his asylum case. Fascinating, propulsive, and incredibly timely, 14 Miles is an important work that explains not only how the wall has reshaped our landscape and countless lives but also how its shadow looms over our very identity as a nation.

Building the Border Wall

14 Miles

If you live in a city—and every year, more and more Americans do—you’ve seen firsthand how gentrification has transformed our surroundings, altering the way cities look, feel, cost, and even smell. Over the last few years, journalists, policymakers, critics, and historians have all tried to explain just what it is that happens when new money and new residents flow into established neighborhoods, yet we’ve had very little access to the human side of the gentrification phenomenon. The Edge Becomes the Center captures the stories of the many kinds of people—brokers, buyers, sellers, renters, landlords, artists, contractors, politicians, and everyone in between—who are shaping and being shaped by the new New York City. In this extraordinary oral history, DW Gibson takes gentrification out of the op-ed columns and textbooks and brings it to life, showing us what urban change looks and feels like by exposing us to the voices of the people living through it. Drawing on the plainspoken, casually authoritative tradition of Jane Jacobs and Studs Terkel, The Edge Becomes the Center is an inviting and essential portrait of the way we live now.

DW Gibson

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