Is My Gentrifying L.A. Hood Getting Worse or Better?

A Resident on the Frontline of Urban Change Weighs the Pros and Cons

If you want to know what it’s like on the front lines of gentrification, you only have to look at the corner of Avoca Street and Yosemite Drive in Eagle Rock, my Los Angeles neighborhood.

When my father was a kid in the Eagle Rock in the 1960s, there was a tiny corner store called Joe’s Market that provided eggs, milk, and other necessities. The owners were two brothers from Korea who, whenever customers lacked the funds to buy groceries, allowed them to write their name down on a piece …