The Board meeting at church went late (they always do, don’t they?), and I just had to go to the supermarket afterwards. So it was ten o’clock when I finally pulled up in front of our apartment. A middle-aged couple was out walking their dog, looking in the windows of the art gallery that’s on the first floor of our building. That is unusual. You see, when we first moved in, we quickly learned that our neighborhood was quite safe at any time of day or night. But we never saw people out walking dogs at night, we never saw joggers, and the only people we saw out walking late at night were homeless people and people wandering up from the waterfront looking for a bar. Aside from that, after six o’clock the streets were pretty much empty.

The neighborhood has changed over the past two years. Fancy new apartments got built, luxury condos got built, a few new stores opened up. One morning a year ago, we saw the first jogger running along our block, although he was probably just lost because we never saw another one. But about six months ago, we did start seeing a few dog-walkers after dark. A couple of weeks ago, a new police station opened three blocks away, and it seems as if we’re seeing even more people walking around after dark. Smells like gentrification to me.