https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2021/01/25/mount-pleasant-washington-dc-gentrification/
In recent decades, a tide of gentrification has swept across America’s urban centers. In Washington, office blocks have sprung up along North and South Capitol streets, while whole new neighborhoods have been created around previously underused real estate: Union Market in a Northeast warehouse district, Nationals Park on the Anacostia River waterfront. And some communities have all but vanished: From 1980 to 2010, Shaw went from being 80 percent Black to 30 percent.
Mount Pleasant, meanwhile, has followed an unusual trajectory: It hasn’t changed much at all. It has long been a haven for immigrants, activists, punk rockers, entrepreneurs, revolutionaries and returning Peace Corps volunteers — and it still is. The residential streets sloping down to Rock Creek Park are thick with do-gooders: social workers, wonks, economists, immigration lawyers, musicians, ministers, artists, florists, yoga instructors, divorce lawyers and even the odd journalist. The apartment buildings along Mount Pleasant Street are more diverse: home to busboys, cooks, cashiers, waitresses, teachers, security guards and esquineros (corner guys), the older Latin men who drink coffee and play dominoes outside the paint store.