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I'm sorry. We had no idea it would get this bad.
Naming and renaming neighborhoods has been a thing here in NYC for quite some time, dating back to just after the Civil War. It is a technique that has spread to other parts of the country and it is out ... of ... control.
SoHo (South of Houston Street) is perhaps the most famous neighborhood name in NYC. Maybe the country. The area had previously been called Hell's Hundred Acres because of the large number of sweatshops and factories. Can you imagine if there were a Hell's Kitchen and a Hell's Hundred Acres in NYC today? That would be amazing. But I digress ...
These days, however, name changes are mostly driven by real estate companies trying to "rebrand" neighborhoods that are gentrifying -- or attempting to be gentrified.
In other words: $$$. In fact, the term "the SoHo Effect" refers to how a fancy new neighborhood name will sometimes boost real estate values in the area. Even if nothing else has changed about the region.
The excellent podcast 99% Invisible has an episode on this issue:
From Boston and Washington DC to Seattle and Denver, you can find places like LoDo, SoDo, SoMa, SoWa, all tracing their ... lineage back to SoHo ... Giving such places a new and trendy name is now a leading indicator of imminent neighborhood change, a sign of gentrification to come (like a Whole Foods opening).
In NYC, realtors have tried changing the name of the neighborhood where I grew up from the South Bronx to SoBro (and the Piano District). They've also tried renaming Harlem -- among the most famous and culturally significant neighborhoods in the country -- as SoHa. I have only one thing to say about this:
Down in Virginia, Amazon's arrival means the location of its new HQ2a (or is it HQ2b?) is being rebranded as National Landing. The area is actually three neighborhoods -- Crystal City, Pentagon City and Potomac Yard -- and, yes, they are all keeping their names as well. That's not too confusing.
Meanwhile, in the tech world, Google apparently takes it upon itself to rename neighborhoods as well. For example, Google Maps renamed the 170-year old San Francisco neighborhood known as SOMA to The East Cut. No one has any idea what it means or where it came from. But because it was on Google Maps, it spread to Uber, hotels and more. A Google Maps error in 2010 had a more serious impact.
Speaking of maps, check out this fantastic TEDTalk about paper maps and how map makers used to make up names of towns as a way of copyright protection against others stealing their creations.
Have you had some of these neighborhood changes in your city or town? What do you think about them? Let me know in the comments section.
(cover image: Terraxplorer/iStock)
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