Interview with Alex Brown

This is an interview I did with 17 year old Alex Brown who has lived in JP his entire life.

Jeremy Maher: How long have you lived in JP?

Alex Brown: Almost 18 years.

JM: Have you always lived in the Forest Hills area?

AB: Yeah.

JM: What do you like most about JP?

AB: It’s accessibility to the city and such.

JM: Like on the T?

AB: Yeah.

JM: What do you not like about [JP]?

AB: I don’t like the gentrification. The like all the shit that causes it.

JM: What can you tell me about it?

AB: Well I mean how it’s pushing lower income people out and just like screwing them over. That’s what the issue is with gentrification. Also like destroying the [diverse] culture that is has. That JP has had for a really long time, especially in the latino community.

JM: How do you feel about people who call Jamaica Plain the hipster capital of Boston?

AB: I mean it kinda makes sense. A ton of people who are like moving in are yuppies in there 20’s that are sorta just getting by off of super super wealthy parents, driving the rent up and a lot of people who have been living there for decades who haven’t necessarily had fix rent, but people who assumed that the rent would stay the same, now it’s going up and it’s pushing all of them out.