Gentrified Slab City

April 8, 2021 |

The signs of gentrification at Slab City are everywhere. The first to pop out at the hot spring are tattoos. When I moved here seven years ago, you could judge a person by his cover when his tattoos jumped at you like Ray Bradberry’s ‘Illustrated Man’ where each represented an event in a person’s life. Most of them were of prison art, martial arts, and road tales. Now during gentrification, they represent the dreams of newcomers. Today a senior with an hourglass figure inquired of mine. I described the mouse with a smile and teardrop tells of the pathos of the road; the tarantula crawled on me from a sidewalk in Brazil; and the marijuana leaf out the pen of a Hong Kong artist who didn’t have maple in his vocabulary. ‘That completes the set of fauna, flora and insect,’ I explained expecting a tumble in the weeds until she sniffed, swam off, and had judged me less than a he-man.

Gentrification has altered Berkeley, Venice, Brooklyn and Aspen but nothing like the Slabs in the past year. I miss the old days when spartan conditions brought out that nature in the residents. When I moved here seven years ago there were no generators, few solar, next-to-no cash, which meant no booze, no hostel or Airbnb, and the green barter was marijuana. There were no cars except my rental used to chase the bad guys who robbed my property across the bombing to the Slabs where I settled because there was no place else to go. Everyone was thirsty and looked like stick figures.

The cause of gentrification is different from anywhere else – pandemic unemployment assistance. For one year nearly every resident in the outlaw resort has gone from penniless to become unemployed in a manner that was affected by the virus. Some reported they mow concrete Slabs from WWII that the tourists no longer visit, and only recently has the county’s biggest roadside attraction Salvation Mountain started admitting tourist with masks. Today there is $3 million and its products floating around the Slabs with a population quadrupled by COVID refugees from all corners of the nation. The reason is the one-square mile town via the internet is advertised as sneeze-free and rent-free.

It is disease free but the signals of gentrification are like Burma-Shave.

Expensive cars bump along so no one walks the three miles to Niland, CA for supplies and mail. I was the sole exception until one month ago on buying with my stimulus check a CSC SG250 motorcycle. I have yet to find a town that has figured out how to take the foot off the pedal and drivers speed. One resident skinned and cooked a roadkill coyote.

The neighborhood roads are being repaired with shovels filling potholes and rakes smoothing drives. The county has graded and widened the turnoff to my camp adding makeshift ‘Stop’ ‘Go Slow’ signs.
Residents and pilgrims are remodeling their shanties, sheds, and trailers. Hammers pound day and night. There are a hundred new rigs parked along the Poverty Flats and High Rent fringes of town. Pallet or tire fences are being erected which prevent a cross-town walk in a straight line.
The half-dozen new cafes and bars are doing a landslide business. Night life has turned from pages of a book to tipping beers. There are specialty shops for Slab souvenirs, sewing, and haircuts.
Artists are always the Johnny Appleseeds of gentrification. Galleries are prolific with the wealthier buyers.
Financially, rent and property values have increased about six-fold. For the first time cash is paid for existing lots that have no deed since the land has no owner. Land and a few remaining concrete slabs are still free to savvy homesteaders.
Immigrants have quadrupled the population for this season. They are divided between the young searching for a rainbow at the end of the road, and retirees with fancy rigs who will try to weather the summer when the desert floor temperature reaches 160F. It will become interesting.
Crime after gentrification drops and this town is no exception. However, here, after the final pandemic Unemployment check is doled, it will boomerang. Residents used their windfalls to buy generators, solar, quads, pickups, guns, methamphetamine, and for the first time in the Slabs heroin. The town is much populated by heroin addicts who, on running out of money, will incite the most crazed crime wave in history.
Social life has skyrocketed. Every night there is an open mike, Karaoke, hot dogs and strings, campfire singalongs, or other venue.
Diversification is no more apparent than in the Slabs. Every hue of color is seen with little fear of ostracism. There is no displacement, as in other gentrified neighborhoods, because this is the cheapest place to go. The youth outlook is prominent with new ideas about what is desirable and attractive.

The town is beautified offering pleasing dwellings, shiny vehicles, rock gardens, and combed dogs. Gentrification has stopped dead several steps to the south of where I live in a shipping container on Walmart Wash with rabbits, groundhogs, owls, and rattlesnakes.

Signs aside, gentrification is a process of neighborhood change in a historically disinvested area due to a boon or new higher-income residents moving in. Most gentrified towns hang on and have led to the nation’s overall ‘back-to-the-city’ trend. But one warm summer and the halt of pandemic assistance will restore our historic conditions. The best the world offers is change and it’s a rare privilege to live here at this time.

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