The Washington Post published an article on neighborhood gentrification on Sunday, and a lot of readers, to judge by the comments, saw it as completely racist. Perhaps, just perhaps, not everything is about race.

The house color that tells you when a neighborhood is gentrifying

A Washington Post color analysis of D.C. found shades of gray permeate neighborhoods where the White population has increased and the Black population has decreased.

By Marissa J. Lang and John D. Harden | Sunday, March 2, 2025 | 6:00 AM EST

If you live in an American city, chances are you have seen this house: Its exterior is gray with monochromatic accents. Maybe there’s a pop of color — a red, blue or yellow door. The landscaping is restrained, all clean lines and neat minimalism. Sleek metal address numbers appear crisp in a modern sans-serif font.

Some might call it elegant, others boring. The look itself is purposely unremarkable. Real estate agents and paint companies use words such as “quiet,” “calm” and “neutral” to describe it.

The beginning of the story is difficult to read due to a stupid, ‘modern journalism’ presentation.

But many longtime city-dwellers see this physical transformation of residences to muted tones and know what they signal: demographic, social and economic change.

Rowhouses in D.C., craftsmans in Nashville, Victorian-style homes in San Francisco and many other styles of houses in gentrifying neighborhoods across the country have increasingly been stripped of their colors and painted shades of gray, altering the aesthetics of American cities.

In some neighborhoods, the grayification of homes has been swift and stark — and the cause of conflicts.

In the nation’s capital, residents have seen the change steadily sweeping their communities lot by lot: A neighbor’s red-brick rowhouse goes up for sale with a fresh coat of paint. A residential block that once had vivid murals painted on the sides of buildings begins to look less colorful, more monochrome.

The Post than illustrated its article with a photo of row homes on Rhode Island Avenue NE showing four homes painted in differing shades of grey, and four homes which were white, light blue, red, and black. I’m not certain about what the complaint was, given that these are all brick homes, which were almost certainly the same shade of brick, most probably red, all built at the same time, and with an exterior fascia that is attractive enough but mind-numbingly repetitive.

You can see the photo in much larger format here.

Now we get to the racial part:

A Washington Post color analysis of the District found that in neighborhoods where other markers of gentrification have spiked over the past decade — increased home prices, more noise complaints and the displacement of Black residents — the number of gray homes has notably increased. The analysis looked at houses that were newly built or built on lots where houses had been torn down. Homes that might have once been painted reds, yellows and browns have given way to houses in hues that range from Shark Fin to Deep Space. Pictures of homes analyzed by The Post were collected using Google Street View Static images and analyzed to find the most common colors represented across homes by ward. The analysis allowed tints and shades of colors to be grouped into color families.

Gentrification is bad, bad, bad, we are told, but I certainly don’t see it that way. Gentrification is seen as better off white or Asian people buying into a lower priced mostly, if not completely black neighborhood, and then investing in fixing up the properties they’ve bought, which raises housing values throughout the neighborhood. To me, that raises the home values of the black homeowners as well.

But think about what that means. If white or Asians are buying into black neighborhoods, doesn’t this mean that these white or Asian homebuyers are among the least racist people around? The opposite of “white flight,” these people are the ones choosing to have black neighbors.

Cities over the past two decades have been transformed by demographic change that has remade the way urban centers are planned, operated and perceived. An influx of affluent and predominantly White residents moving to inner-city neighborhoods has flipped the defining 20th-century phenomenon of White flight on its head and, in cities such as D.C., has changed the makeup of neighborhoods that were once majority — and, in some cases, almost exclusively — Black. While these shifts have led to greater diversity and affluence and, in some cases, improved neighborhood amenities, they have also brought in new concerns and an unspoken question among longtime residents: Do I still belong?

I’m having trouble picturing anyone, anyone! on the Post telling readers about “new concerns and an unspoken question among longtime white residents: Do I still belong?” in neighborhoods “that were once majority — and, in some cases, almost exclusively — white.”

The long article continues to tell us that various shades of grey appeal to more affluent buyers and homeowners, and it’s certainly true that shades of grey are popular right now.

The Kitchen, Season 1, Episode 1.

But fashions change. It was not so long ago that kitchen remodels favored white cabinets, a trend that lasted for years. But that, too has changed, with kitchen design still favoring very clean looks, but cabinetry now being favored in muted shades of grey, green, and blue. The Kitchen, a Food Network cooking show, began with muted green cabinetry on the set, but soon switched over to a similarly muted blue.

I, of course, wonder how they can possibly feature gas range tops on the show! Heaven forfend! 🙂

My good (internet) friend Architectolder loves to post photos of beautiful architecture on his Twitter — I refuse to call it 𝕏 — feed, and has recently posted several photos of very traditional American wood frame houses painted all white.

Our previous house in Jim Thorpe.

American homes painted all white, save that some of them had dark shutters, are an old tradition; I grew up in an all-white house.

When we bought our previous home in Jim Thorpe, it, too was painted all white, with a light lemon-yellow front door, and a grey-painted front porch deck. That was the style, even though the house was an 1890 Victorian. Over the years, we worked on it, and added a muted Victorian four-color paint scheme, but still kept the ‘field’, the main body, white, to fit in better with the rest of the neighborhood, and the other half of the duplex. I even re-floored the front porch, replacing the worn, painted porch deck grey deck with mahogany, treated on all sides with an exterior oil finish, and it looked like an interior floor!

Perhaps I digress here, but my point is that styles change. Yes, grey is in style right now, but it won’t stay that way, and the Post racialized that current color choice too much. Like kitchens which have added color during remodels, eventually exterior color styles will also change. Will the Post conflate that with race, and racism, too?