Two local updates from the front lines of two vast social forces reshaping our city:

“Evil gay dog-walking busybody gentrifiers,”* from David Roeder‘s column:

Regular readers will remember the response I stirred up last summer when I referred to Morse Avenue in Rogers Park as a crime “hellhole.” My diatribe was about how crime kills business activity on a street that should fare better because of its lakefront location and access to the Red Line… it turns out my “hellhole” label inspired a Rogers Park resident, Craig Gernhardt, to start a blog that catalogs the daily indignities, large and small, that occur along the street. Gernhardt, who with his father publishes Gay Chicago magazine, is part of the community group Paws 4 Peace that has its own crime-fighting strategy. A dozen or so dog owners will use their daily walks to make the drug dealers uncomfortable. “We’ll just gather on their corners and start talking about the weather. They don’t like that and they’ll move on,” Gernhardt said. He uses the blog to challenge timid leaders and to embarrass property owners who contribute to Morse’s blight.

Mexican immigrants fleeing to the suburbs, reported by Brendan McCarthy in the Trib:

Marisol Luna, the newest character in the popular American Girl doll line, seems innocent enough. In the [story book accompanying the doll], Marisol moves with her family from Pilsen to Des Plaines after her mother declares that it is “time we get out of this neighborhood.” In another passage, Marisol’s mother tells her daughter that the neighborhood is dangerous, and that it is “no place for [her] to grow up.”

* before anyone gets upset, this is tongue in cheek: “evil” precedes “gentrifier” so often, it’s practically part of the term.