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# There goes the neighborhood
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/there-goes-the-neighborhood/
- Published: 2007-02-16T16:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-24T00:04:34.000Z
- Author: Kevin Herrera
- Tags: Community, Santa Monica, #archive-import

*Barnard’s docu-drama delves into changes the 90404 zip has undergone*

18TH STREET ARTS CENTER As Santa Monica continues to evolve, the spotlight shines squarely on the city’s internal struggle between economic development and preservation of character. Disagreements persist over the definition of “progress.”

Some view new commercial complexes like the Water Gardens as a welcome addition, bringing along with it much-needed jobs and revenue to fund city services. Others feel like helpless witnesses to the destruction of beloved neighborhoods that contributed to Santa Monica’s culture.

That dichotomy is explored in local filmmaker Michael Barnard’s docu-drama “90404 Changing: The Vanishing American Neighborhood,” a critical take on development and gen-trification in a once vibrant area of the city that was ripped apart by the Santa Monica Freeway and subsequent commercial capital that has flooded its streets.

The film premieres Saturday at the 15th Annual Pan African Film Festival in the Crenshaw District of Los Angeles (www.paff.org).

Equal parts documentary and dramatic narrative, the story follows two locals — a Latina teacher (Paulina Sahagun) and a black poet (Barry Shabaka Henley) — as they set out to capture the hidden history of a neighborhood that is vanishing a little more with each new office building or condominium. The two strangers cross paths and develop a strong bond as they uncover stories of this once eclectic enclave of African Americans, Latinos and Japanese bounded by 14th Street on the west, Pico Boulevard on the south, Cloverfield Boulevard on the east and Santa Monica Boulevard on the north.

“I have very strong feelings about (gentrification). This is not just a Santa Monica problem or an LA problem. This is happening all over the world,” said Barnard, who has a studio at the 18th Street Arts Center, a non-profit, creative community just off Olympic Boulevard. “We are seeing very old, established communities that are being priced out by development that has the sole purpose of just making money. There’s nothing wrong with making money … but I do think that we as a culture are in serious jeopardy of losing our sense of community.

“I don’t know what the solution is,” Barnard said,“but we can’t keep choosing profit over people.”

Barnard became motivated to write the screenplay after speaking with a Mexican-American woman from Santa Monica that he met while flying back from Mexico. The elderly woman spoke of a life before WW II in which residents would close down Olympic Boulevard near Casillas Market for parades that featured folk-lorico dancers shaking in the streets to native beats.

“This woman just blew my mind,” Barnard said.“She was describing a real community in which there was very little evidence at this point... I had seen this huge amount of corporate development and gentrification sweeping sort of east to west, and here she was, providing proof that something of significance was here.” WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM HIS FRIENDS

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/55/9f/559f9abc-8372-4a2e-8c2d-27386da4e363/content/images/2026/10/021607-16_01.jpg)

of LightningBolt Pix (Photo: Photo courtesy)

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on February 16, 2007.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/021607.pdf?ref=smdp.com)