Selling hydroponic sensimilla to stainless steel refrigerator owners living in neighborhoods that had just been invented,

from Adam Mansbach – Rage is Back (Chapter 1) 41 on Rap Genius

In the first paragraph of the novel, Mansbach already begins to establish how much New York has changed since the golden age of graffiti and hip hop that Dengue and Dondi’s father Billy lived in, and the contemporary hyper-gentrified City that he now lives in.

The “stainless steel refrigerator owners” is suggestive of this gentrification, as is the invention of new neighborhoods; rezoning allowed condo development, which changed the basic character of a “neighborhood.” (See Sharon Zukin for more on this process.)

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