This is a story about the assumptions we all make. And the secrets we all keep.

Big Man, a public housing resident from the Cayce Homes, has a nagging feeling about a fancy new modern-looking home one block over from him. To Big Man, this house signifies everything threatening him and his family: gentrification, a rapidly changing city, the wealth taking over the neighborhood, and a multi-million overhaul of the housing project that he’s called home for nearly two decades.

It’s a divide, a tension, that feels all too real to many Cayce residents — the neighborhood is on the up, but is it taking people like Big Man and his family with it? It’s a divide that pins race against race, income against income and address against address. A divide where assumptions fill the void rather than real exchanges.

“I can walk out my door right now,” Big Man says. “And if I walk to any one of my neighbors’ house and say, ‘Hey, can I have a cup of sugar?’ if they got it they’re going to give it to you. But if you walk up there,” he adds, pointing up the hill toward the sleek white home with large picture windows, “and knock on one of them doors and say, ‘Can I have a cup of sugar,’ there’s going to be around eight police, a SWAT team and they’re going to tell you you were doing a burglary.”

WPLN reporter Meribah Knight put Big Man’s theory to the test. Would these neighbors really call the cops on Big Man? With Knight as the go-between, Big Man walks across the street to meet the wealthy couple who live in that fancy new home on the hill. In many ways, their lives couldn’t be more different, but in breaking the silence between the two sides of the gentrifying neighborhood, a friendship begins to form.

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This radio story is derived from our special longform podcast series called

The Promise
. To hear the complete series, you can listen via
Apple Podcasts,  
Google Play or wherever you get your podcasts — or just start with part one here: