Chances are that the most you know about Dallas’ Mount Auburn neighborhood is that it’s the home of Kalachandji’s, the local Hare Krishna temple’s long-popular vegetarian restaurant.

But historic Mount Auburn, just north of Interstate 30 and west of Samuell-Grand Park, is one of the last stable working-class enclaves in the inner city. It’s in a prime spot: a few minutes from downtown and even closer to White Rock Lake, Lakewood and Deep Ellum.

It’s also a sitting duck for gentrification. The turning over of this neighborhood is inevitable — and a good thing. Cities either evolve or they die, simple as that.

These days, development in West Dallas and Deep Ellum dominates gentrification debates, but little-known Mount Auburn shows how the process begins.

In recent weeks, sleek contemporary homes have sprouted up alongside much older frame cottages. Dozens of newly scraped lots advertise that more construction is coming. Developers are mailing handwritten letters and knocking on doors throughout the neighborhood with offers to buy out homeowners.

This is the next frontier in a housing market where land costs in desirable neighborhoods are outrageous. It’s just a matter of time before the price the builders are willing to pony up entices folks to take the money and run.

Just beyond Mount Auburn sits the Hollywood/Santa Monica neighborhood, a conservation district with stone-embellished Tudor homes. Head north from there and the houses only get more expensive into Lakewood and the M Streets.

Conrad Homes is among the builders that have slipped into Mount Auburn, transforming a block of Cameron Avenue with six homes at various stages of construction. Priced around $675,000, these are four-bedroom, three-bath, 2,600-square-foot homes.

Listing agent Brandon Travelstead says he’s looking for adventurous individuals willing to take a risk for a potentially big payback. The same houses would cost at least another $150,000 if they were located a bit to the north. But Travelstead acknowledges, “There’s a little hesitation among potential buyers because of the street and location.”

New, modern-style homes were built next door to older homes in the 500 block of Cameron Avenue. (Ashley Landis / Staff Photographer)

East Dallas Realtor Britt Lopez expects the homes will appeal to people who are accustomed to urban areas and see the value in being pioneers. “They won’t be bothered by the neighboring homes because they will know that eventually more new homes will be built,” she said.

Mount Auburn’s first development boom was in 1907 when builders began putting up simple homes for blue-collar people; many of the residents eventually worked on the assembly line of the nearby Ford auto plant. When the plant closed in 1970 and people looked toward the suburbs, Mount Auburn fell on hard times.

Latino homeowners slowly moved in, and by the 1990s, the neighborhood was again a bustling, if humble, enclave. Today its residents are again working people — many holding down two jobs — with big families and multiple generations living on the same street.

Darling arts and crafts bungalows sit next to decaying rentals. In some blocks, houses beat up by deferred maintenance and code violations overwhelm those whose owners are trying to bring them back to life.

Mount Auburn didn’t fare well in Dallas City Hall’s recent market value analysis, earning the next-to-lowest grade in terms of steady/increasing value. But that’s not tamping down interest from developers offering $200,000 or so to homeowners willing to move on.

Neighbors whom I talked to this week professed to be either resigned or excited about the overhaul. They’ve known this was coming. They see it all over the city. And if they can get good money for a previously hard-to-sell home, they are contemplating a deal.

Amy Guerrero lives with her mother just a few houses down from the new construction. She says her family, which has been in the neighborhood since she was in third grade, is happy about the development because it means they can eventually sell their own home for more money.

“It’s a real change for this neighborhood, but I wish I had a house like one of those modern ones,” Guerrero said.

A homeowner watering his yard declined to give his name but, pointing to his own real estate and business background, said: “You want to like the [new building] effort because it’s got the potential to revitalize the neighborhood, but those houses seem way overpriced.”

The juxtaposition of the new and original homes is a reminder of the East Dallas McMansion wars of two decades ago. Divisive debates pitted developers building what the market wanted with residents horrified by their neighborhood’s changing character.

Given the general state of the housing stock in Mount Auburn — more of it dilapidated than quaint — it’s hard to make a case of an aesthetic attack on the neighborhood. It’s 30 years, if not 50, too late to preserve any semblance of the historic Mount Auburn.

Gentrification hand-wringing too often misses the point: It’s not good guys and bad guys — just the reality of economics. Property values will rise and the city’s tax base will grow. Some people lose, particularly renters whose landlords decide to sell.

Two blocks away from the bustling Cameron Avenue construction sites, the Ramseys, whose home has been in the family for several generations, said they are paying careful attention to the repeated financial offers.

“We haven’t said yes yet,” said daughter Kaylin. “There’s a specific figure it would take for us to move. But it won’t be long before these older houses are gone.”