"All this gray — it’s so dark, it’s so gloomy, so ugly. It’s like seeing creativity and art and the colors of my community disappear right in front of my eyes."

Said Richard Segovia, 71, a longtime resident of the Mission District of San Francisco, quoted in "The house color that tells you when a neighborhood is gentrifying/A Washington Post color analysis of D.C. found shades of gray permeate neighborhoods where the White population has increased and the Black population has decreased" (WaPo)(free-access link).

But what does gray mean?

A white woman who owns a home decor company asserts: "It all comes down to this perception of wealth and luxury, this idea that neutrals indicate status.... Black homeownership in D.C. has been shrinking for years, which means the very culture of these neighborhoods has been changing. When we see house flippers try to take color out of a house, or a neighborhood, they’re making it more palatable to mostly White people."

But what's behind all this gray?

Sergio De La Torre, a professor at the University of San Francisco, has data to back this up. He and his students mapped gray houses in the Mission and, he said, documented a correlation between gray houses and rising police calls and immigration raids.

“The gray houses have become a symbol of this muteness, this quiet, humble, nothing-is-happening-here,” said De La Torre, who is also an artist. “When you paint a house gray, you’re covering up its history, its memory. You’re starting over. We can be modern now, we can be cool.”

Makes me think of the old line "It's the quiet ones you've got to watch." 

I remember George Carlin making fun of that saying, but where did it begin? Who said it seriously?

I'm told that Ovid — circa 10 BC, wrote: "Saepe tacens vocem verbaque vultus habet." That is, "Often a silent face has voice and words." 

Often a gray façade has chaos and crime.