There are two ways to know a neighborhood is about to be destroyed: You hear a low, whistling sound overhead -- followed by a KABOOM! -- or you see a sign on a vacant building that says "Opening soon: The Gap."

There is nothing inherently insidious about the khakis sold by The Gap. If they sold them in Really Big Boys sizes, I'd buy some myself -- at the mall.

The problem with the arrival of such Yuppie outfitters in neighborhoods is that the people who purchase their pseudo-hip, overpriced wares are the same ones who purchase pseudo-hip, overpriced coffee, pseudo-hip overpriced furniture, pseudo-hip, overpriced jelly beans.

As a Durham resident for more than a decade, I consider the Ninth Street business district the Crown Jewel of the Bull City, if not the state. With its mix of bars, bookstores, bagel shops and restaurants, among other things, it is the closest-to-avant-garde section in the state.

(Of course, being considered the hippest street in North Carolina is a distinction that ranks up there with being called the second-best left-handed golfer in El Segundo.)

Ninth Street's distinctiveness is more a sensibility -- tie-dyed, perhaps -- than a tangible characteristic. I ended up there my first week in Durham and stopped by a diner where I had a bowl of oatmeal with brown sugar, a meal that was so healthy that I wouldn't have been surprised to see ol' Euell Gibbons himself sitting next to me.

I later wandered into a bookstore to browse. After 15 minutes, I became strangely discombobulated. You see, no aggressive clerk had stormed up to ask "May I help you?" when what he really meant was, "Say Bub, you gonna buy that or read the whole thing here?"

So impressed was I by the laidback attitude that I purchased a book just to show my appreciation.

I also appreciate any area in which you can buy a giant burrito at 4 a.m. -- the Cosmic Cantina -- and then wash your clothes at a 24-hour laundrymat after the burrito spills all over you. Let's hope the city planners, as well as the folks over at Duke University, appreciate it, too.

Duke officials need to realize that their retail and restaurant plans along Anderson Street threaten not only the Ninth Street merchants who welcome and depend on Duke students for survival, but also the link to a section of Durham that gives the school whatever funkiness it possesses.

It would be a shame to see Duke or Durham have such distinctiveness gentrified right out of Ninth Street.