Gentrification, pros and cons

I don't really understand the quote. Art galleries etc are the Disney parks for the middle classes. Yes, this seems obvious, they are the entertainment of the middle classes. So what? As for gentrification, I tend to agree that it results in areas becoming homogenised. The most interesting areas near me are the places that are still a bit messy, a bit dangerous and offer a mix of residents: Stoke Newington and Broadway Market spring to mind. There's an amazing rasta fishmonger in Broadway market that, I fear, would not survive if the area became gentrified. And, I have the same worry as you: am I part of it? I can't help but feel that I clearly am part of the problem. I came from outside London. I don't know the history. I don't have links to the community. I own a pair of skinny jeans. Gah! Joe

I'm not at all keen on this gentrification lark. To be honest it's a totally alien world to me and therefore hugely stressful. Art galleries and museums are all very well, but a bit man made for my liking. Sometimes I seriously think we should try to get back to how we were 30,000 years ago, living off the land and herding goats. That's what our ancestors would have been doing. Somehow it seems a more natural way of life and one to which our bodies are better adapted than to the depressing concrete jungles we keep creating. Having said that Elephant is dead convenient for that whole central London retail experience so nice move Jude.

You're probably aware of the controversy over the gentrification project at Broadway Market in Hackney, Jude. The council got itself into a serious budget hole, so decided - with the run-up to the 2012 Olympics - to make some cash out of selling off some less, shall we say, 'gentrified' properties, including several retail premises in the market. One cafe owner had tried several times in the past to buy his property from the council, but had been refused. Another shopkeeper actually put up more money to buy his shop than was actually paid for it in the end - by property developers (at home and overseas), who bought a job lot at a literally knock-down price. These shopkeepers, who've been in the Market for years serving a mixed community, now stand to lose their properties and their livelihoods through the council's scandalously underhand gentrification/debt covering schemes. It's an issue I've been attempting to fictionalise in my diary posts. If anyone's interested in the Broadway Market story, and the issues surrounding gentrification in general, here are a couple of links: http://shopping.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,5349933-110201,00.html - an excellent article by novelist Hari Kunzru, a Hackney resident. (The stories of Tony Platia and Spirit, two particular shopkeepers, are heartbreaking). http://thelondonparticular.org/items/reoccupation.html - an in-depth article about the whole scandal, the evictions and the ensuing protests. The whole gentrification issue is something I feel very strongly about, having seen - in a community I lived in during my teens - the cultural displacement it causes. And frankly, I'd sooner live in the friendly, lively (if a tad run-down) working-class community that WAS the part of South London I came from than the genteel, affluent, private nursery school and bistro-stuffed - and distinctly inhospitable-feeling - middle class enclave it's become. But then, I'm just an old socialist dinosaur, really! Perhaps an overly nostalgic one at that.

I remember being on the Aylesbury just after the proposals, the locals were up in arms, but they did think they would be getting moved out of the area. At the time I felt quite bad for them, however if they're to recieve new homes then that should be a good thing. I don't think the professionals would effect the communitty, they're not likely to participate too much. I think it's a good thing the government's realising how badly planned the estates like this one were and are trying to rectify it, as long as communities aren't broken up in the process. We should really think of the BBC and other broadcasters, also the MP's. If we bulldoze all these estates where are they going to go for a backdrop when talking about social disorder problems? nobody

Another thought on the matter, there was a strong sense of community in the slums of Glasgow before they were bulldozed in the fifties. nobody

Alan, thanks for the links! Joe

Another one - if that's alright, Jude. Sorry otherwise. http://paulkingsnorth.net/Hackney.html An article originally printed in The Ecologist.

No the time I mentioned when they were 'up in arms' was when they were discussing bulldozing the estates, I did speak to them in quite depth and the film crew I was with at the time were interested in covering the story, only because they thought they had an exclusive. I also contacted a couple of editors on the matter who already knew and weren't really that interested. nobody

Sorry I meant news editors nobody

Yummy mummies and 3-wheeler prams! AAAAAGGGGHHH! Puts me in 'kill' mode! I'm a bit sociophobic (not by choice), and I don't really feel 'at home' in the community where I live, so I don't involve myself much in groups, etc. I think it's important, though, to make myself known - getting to know shopkeepers, passing the time of day with neighbours, etc. I've lived in communities where people pretty much keep themselves to themselves, don't look out for neighbours. Horribly isolating.

That's okay Jude, have to say the people I spoke to were all old, (no this isn't a dig at the old before anyone starts) and they'd all lived there since it was built and were scared of losing contact with each other. I imagine most residents would agree, as I said in earlier posts, it aint the nicest of places and I'm sure many would want to be living in nicer surroundings. nobody

I was delighted to recently learn that 'Elephant and Castle', meaning both the London district and the numerous pubs named thus, was named after King Edward the First's wife, Eleanor, whose title was 'Infanta of Castile'. When Eleanor died, Edward erected crosses at the twelve places her funeral procession stopped, all of which then had 'Cross' added to their name. Charing Cross is one of these places. Brilliant stuff for us history buffs! Anyway ... *cough*

I don't agree with you about Stokey, Jude. Fresh and Wild - compared to every other organicy wholefood shop - is cheaper, better staffed and better stocked. I've got the wankiest wholefood shop near me in Shoreditch called The Grocery that is just pure toss. Massively overpriced (even by organic standards...), terrible staff who have not got a clue and ill-thought-out stock. Plus, it's designed to look like an art gallery. It's hideous. Makes Fresh and Wild feel like heaven. I cycle all the way up kingsland road just to avoid shopping there. And I think you're over-reacting when you slate Church Street. Sure, it's a bit wanky/overpriced in places but I think that that's the price you pay for people trying to do something different. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't but I'd rather have people trying to set up interesting places to eat/drink/shop and sometimes get it wrong than be in a place with no ambition or new ideas. There's also other cool stuff going on in Stokey like a community food exchange. You bring food that you've grown and you can exchange it with food that someone else has grown. I think it's too easy to be cynical about 'middle class' activities. Gentrification has its definite downsides but I think it's too easy to say middle class = bad. Joe Joe

I, too, don’t always think that middle-class = bad – just as I don’t always think that working-class = good. I suppose I have a foot in both camps. Where the middle-class influence has, though – in my opinion – brought a form of ruination is in an area where I spent most of my teens and where I started work: South Devon generally, and the town of Totnes in particular. Then (in the 70s) Totnes was a thriving country town serving a community largely based on agriculture and light industry. Many of the shops were probably as they were in the 20s or 30s. Everywhere you went, you heard the local dialect – spoken by people whose families had been in the area for centuries. There was a ‘trendy’ element, which was in part associated with the nearby Dartington College of Arts. But it was a minority thing. Most of the local villages also had indigenous populations, and most of the local farms were still working as they always had done. I left the area in 1978 and didn’t return until the late 90s. The changes that had taken place were astonishing – more than just the effect of ‘moving with the times’. The middle-classes had moved in in droves. I felt, in many ways, like I could have been in Richmond-upon-Thames, crossed with Glastonbury. It was all to do with a combination of things: the establishment of the local Schumacher College – a centre for the teaching of environmental sustainability; the growth of the artistic community associated with Dartington College; the attraction of some of the most beautiful countryside and coastline in England; and, for the commuter, the relative closeness of London to this paradise, and the relative ease and speed of the journey. Apart from its historic and architectural features, the place was barely recognisable. New Age shops everywhere, the old snack bars and cafes turned into bistros or organic wholefood restaurants, the good old darts and scrumpy pubs turned into smart bars with expensive menus… and hardly a local voice to be heard – not surprising, given that the influx of money had sent property prices into space. Many of the local villages, including the one where I lived, had been colonised, too. The local church hall now gave, instead of whist drives, drumming workshops. Alternative therapists filled the small ads. The farm where my dad was a labourer had been closed, and the animal pens and barns converted into holiday cottages. The traditional cider farm where I started work had been closed and turned into a business park containing, amongst other things, a futon factory (ffs!). I had to search high and low to find a pub that not only served scrumpy, but knew what it was. In one pub, the 'gel' behind the bar looked at me as if I'd asked for sex. The irony of it all, of course, is that all these things – wholefoods, organics, sustainable living, etc – are things that are very close to my own heart. I should have found it all so marvellous: a place I loved full of things I lived for. Instead, I just mourned the loss of something that was very special: an indigenous culture. It’s still there, but you have to look hard to find it. Who knows, of course – without the new money, and with the decline of the agricultural economy in the region, the place could always be a lot worse. But it’s certainly been a lot better. (There's a town local to me now, in Kent, that's gone through a similar thing. I wrote an article about it last year. I'll post it later, if I can find it.)

I guess what I don't understand about debates such as this, lamenting the changing of a district or town or whatever into some new form, is that you live in a country that has been inhabited for thousands of years, and by several different waves of people. Shouldn't it be considered that change is a constant, and that the places whose demises you mourn have been in a state of perpetual flux since, well, forever? And therefore, grumbling about change, whilst a very human thing to do, is rather pointless? There is absolutely nothing that, touched by human hands, ever remains the same: art, language, style, the socio-economic status or trendiness of a district, etc. The only thing I might be inclined to grumble about in terms of changes, would be the tearing down of lovely old architecture to be replaced with hideous glass and steel or cement structures which look out of place with the rest of the area (and are plain ugly). But that's just a personal bugaboo I happen to share with the Prince of Wales. No doubt previous generations grumbled about the same installation of 'hideous' new architectural styles, too.

I agree with you to an extent, Archergirl. Change is a constant. What shocked me so about Totnes was the sheer pace and scale of the change. Within 20 years. And it's speeding up all the time. Or maybe that's just me getting old! I'm not against all change, by any means. As long as it's not displacing something that's already good. As long as it doesn't have a hugely adverse effect on the indigenous populations, too. I agree with you about architecture, too. Is that as far as you go, though? You're not averse to the marginalisation or eradication of a culture? (beyond the architecture, that is)

Well, I would certainly be averse to the *eradication* of a culture, in the format the Spaniards used on the Aztec, for example, but I reckon that's not what is at stake here. I don't have a problem with 'culture' changing, or even marginalisation (within the parameters we're currently discussing); culture change and marginalisation are constants, too. Taken in the long view, the culture we now embrace is different from our parents', and theirs to their parents', and looking back over the decades and centuries Totnes (for example) has existed, how many different 'cultures' have been marginalised, shifted, displaced? What used to be slums become gentrified. What used to be gentrified becomes a slum. A feudal hunting forest becomes a tower block; the block gets torn down and a suburb appears. Would the Elizabethans recognize it? Would the Anglo-Saxons? The Celtic tribes who lived there before the Romans invaded? I do understand the sense of dismay at rapid changes; I think most people feel it to a certain extent over what we perceive to be 'unpleasant' changes in a place. But it's an inevitability and I tend to look at such changes with great interest rather than chagrin.

Are gentrified areas degentrifying? (slumifying?) you never seem to hear about it, or are the affluent middle classes expanding? A certain amount of flux makes sense, the thames used to be a major heavy industrial transport route, now it's just a relatively picturesque piece of water, so riverside areas are bound to become more attractive and old communities will be pushed out by plain old market forces, but Stoke Newington? why do people suddenly want to live there?

Probably because they can't afford houses somewhere else. In lovely old Cambridge, there used to be a HUGE chunk of empty land between the A14 and the, let's say, less desireable part of the city (well, recently empty. There was a Roman villa there at one point.). Ten years ago kids used to race their motorcycles around on this land and gypsies would graze their horses. Now the whole thing's been appropriated for a massive new housing development, a thousand houses or something like that. Not only is it interesting to watch the land disappear under a construction site; my friends and I like to discuss just what will happen to the rather rough council estate right across the street. Will it become more 'gentrified' as hordes of middle-class families move in and demand better services/lit streets/rubbish collection; or will the new development fall prey to the assortment of petty criminals, drug dealers and young thugs peering out their broken and boarded up windows at them, and the property values depreciate?

"Not only is it interesting to watch the land disappear under a construction site" Well, I'm afraid you've lost me right there. I didn't find it at all interesting when several hundred acres of local greenfield site - including ancient woodland - was flattened a few years back to make way for a bypass bypass (i.e. a bypass to bypass the existing bypass), and the land in between the two was filled with industrial and housing estates. I found it fucking heartbreaking - especially when there's so much empty property and unused brownfield around. (what WAS interesting was that the developers managed to find it in their hearts, bless 'em, to tunnel under a local golf course, where several councillors hold membership...). They're now even considering a bypass to bypass the bypass bypass! All hail economic regeneration whatever the cost!

Ah, I didn't say I'm *happy* about the land disappearing, only that it's interesting. I agree about the whole greenfield vs. development issue. However, the fact of the matter is, we live on a rather small, very overpopulated little island where the demand for housing by the house-purchasing-obsessed public outweighs the impetus or ability of local governments to promote urban renewal, so I fear that the munch-munch of the housing boom on 'vacant' green land will continue unless the public revolt against it and take over occupancy of less attractive vacant urban areas..

Or stop breeding? pe ps oid ... What is "The Art of Tea"? ... (www.pepsoid.wordpress.com)