This article is from the source 'guardian' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.
You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/davehillblog/2016/dec/18/london-gentrification-cliches-and-conundrums-and-hipsters
The article has changed 6 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.
| Version 4 | Version 5 |
|---|---|
| London gentrification: cliches and conundrums (and hipsters) London gentrification: cliches and conundrums (and hipsters) | |
| (1 day later) | |
| Gentrification happens when the demand for living and working space outstrips its supply in cities that people want to live in. It is force of change that is shaded, shaped, speeded and slowed by various factors, such as the nature of a neighbourhood, flows of finance, the availability of land, the powers and priorities of different layers of government and by skittish stuff like personal taste. | Gentrification happens when the demand for living and working space outstrips its supply in cities that people want to live in. It is force of change that is shaded, shaped, speeded and slowed by various factors, such as the nature of a neighbourhood, flows of finance, the availability of land, the powers and priorities of different layers of government and by skittish stuff like personal taste. |
| Its effects are various, some benefitting long-term residents, others not, in an array of different ways. Stopping it in London is probably impossible, though policies for making public transport worse, schools unsuccessful, streets more dangerous and parks unpleasant might help. The phenomenon’s advance guard are adventurous creative types and young professionals (I should know, I used to be one). They are often those most upset when ensuing stages of gentrification take hold, though any breakdown of winners and losers might not be quite as straightforward as they think. | Its effects are various, some benefitting long-term residents, others not, in an array of different ways. Stopping it in London is probably impossible, though policies for making public transport worse, schools unsuccessful, streets more dangerous and parks unpleasant might help. The phenomenon’s advance guard are adventurous creative types and young professionals (I should know, I used to be one). They are often those most upset when ensuing stages of gentrification take hold, though any breakdown of winners and losers might not be quite as straightforward as they think. |
| That’s my bite-size take at any rate. Not all see it that way, but many would agree that in London, a booming city, gentrification is happening at sometimes alarming speed and presents large challenges, pretty much by definition (including challenges of definition). Last month, the Centre for Cities thinktank tackled the issue in one of its podcasts. In a panel discussion, Shelter’s Toby Lloyd said: | That’s my bite-size take at any rate. Not all see it that way, but many would agree that in London, a booming city, gentrification is happening at sometimes alarming speed and presents large challenges, pretty much by definition (including challenges of definition). Last month, the Centre for Cities thinktank tackled the issue in one of its podcasts. In a panel discussion, Shelter’s Toby Lloyd said: |
| From our perspective, the most important thing is simply that cities are able to provide for the people that live in them. Change will happen and we can’t assume that that’s always bad - it can be good, it can be bad, it depends. But at a city-wide level, it is vital that change processes do still allow for enough diversity of income and diversity of different types of people. It is inevitable that when any kind of change happens there are some people who like it and some people who don’t like it, some people who benefit from it and some who lose out. We have to recognise that there will be competing interests. There will always be change, there will always be tensions, so it’s how we manage those changes and make sure that the losers don’t lose out too badly from change and that the winners don’t gain disproportionately at their expense. | From our perspective, the most important thing is simply that cities are able to provide for the people that live in them. Change will happen and we can’t assume that that’s always bad - it can be good, it can be bad, it depends. But at a city-wide level, it is vital that change processes do still allow for enough diversity of income and diversity of different types of people. It is inevitable that when any kind of change happens there are some people who like it and some people who don’t like it, some people who benefit from it and some who lose out. We have to recognise that there will be competing interests. There will always be change, there will always be tensions, so it’s how we manage those changes and make sure that the losers don’t lose out too badly from change and that the winners don’t gain disproportionately at their expense. |
| The whole discussion, which also involved Edward Clarke and Anna Minton, is well worth listening to. Find it here. If nothing else, it might persuade you that gentrification should not be reduced to a bunch of easy cliches and instead needs to be approached as a conundrum arising from London’s economic successes. Seeing it as all good or all bad doesn’t help with trying to understand and deal with it. Neither does just blaming hipsters, as this bit of mischief hints. | The whole discussion, which also involved Edward Clarke and Anna Minton, is well worth listening to. Find it here. If nothing else, it might persuade you that gentrification should not be reduced to a bunch of easy cliches and instead needs to be approached as a conundrum arising from London’s economic successes. Seeing it as all good or all bad doesn’t help with trying to understand and deal with it. Neither does just blaming hipsters, as this bit of mischief hints. |
| The film is the work of Jack McPartland, Paul Calway and Adam Morley. More by me on gentrification in London here, here and here. | The film is the work of Jack McPartland, Paul Calway and Adam Morley. More by me on gentrification in London here, here and here. |