The anti-gentrification campaign in Camden is about 40 years too late
|
Version 0 of 1. An anti-gentrification demonstration in the London borough of Camden at the weekend appears to have achieved the sorts of things such events usually do: one hospitalisation, two injuries to police officers, a handful of arrests, excited media coverage and a lot of rhetoric about “the heart of the community” being “ripped out” thanks to “the rich”. The event was organised by Class War, the sweary anarchist franchise we old folk recall urging the people of nearby Hackney to “mug a yuppie” way back in the early 1980s, another period when the capital’s economy was booming, bringing with it economic growth, rapid property price inflation and a partial reconfiguring of the social landscape with a variety of cultural effects. Related: Affordable housing does not mean what you think it means The City of London’s “big bang”, which saw the end of London’s postwar population decline and the beginning of its present, astonishing surge towards 9 million and beyond, accelerated the incursion of artists, journalists, public-sector professionals and other middle-income first-time buyers into several inner city areas of diversity, poverty and disrepute. These were the advance guard of gentrification, with their upright bicycles, Guardian values and “conspicuous thrift” aesthetics. By then, Camden, containing such gritty proletarian strongholds as Bloomsbury, Hampstead and Primrose Hill, was already one of capital’s most expensive territories, its elegant terraces packed with barristers and senior government officials, its retail streets generously lined with wine bars, trendy restaurants and “alternative” niche boutiques. The class warriors aiming to “reclaim” the place have turned up at least four decades late, though their insistence that gentrification can only be a force for evil and a driver of what is these days termed “social cleansing” is as stoutly non-negotiable as ever. It is also rather selective. For all its prosperity, Camden, like other London boroughs where anti-gentrification activism has caught the media’s eye, is very far from being populated only by the well-off. Around 35% of its 100,000 homes are for social rent. Labour-run Camden council, committed to sustaining a broad social mix, says its been building one in 20 of all council houses in the entire country. It is true that low-cost housing in London is under attack, what with spending cuts already having their counter-productive effect and the new government’s imbecilic extended right-to-buy policy surely bound to make things worse (assuming said government ever figures out quite what the policy actually is), but the “social cleansing” narrative, doing such good business among the outer left, ignores the security still enjoyed by most of London’s council and other social housing tenants, meaning they won’t be going anywhere unless they choose to. Other effects of gentrification can be positive for neighbourhoods and all those living in them. Yes, we may titter at the original gentrifying classes, with their compulsive stripping out of old properties to reveal original features, but they can lay claim to stopping lots of Islington from falling down in the 60s and 70s. More recent vintages, deeply preoccupied with coffee and craft beer, can help revitalise local markets and high streets, spend money locally and if they have children, become stalwarts of road safety campaigns and PTAs. Some even, oh sweet irony, join the frontline against the less attractive aspects of gentrification. The new government’s imbecilic extended right-to-buy policy surely bound to make things worse Fighting against this tide is no simple task. The most effective way to do it in London or anywhere else would be for local politicians to put all their energies into making schools, parks and streets as unappealing as possible. That would soon stop the middle class moving in, bringing their cafes, retro clothing shops and demands for improved cycle parking in their wake, but I can’t see it catching on. And regulating gentrification’s impacts is extremely difficult, such is the paucity of planning powers available and the array of dilemmas and tensions the phenomenon generates. The thing is, gentrification is a product of a city’s success. In London, rocketing property prices and soaring private rents are the more extreme for decades of failure to increase housing supply, especially for those on low and middle incomes, but also speak of peoples’ desire to be in the heart of a thriving London and make a life there, before cashing out for a bigger place in the suburbs or beyond. The sober truth about gentrification is that for everyone who loses out, someone else gains. And that someone isn’t always one of “the rich”. |