Gentrification
Jun. 14th, 2006 10:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
annwfynToday I am pondering gentrification. I'm not sure how interesting this will be to most people, but it's something that is on my mind.
A while ago, when I first moved to Rotherhithe, I was chatting to my uncle about the area, and he mentioned that the local vicar in East Sheen, where he and his family live, used to live in Rotherhithe. Apparently, the vicar had quite a low opinion of the process of renewal and redevelopment that has been happening here since the late nineties. He commented that prior to the arrival of Canary Wharf, Rotherhithe was populated by families who had been here for generations, mostly working on the Docks before their closure in the 1980s. With the closure of the Docks, and the development of Canary Wharf and Canada Water, the area has suddenly been invaded by young professionals and yuppies looking for cheap housing within easy commuting distance of Docklands or the city, and the old families are increasingly unable to afford housing around here, and are slowly being pushed out.
Now, that made me feel bad. I mean, really rather bad. The story of Rotherhithe is also something I can relate to from a different angle. When I was a little girl I lived in a village called Lambourn. When I was small, Lambourn was a scruffy small village with bad transport links in the middle of Berkshire. It was populated by either the old farming families, who had lived in the village forever, or by people who worked in the racing stables. It was a scruffy village, with a farming industry which was in trouble at the time, and a heck of a lot of rural poverty. My primary school had the highest percentage of kids on free school meals in the country. We also (and I don't know why) had the highest percentage of kids with learning disabilities in the country. It was a weird little school, where so many of the kids were related that the word 'friend' and 'cousin' were interchangeable. Every year had hordes of Annetts, of Littles, of Hawkins, of the same families who had always lived there.
Then things began to change. I don't know why, but I blame the desire for a nice place in the country and a greater willingness to commute which seems to have spread amongst the middle classes, combined with the fact that Lambourn is five minutes away from junction 14 of the M4, for new people began to arrive in Lambourn. Every piece of wasteland in the village got turned into modern cul-de-sacs. The Red Lion pub in the village square (home to many a knife attack on a Friday night, bless it) got turned into flats and sold at exorbitant prices. And the old families got forced out.
The old council estate was sold off, and they couldn't afford the prices. Rent went up. House prices became much higher. Most of the kids I went to primary school with have wound up moving to Swindon, or Reading, where it isn't quite as expensive. A bit of me doesn't terribly regret the demise of the old Lambourn where there were drugs dealers operating out of the local video store, and where the village primary taught a special needs curriculum as standard, but I do feel kinda bad that this history, this fantastic community where everyone knew everyone and where half the village had ancestors in the local churchyard, is all fading.
And I feel bad that I've now moved to London and become part of a similar problem here, buying a flat in Rotherhithe and helping push up house prices into something that the old east end docklands families can't afford, and probably pushing rent into yuppy-territory. Yet, on the other hand, there is no way I could afford to buy a house or flat in an area which wasn't currrenly in the process of being gentrified and was a nice middle class enclave. In Putney, for example, or Kingston, one pays an extra £100k on what I'm paying in Rotherhithe, just for the area.
So, I buy property in Rotherhithe. And I stay here. And I feel mildly guilty and try to work out if there is anything I can do to lessen my impact on this place, or if there is anything I should do. Is gentrification a bad thing or a good thing? Or is it just part of life and not something I should worry about.
And how very silly is it just as a word?
So many questions...
A while ago, when I first moved to Rotherhithe, I was chatting to my uncle about the area, and he mentioned that the local vicar in East Sheen, where he and his family live, used to live in Rotherhithe. Apparently, the vicar had quite a low opinion of the process of renewal and redevelopment that has been happening here since the late nineties. He commented that prior to the arrival of Canary Wharf, Rotherhithe was populated by families who had been here for generations, mostly working on the Docks before their closure in the 1980s. With the closure of the Docks, and the development of Canary Wharf and Canada Water, the area has suddenly been invaded by young professionals and yuppies looking for cheap housing within easy commuting distance of Docklands or the city, and the old families are increasingly unable to afford housing around here, and are slowly being pushed out.
Now, that made me feel bad. I mean, really rather bad. The story of Rotherhithe is also something I can relate to from a different angle. When I was a little girl I lived in a village called Lambourn. When I was small, Lambourn was a scruffy small village with bad transport links in the middle of Berkshire. It was populated by either the old farming families, who had lived in the village forever, or by people who worked in the racing stables. It was a scruffy village, with a farming industry which was in trouble at the time, and a heck of a lot of rural poverty. My primary school had the highest percentage of kids on free school meals in the country. We also (and I don't know why) had the highest percentage of kids with learning disabilities in the country. It was a weird little school, where so many of the kids were related that the word 'friend' and 'cousin' were interchangeable. Every year had hordes of Annetts, of Littles, of Hawkins, of the same families who had always lived there.
Then things began to change. I don't know why, but I blame the desire for a nice place in the country and a greater willingness to commute which seems to have spread amongst the middle classes, combined with the fact that Lambourn is five minutes away from junction 14 of the M4, for new people began to arrive in Lambourn. Every piece of wasteland in the village got turned into modern cul-de-sacs. The Red Lion pub in the village square (home to many a knife attack on a Friday night, bless it) got turned into flats and sold at exorbitant prices. And the old families got forced out.
The old council estate was sold off, and they couldn't afford the prices. Rent went up. House prices became much higher. Most of the kids I went to primary school with have wound up moving to Swindon, or Reading, where it isn't quite as expensive. A bit of me doesn't terribly regret the demise of the old Lambourn where there were drugs dealers operating out of the local video store, and where the village primary taught a special needs curriculum as standard, but I do feel kinda bad that this history, this fantastic community where everyone knew everyone and where half the village had ancestors in the local churchyard, is all fading.
And I feel bad that I've now moved to London and become part of a similar problem here, buying a flat in Rotherhithe and helping push up house prices into something that the old east end docklands families can't afford, and probably pushing rent into yuppy-territory. Yet, on the other hand, there is no way I could afford to buy a house or flat in an area which wasn't currrenly in the process of being gentrified and was a nice middle class enclave. In Putney, for example, or Kingston, one pays an extra £100k on what I'm paying in Rotherhithe, just for the area.
So, I buy property in Rotherhithe. And I stay here. And I feel mildly guilty and try to work out if there is anything I can do to lessen my impact on this place, or if there is anything I should do. Is gentrification a bad thing or a good thing? Or is it just part of life and not something I should worry about.
And how very silly is it just as a word?
So many questions...
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no subject
Date: 2006-06-14 12:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-15 12:00 pm (UTC)It is actually quite scary how very much councils do push gentrification tho - in nearby Deptford the council are pulling down council blocks, and are trying to sell the land off to developers with the specific intention of changing the nature of the housing on that land to more expensive private housing. It wants the low income housing gone, and I'm not sure where it's providing the alternatives for the people who were living there.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-14 03:12 pm (UTC)where we're not only gentrifying the area temporarily but probably committing a worse crime of Western-gentrifying the area!
Still, I know what you mean and have pondered the same question myself, having read the recent Council report on the area where our flat is in London (Merton) which talks about a divide occurring between older 'local' families and the 'newer' better-off young professionals who commute into London.
But I came to the conclusion that Merton feels very much like home to me, it feels like my community and I have been very involved in that community, especially when I was doing community casework. I also don't limit my friends to other young professionals but have local friends there too.
I have decided that after having owned the flat there for 4-5 years that Merton IS actually my home, my adopted home now and that I feel more warm feelings towards it than I ever did towards Newbury where I spent the 'first' 18 years of my life, where I would be what many would call a 'local girl'.
I now think that people will choose to live where they want to, where they feel comfortable and happy. There is nothing the Governmnent could do to stop that without being entirely illiberal.
I for one believe that home is wherever you choose to make it and decide to live regardless of where you grew up....
no subject
Date: 2006-06-15 12:06 pm (UTC)I can totally see where you're coming from, and think you make a lot of sense. It's just a weird guilt feeling I get after reading about how families are being priced out the area they've always stayed in. I suspect Ben P (below) is also pretty accurate in that crazy house prices also are contributing fairly heavily to this whole situation.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-14 03:52 pm (UTC)A greater, more real, problem is the lack of affordable property, but this has nothing to do with gentrification, it has to do with the fact that property is over-priced everywhere. If the housing market weren't bizarrely inflated then you could afford to buy in Kingston or Putney and the Rotherhithertos could continue to afford their local area.