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Brixton news, rumours and general chat: Summer - Autumn 2018

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mjd said:
I find the perpetual outrage at the gentrification of Brixton tiring.

To be clear, I am not defending companies and other organisations that I accept are clearly in the wrong, such as - for example - Lambeth council with it failure to consult residents, the management of the Ritzy, Brewdog and its advertising campaigns and mistreatment of a worker, or anything else along those lines. Their conduct is wrong, attention should be drawn to that conduct and action should be taken. I also accept that these issues are often linked to gentrification that is rapid or ill-considered, but that does not mean that there should be relentless objection to gentrification in its own right.

Towns and cities evolve throughout history. The fact that the outrage at gentrification emanates predominantly from those who often focus on Brixton's history and how wonderful Brixton apparently used to be is even more tiring. History repeats itself (to paraphrase Miss Bassey) and there is rarely focus on the darker sides of these supposedly halcyon days, so let's look at Brixton's history in a little more detail:
  • The etymology of Brixton: Thought to have derived from Brixistane, meaning the stone of Brixi, a Saxon lord. How dare that privileged, titled man impose his name on a place that is to be home to tens of thousands of people in the future? Why wasn't there a vote on what the name was going to be? (Yes, I am aware that even early forms of voting did not arrive until 200 years after the end of the Saxons.)
  • The deforestation of Brixton: Originally woodland, this had gradually depleted until by the end of the 18th Century the district was covered by farmland and market garden, well known for its game and strawberries. But what about people who used that woodland to relax, to play with their children? Why was game being hunted there when it was predominantly a food for the gentry? Were the juicy strawberries grown in Brixton available for everyone to eat or only those rich enough to be able to afford such a luxury?
  • The city folk: In the 19th Century South London began to be accessible to city dwellers wishing to escape the dirt and noise of London; terraced houses and detached villas began to line the main road. Outrageous. City folk moving into their large houses, looking down on the previous inhabitants of Brixton tilling the fields and bringing with them their fancy ways.
  • The windmill arrives: What is this, the Netherlands? Nobody asked Mr Ashby to build this thing. I suppose it'll be a "destination" for those new city folk. Ah, no, even worse, it is supplying wholemeal flour to West End hotels and restaurants. Not even flour for the residents of Brixton. So once it's converted to use a gas engine we put up with the pollution and don't even get the benefits.
  • The railway brought a building boom when, in the 1870s the landscape changed with developers building two or three storey terraces aimed at the artisan market. The artisan market? What even is that? Some sort of new-fangled marketing jargon. We don't need more gentrifiers attracted to Brixton; they will just demand more high-end shops selling things that nobody can afford and it'll be far too noisy.
  • The shopping revolution: Sure enough, those high-end shops are coming as Bon Marche arrives and pushes out all those independent retailers with its 48 departments. Why a foreign name? So pretentious. Oh, it means cheap. Well it jolly well better be after I've paid for the French lessons. Hopefully it will fail and be pushed out.
  • Change is afoot again as, thank goodness, those horrible, large, expensive houses are being subdivided to accommodate the influx of the working classes. They will restore Brixton's glorious former days of, well, I'm not quite sure what.
  • As predicted, Bon Marche is failing. But no, saved by private equity backing. I can't believe that those objectionable city capitalists are exploiting the good people of Brixton, saving an icon and turning it into a thriving retail business encouraging more and more people to settle here, more businesses to open and turning the centre of Brixton into a noisy, crowded, thriving shopping area.
  • After the war and the destruction wreaked by the Blitz, Brixton is rebuilt. But where is the rebuilding of that which already was? The mix of the middle classes from the late 1800s and the working classes from the start of the 20th Century? The large, expensive houses alongside the boarding houses? The shops and pubs accommodating all of them, catering to different tastes and budgets and ages? I suppose that will have to wait until the 21st Century.
Some of that is a little on the flippant side but the underlying point stands. Places change, old stands alongside new, large alongside small and wealth alongside poverty, and we need to learn to accept that without fighting it just for the sake of it. There will never be at any one point in time an even balance between the sides, so we have to content ourselves with a swing back and forth between one and the other. That swing can take decades each way and inevitably there will be those who are not content at that one point in time, but gentrification is not a new phenomenon and it is responsible for a lot of elements of the past that are now so celebrated by almost everyone.
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When I said your view of history is a Tory one I wasn't being insulting. This is what it is.

"history repeats itself" . We need to accept that wealth and poverty are eternal things in human life. The swing back and forth.

Its exactly what I was taught in 1970s Plymouth at school.

Its pre Thatcher Tory views.

I was taught that politics/ history was a pendulum that swung between left and right. That history was the turning of the wheel. Things came back to where they started. Change and continuity.

I was taught in this country unlike Europe we didn't have revolutions. They were nasty continental thing. Revolutions were the turning of the wheel. Ending up worse than the start.

So the " natural party of government" was the Tory party. The Labour party was alien to British way of life. Socialist ideas were foreign. The Tory party were the One Nation party that could steer the country through social changes.

And you are spouting this stuff in 2018? It is implicit in your post.

Its not me being nostalgic.

Did Thatcher neo liberal restructuring of UK pass you by? To add. I grew up in pre Thatcher Britain. So Thatcher revolution was after I left school. Thatcher broke the pendulum and reordered society. Which appears to be something you ignore or don't see as part of British history.
 
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mjd said:
I find the perpetual outrage at the gentrification of Brixton tiring.

To be clear, I am not defending companies and other organisations that I accept are clearly in the wrong, such as - for example - Lambeth council with it failure to consult residents, the management of the Ritzy, Brewdog and its advertising campaigns and mistreatment of a worker, or anything else along those lines. Their conduct is wrong, attention should be drawn to that conduct and action should be taken. I also accept that these issues are often linked to gentrification that is rapid or ill-considered, but that does not mean that there should be relentless objection to gentrification in its own right.

Towns and cities evolve throughout history. The fact that the outrage at gentrification emanates predominantly from those who often focus on Brixton's history and how wonderful Brixton apparently used to be is even more tiring. History repeats itself (to paraphrase Miss Bassey) and there is rarely focus on the darker sides of these supposedly halcyon days, so let's look at Brixton's history in a little more detail:
  • The etymology of Brixton: Thought to have derived from Brixistane, meaning the stone of Brixi, a Saxon lord. How dare that privileged, titled man impose his name on a place that is to be home to tens of thousands of people in the future? Why wasn't there a vote on what the name was going to be? (Yes, I am aware that even early forms of voting did not arrive until 200 years after the end of the Saxons.)
  • The deforestation of Brixton: Originally woodland, this had gradually depleted until by the end of the 18th Century the district was covered by farmland and market garden, well known for its game and strawberries. But what about people who used that woodland to relax, to play with their children? Why was game being hunted there when it was predominantly a food for the gentry? Were the juicy strawberries grown in Brixton available for everyone to eat or only those rich enough to be able to afford such a luxury?
  • The city folk: In the 19th Century South London began to be accessible to city dwellers wishing to escape the dirt and noise of London; terraced houses and detached villas began to line the main road. Outrageous. City folk moving into their large houses, looking down on the previous inhabitants of Brixton tilling the fields and bringing with them their fancy ways.
  • The windmill arrives: What is this, the Netherlands? Nobody asked Mr Ashby to build this thing. I suppose it'll be a "destination" for those new city folk. Ah, no, even worse, it is supplying wholemeal flour to West End hotels and restaurants. Not even flour for the residents of Brixton. So once it's converted to use a gas engine we put up with the pollution and don't even get the benefits.
  • The railway brought a building boom when, in the 1870s the landscape changed with developers building two or three storey terraces aimed at the artisan market. The artisan market? What even is that? Some sort of new-fangled marketing jargon. We don't need more gentrifiers attracted to Brixton; they will just demand more high-end shops selling things that nobody can afford and it'll be far too noisy.
  • The shopping revolution: Sure enough, those high-end shops are coming as Bon Marche arrives and pushes out all those independent retailers with its 48 departments. Why a foreign name? So pretentious. Oh, it means cheap. Well it jolly well better be after I've paid for the French lessons. Hopefully it will fail and be pushed out.
  • Change is afoot again as, thank goodness, those horrible, large, expensive houses are being subdivided to accommodate the influx of the working classes. They will restore Brixton's glorious former days of, well, I'm not quite sure what.
  • As predicted, Bon Marche is failing. But no, saved by private equity backing. I can't believe that those objectionable city capitalists are exploiting the good people of Brixton, saving an icon and turning it into a thriving retail business encouraging more and more people to settle here, more businesses to open and turning the centre of Brixton into a noisy, crowded, thriving shopping area.
  • After the war and the destruction wreaked by the Blitz, Brixton is rebuilt. But where is the rebuilding of that which already was? The mix of the middle classes from the late 1800s and the working classes from the start of the 20th Century? The large, expensive houses alongside the boarding houses? The shops and pubs accommodating all of them, catering to different tastes and budgets and ages? I suppose that will have to wait until the 21st Century.
Some of that is a little on the flippant side but the underlying point stands. Places change, old stands alongside new, large alongside small and wealth alongside poverty, and we need to learn to accept that without fighting it just for the sake of it. There will never be at any one point in time an even balance between the sides, so we have to content ourselves with a swing back and forth between one and the other. That swing can take decades each way and inevitably there will be those who are not content at that one point in time, but gentrification is not a new phenomenon and it is responsible for a lot of elements of the past that are now so celebrated by almost everyone.
Click to expand...

I find this section of your post problematic:

After the war and the destruction wreaked by the Blitz, Brixton is rebuilt. But where is the rebuilding of that which already was? The mix of the middle classes from the late 1800s and the working classes from the start of the 20th Century? The large, expensive houses alongside the boarding houses? The shops and pubs accommodating all of them, catering to different tastes and budgets and ages? I suppose that will have to wait until the 21st Century.
Click to expand...

The postwar history of Brixton is its most significant for the present day and you dismiss it in one short paragraph. This is when the Windrush generation came to Brixton, when Council estates were being built. When Brixton Rec was built. Now listed by English Heritage after campaign supported by locals. Listed partly as example of post war socialist architecture.

Yet you ignore this crucial period in Brixton history. Totally ignoring contribution of Afro Carribbean contribution to Brixton. Btw Granville Arcade/ now Brixton Village was bustling market thanks to Afro Carribbean working class immigrants.

Why do you ignore it?
 
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mjd said:
I find the perpetual outrage at the gentrification of Brixton tiring.

Towns and cities evolve throughout history. The fact that the outrage at gentrification emanates predominantly from those who often focus on Brixton's history and how wonderful Brixton apparently used to be is even more tiring. History repeats itself (to paraphrase Miss Bassey) and there is rarely focus on the darker sides of these supposedly halcyon days, so let's look at Brixton's history in a little more detail:
  • Some of that is a little on the flippant side but the underlying point stands. Places change, old stands alongside new, large alongside small and wealth alongside poverty, and we need to learn to accept that without fighting it just for the sake of it. There will never be at any one point in time an even balance between the sides, so we have to content ourselves with a swing back and forth between one and the other. That swing can take decades each way and inevitably there will be those who are not content at that one point in time, but gentrification is not a new phenomenon and it is responsible for a lot of elements of the past that are now so celebrated by almost everyone.
Click to expand...
I tell you what. Marx was totally opposed to nostalgia. He embraced the dramatic changes Capitalism brought to society. Sweeping away feudalism, advances like railways. What he said was that these changes should lead to society where the social wealth built up should be used to get rid of inequality and liberate people. He was against those who were just critical of progress

You are criticising those who you see as nostalgic. But the vision you post up instead of this nostalgic one is deeply reactionary. You see no end to inequality. Just a perpetual swing back and forth.
 
Gramsci said:
I tell you what. Marx was totally opposed to nostalgia. He embraced the dramatic changes Capitalism brought to society. Sweeping away feudalism, advances like railways. What he said was that these changes should lead to society where the social wealth built up should be used to get rid of inequality and liberate people. He was against those who were just critical of progress

You are criticising those who you see as nostalgic. But the vision you post up instead of this nostalgic one is deeply reactionary. You see no end to inequality. Just a perpetual swing back and forth.
Click to expand...
If he was alive today I think marx would point out that a lot of nostalgia is deliberately fostered by capitalism to sell things anew to a younger generation
 
editor said:
Last night I had the misfortune to bump into the son of a famous 'actor, comedian, author, poet, television presenter and DJ' who was an unbelievable arse with a Matterhorn-sized ego and a very 'erratic/jittery' manner. He came on stage at a jam session and was so self centred and annoying that he managed to clear most of the musicians off stage. I've never seen a single person disrupt a laid back jam so comprehensively. He started lecturing the musicians that they weren't playing well enough while his 'look-at-me' drumming was all over the place. Shame really because he was clearly a very talented guy.
Click to expand...

Well there aren’t many people who fall into all those categories
 
alex_ said:
Packaged drinks are always more expensive than draft by volume.

A menu has some expensive items and some less expensive items - that’s what a menu is - a set of choices.

I wouldn’t drink a 45 pound a litre beer, because it’s probably an 11% imperial porter or something else ludicrous.

You seem to be continually offended that there are expensive things on sale in Brixton.

Alex
Click to expand...


What local residents find offensive is that affordable places are being replaced by unaffordable places. It's really not that complicated. At what ratio of affordable to unaffordable will you admit that residents are being priced out?
 
it's not even that Brixton is unprecedented. It's been going on all over London for decades, and it's not difficult to see the trend. It's shocking to see what's been happening in Brixton in such a short time, and people are rightly worried about their communities and lives. Anybody denying social cleansing is part of it imo.
Companies like Brew Dog etc moving into poor areas are a sign of what will happen to such area in the near future.
If in doubt look at Shoreditch, Hackney, etc etc.
 
blameless77 said:
What local residents find offensive is that affordable places are being replaced by unaffordable places. It's really not that complicated.
Click to expand...
Yet here he is making pathetic excuses about "packaged drinks are always more expensive" when you can buy shitloads of decent bottled lagers in other places at prices nowhere near the sky-high stuff on Brewdog's menu, which is stuffed full of wildly expensive and thoroughly unaffordable drinks.

*waits for the "occasional treat" argument.
 
i find it funny that a pint of that Brewdog Punk IPA stuff in their actual bars are over a fiver, yet only £3.49 in some Wetherspoons, such as the Brixton one. Shows what mugs people who actually go to Brewdog bars are, although i suspect they arent short of a few quid so dont give a fuck.
 
ftr, I work in Hackney and live in Tots. I found my studio space in Hackney a few year ago, and the reason I can still (just about) make a living is because I pay little rent and have a sympathetic landlord who hasn't sold up yet. I'm dead worried about my livelihood when I see the daily changes going on around me, yet I am part of a community and I am valued for what I do. If the trend continues like it does atm it won't be long before the last remaining local businesses are priced out of Hackney and it will be a cultural wasteland. (And no, I don't buy the argument that hip breweries, expensive eateries and yuppie night clubs contribute to a thriving culture in any way).
WRT Tots: Yuppies are slowly moving in, fuck knows where I'll end up when I'm priced out.

I'm worried, not just for myself, but for communities.
 
littleseb said:
ftr, I work in Hackney and live in Tots. I found my studio space in Hackney a few year ago, and the reason I can still (just about) make a living is because I pay little rent and have a sympathetic landlord who hasn't sold up yet. I'm dead worried about my livelihood when I see the daily changes going on around me, yet I am part of a community and I am valued for what I do. If the trend continues like it does atm it won't be long before the last remaining local businesses are priced out of Hackney and it will be a cultural wasteland. (And no, I don't buy the argument that hip breweries, expensive eateries and yuppie night clubs contribute to a thriving culture in any way).
WRT Tots: Yuppies are slowly moving in, fuck knows where I'll end up when I'm priced out.

I'm worried, not just for myself, but for communities.
Click to expand...
I've already seen the damage done to Brixton and mega-corps like Brewdog will just compound and accelerate the trend and increase the division between the haves and the have nots. It's depressing as fuck (unless you're a Thatcherite houseowner in which case it's double G&Ts all round).
 
Last week or so there was a big commotion around the Sh Bush Brew Dog with blue lights and emergency services and everything. I saw it from afar and was hoping for an arson attack or similar. But no, turned out to be a traffic accident.
(Hope nobody got injured)
 
editor said:
I've already seen the damage done to Brixton and mega-corps like Brewdog will just compound and accelerate the trend and increase the division between the haves and the have nots. It's depressing as fuck (unless you're a Thatcherite houseowner in which case it's double G&Ts all round).
Click to expand...
the sheer speed at which changes in Brixton happened is scary as fuck.
 
editor said:
I've already seen the damage done to Brixton and mega-corps like Brewdog will just compound and accelerate the trend and increase the division between the haves and the have nots. It's depressing as fuck (unless you're a Thatcherite houseowner in which case it's double G&Ts all round).
Click to expand...
or a labour cllr with thoughts of backhanders.
 
Pickman's model said:
same in whitechapel, every time i go to whitechapel there's something new and shit
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I had to go to Whitechapel regularly for the first half of the year. Yes, I witnessed daily changes. Cross Rail is not gonna help the matter.
(However, with the market and the Bangladeshi community it's still sort of holding on to its character by its teeth. Same in Tottenham really, things are not as bad as they could be, long may it last)
 
littleseb said:
I had to go to Whitechapel regularly for the first half of the year. Yes, I witnessed daily changes. Cross Rail is not gonna help the matter.
(However, with the market and the Bangladeshi community it's still sort of holding on to its character by its teeth. Same in Tottenham really, things are not as bad as they could be, long may it last)
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what happened to dalston 2010-2012 following the opening of the overground will happen to whitechapel. in 2008 whitechapel was a working class area with middle class enclaves. now it's a middle class area with working class enclaves.
 
saw the first proper yuppie gastro pub opening up in West Green Road a month or so ago. Pioneering wankers.
 
Photos from Sunday night at the 414

sunday-414-brixton-jazz-01.jpg


sunday-414-brixton-jazz-02.jpg


sunday-414-brixton-jazz-03.jpg


sunday-414-brixton-jazz-13.jpg


Sunday night in Brixton: Live jazz, reggae and soul with the Grass Roots band, Club 414, Brixton
 
I think I missed the Pieminster chain moving into Market Row. I don't doubt that they won't be the last chain to move in to the space.
 
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