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Champagne & Fromage opening in Brixton soon

littlebabyjesus said:
There's a process. It happened in Shoreditch, Hoxton, it's now even starting to happen in Clapton and Homerton, Hackney Wick, all kinds of places that a few years ago you would have found it hard to imagine as places like that. Artists and others with not much money move to a place because it's cheap but relatively central. They do stuff - put on shows, club nights, etc - that brings others into the area, and the area becomes known as somewhere where stuff happens. And other people with a lot more money start wanting to move to the places where stuff happens. Eventually, the kind of people who made the place in the first place can no longer afford to live there, and the nature of the stuff that is happening there changes, becomes safer, more corporate.
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In other words Ed and his arty mates are to blame for the corporatisation of Brixton...shame on you all!
 
alfajobrob said:
In other words Ed and his arty mates are to blame for the corporatisation of Brixton...shame on you all!
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Ed is a good example of someone who does the kind of stuff in Brixton that makes people want to move there, yes. And someone who probably wouldn't now be able to live there if he didn't have an affordable rent.

But this process is exacerbated hugely by the lack of social housing, the lack of rent controls, the repeated attempts by government to drive house prices up and up, the massive wage inequalities that are growing daily, etc, etc. There is a wider context to this stuff too.
 
alfajobrob said:
Not the "only" reason. I think it may have been a small contributing factor mind...who the fuck would have moved to Shoreditch etc. if it wasn't for websites\media telling them about how "cool" it was?
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You seem to be mistaking this site for some sort of Nathan Barley nu-media promo lifestyle mag.
 
littlebabyjesus said:
There's a process. It happened in Shoreditch, Hoxton, it's now even starting to happen in Clapton and Homerton, Hackney Wick, all kinds of places that a few years ago you would have found it hard to imagine as places like that. Artists and others with not much money move to a place because it's cheap but relatively central. They do stuff - put on shows, club nights, etc - that brings others into the area, and the area becomes known as somewhere where stuff happens. And other people with a lot more money start wanting to move to the places where stuff happens. Eventually, the kind of people who made the place in the first place can no longer afford to live there, and the nature of the stuff that is happening there changes, becomes safer, more corporate.
Click to expand...

It's been happening for quite a while though hasn't it? My parents rented in 'Grotty Notty' in 1969 because they could afford the low rents...
 
littlebabyjesus said:
Ed is a good example of someone who does the kind of stuff in Brixton that makes people want to move there, yes. And someone who probably wouldn't now be able to live there if he didn't have an affordable rent.

But this process is exacerbated hugely by the lack of social housing, the lack of rent controls, the repeated attempts by government to drive house prices up and up, the massive wage inequalities that are growing daily, etc, etc. There is a wider context to this stuff too.
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I was joking and I know that but you cannot deny that urban75 and the brixton buzz etc have in some small way helped people of a more monied persuasion move here.

Waves from Knights Hill.
 
Winot said:
It's been happening for quite a while though hasn't it? My parents rented in 'Grotty Notty' in 1969 because they could afford the low rents...
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Yep. Well the process involves those who start it off needing eventually to move on somewhere else and start it up all over again there.
 
littlebabyjesus said:
Ed is a good example of someone who does the kind of stuff in Brixton that makes people want to move there, yes.
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A classic example of confusing correlation with causation. Ed writes about Brixton because it's objectively a great and interesting place to live. Brixton is being gentrified because people with more money have realised Brixton is a great and interesting place to live.
 
happyshopper said:
A classic example of confusing correlation with causation. Ed writes about Brixton because it's objectively a great and interesting place to live. Brixton is being gentrified because people with more money have realised Brixton is a great and interesting place to live.
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But mostly that it was/is relatively cheap, has good shopping in certain areas, a decent nightlife and is most importantly quite well connected public transport wise.
 
editor said:
Yet these new arrivals seem to want to close down all the things that I enthused about!
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The horrible thing about the process is that people like you can only do the stuff they do because they're not spending most of their waking hours earning as much money as they can. The passivity of the new arrivals - as consumers, not producers, within the place they live - is symptomatic of their wage-earning habits. Seems to me that gentrification will always lead to a more passive kind of richer person moving in, who will impose their consuming requirements through the weight of their wallets.
 
happyshopper said:
A classic example of confusing correlation with causation. Ed writes about Brixton because it's objectively a great and interesting place to live. Brixton is being gentrified because people with more money have realised Brixton is a great and interesting place to live.
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I was thinking about offline and stuff like that - you know, putting stuff on in Brixton. Not writing about it, doing things in it. I'm not talking about Urban75.
 
littlebabyjesus said:
I was thinking about offline and stuff like that - you know, putting stuff on in Brixton. Not writing about it, doing things in it. I'm not talking about Urban75.
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Well, perhaps, but there's always been stuff going on in Brixton, but most of what I did always had some sort of political edge and - gasp! - radical poetry, and that generally doesn't go down a storm with house buying types or rabid gentrifiers. :)
 
editor said:
Well, perhaps, but there's always been stuff going on in Brixton, but most of what I did always had some sort of political edge and - gasp! - radical poetry, and that generally doesn't go down a storm with house buying types or rabid gentrifiers. :)
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You're part of the cultural millieu. :p

That said, yes, as the process goes on I'm sure there will now be people moving there for other reasons, because of the other things that have come in with gentrification.
 
TruXta said:
But mostly that it was/is relatively cheap, has good shopping in certain areas, a decent nightlife and is most importantly quite well connected public transport wise.
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Indeed. I suspect that it was the mix of its gentrifier-unfriendly demographics, its lingering reputation, and its long standing squatting/alternative community that helped keep Brixton off the Foxtons map.

*amongst other things
 
editor said:
Indeed. I suspect that it was the mix of its gentrifier-unfriendly demographics, its lingering reputation, and its long standing squatting/alternative community that helped keep Brixton off the Foxtons map.

*amongst other things
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There are different kinds of gentrifying, though. I don't know enough about Brixton to comment, but the hipster-gentrifiers, for want of a better term - advertising types, basically - are the ones who've driven the changes in places like Hoxton. Maybe Brixton is different, more city types, perhaps?

ETA: I guess they're quite different. Brixton's a big place with some very 'nice' areas, while Hoxton is a small place without any 'nice' areas.
 
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littlebabyjesus said:
There are different kinds of gentrifying, though. I don't know enough about Brixton to comment, but the hipster-gentrifiers, for want of a better term - advertising types, basically - are the ones who've driven the changes in places like Hoxton. Maybe Brixton is different, more city types, perhaps?
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We certainly haven't suffered the same kind of relentless hipster onslaught that was inflicted on Shoreditch/Hoxton, but maybe because most of the available empty warehouse spaces/shops etc were already occupied by a long standing squatting community?
 
happyshopper said:
A classic example of confusing correlation with causation. Ed writes about Brixton because it's objectively a great and interesting place to live. Brixton is being gentrified because people with more money have realised Brixton is a great and interesting place to live.
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Brixton is being gentrified because of it's housing stock and transport links. It's not like it's unique to Brixton either, it's happening all over London.
 
sleaterkinney said:
Brixton is being gentrified because of it's housing stock and transport links. It's not like it's unique to Brixton either, it's happening all over London.
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The prosaic answer. :mad:

A lot of truth to that. Lots of nice houses and a tube station. Same is true of Wood Green, though, and it hasn't gone through the roof like Brixton. The extent to which Brixton has changed has to do with a little more than that, no?
 
qe5y4a8a.jpg

Cheese counter looks promising.
 
littlebabyjesus said:
The prosaic answer. :mad:

A lot of truth to that. Lots of nice houses and a tube station. Same is true of Wood Green, though, and it hasn't gone through the roof like Brixton. The extent to which Brixton has changed has to do with a little more than that, no?
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Just a matter of time. Brixton has been gentrifying ever since the clash name checked it in that song.... blame them.
 
littlebabyjesus said:
The prosaic answer. :mad:

A lot of truth to that. Lots of nice houses and a tube station. Same is true of Wood Green, though, and it hasn't gone through the roof like Brixton. The extent to which Brixton has changed has to do with a little more than that, no?
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I have been visiting wood green frequently of late and hardly think it can be compared with Brixton. The day Brixton gets a Vue cinema complex will be the day I leave, not a sign of gentrification but of suburban homogenisation - awful!!
 
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