I think 10 years is long enough for the amount of change to become big enough to feel like a big jump if you visualise 10 years ago as yesterday.
Ok. I've been here for 20 years. Things have changed. Is it a better or worse place? It's different, but not that different.
Do I like it less? Not really.
Do I love it more? not really.
I've raised/raising a kid/young man here, gone from bedding down in a squat to having my own place, gone from unemployed to finding and succeeding at a career.
I've grown and changed. Brixton's grown and changed.
I don't want it to be the place I arrived in, and if it was I'd have to leave, because it would have stopped offering what I needed and wanted.
I was 20 when I first came here. I'm 41 in 2 weeks.
A 21 year old Nanker wouldn't like the 2012 41 years old Nanker, much as 2012 Nanker wouldn't be much in awe of early 90s Brixton (or maybe he would, but it might kill him!!!!!)
There were always tourists here. Half the Brixton based people on this site are incomers and not born and bred. Many of the born and bred are gone, much as they have from the east end where I was born. London is transient. It will never be the same for any great amount of time. Constant shift is inevitable.
In the next ten years another bunch of urbans will be moaning about the next level of change (or lack of), be it backwards, forwards, or something dull and static that feels less.
For me personally Brixton has been a place that has allowed me to grow and change and develop as an individual. It's been a place that allowed freedom and space and individuality. It's been blunt, and fun, honest and dangerous, friendly and chaotic. it's been shit and sunshine.
Much like life.
Tomorrow it may be different than it is today, but then it always was.
