Who is at "fault" for the gentrification of Brixton?

[hendo]

At some point in the future these people will be dealt with "extreme prejudice"-thats how London is

I don't know how to react to this, Gramsci. The idea that you sit in front of the telly fantasising about the execution of the urban middle classes beggars belief.

I can't see it being included in the unitary development plan in the near future.

 

[newbie]

Living in London and specifically Brixton means one should never forget that John Bull is still deeply rooted part of English culture.John Bull are composed of Middle England and section of the white English working class.

I didn't see that programme. I suppose I'm not surprised, if a bit depressed by it. I'm also aware that there's been plenty of whispering about Muslims in much the way there was about the Irish during the height of the Troubles. I'd be surprised if you couldn't find similar sentiments in Brixton amongst people who have no problem with their Afro-Carribean, Vietnamese or white English neighbours, IYSWIM.

I'd be interested to hear the views and experiences of black people who've moved out of the innercities into Englands green and pleasant land.

 

[newbie]

It's also accurate to say that a significant amount of the displaced whites actually "displaced" themselves to the suburbs in a deliberate manouvre to escape having to live in a multi-ethnic community.

I think there's truth in that, at least for those who left the area in the 70s.


But it's also true that they wanted to escape from coldwater homes with paraffin heating (which led to massive amounts of condensation, peeling wallpaper and mould), an outside privvy, Rachman landlords (Mrs Narayan was a famous local example), bomb sites, tinned up derries and no work. I worked for a time as a housing advisor, and met very few who were explicit that they were queueing as part of a 'white flight', but many who wanted the decent homes, gardens and jobs promised in places from Mitcham through Thornton Heath to Bracknell or Milton Keynes.

 

[ViolentPanda]

I think there's truth in that, at least for those who left the area in the 70s.


But it's also true that they wanted to escape from coldwater homes with paraffin heating (which led to massive amounts of condensation, peeling wallpaper and mould), an outside privvy, Rachman landlords (Mrs Narayan was a famous local example), bomb sites, tinned up derries and no work. I worked for a time as a housing advisor, and met very few who were explicit that they were queueing as part of a 'white flight', but many who wanted the decent homes, gardens and jobs promised in places from Mitcham through Thornton Heath to Bracknell or Milton Keynes.

Let's be honest. There is STILL social housing in Lambeth without central heating that rely on an ascot-type heater for HW (I'm thinking, for example of Clapham Park estate).
Also, while I won't disagree with your point about people in the main wanting to move becuase they wanted a better home, my own experience tells me that the "white flight" motive, which you say was voiced explicitly by a few, was held implicitly by a lot more. I can remember a lot of family friends and acquaintances "moving out to the country" (as they would have it) to "get away" from -------- (insert racist label here).
I think that maybe, at least in your capacity as a housing advisor you were less likely to hear this as most people would be unlikely to voice such opinions in the presence of "officialdom".

 

[Ol Nick]

I saw a really scary programme on C4 (Dispatches-new series) on Thursday which was a documentary on a small seaside town were the Government wanted to a a "dispersal centre" for Asylum seekers.The people in the town organised "peoples power" to stop it.A few brave souls opposed them.

Do we still have that thread about "Why I now live in Brixton"?.

The reason I live here was because I used to live there, in Lee-on-Solent.

Knowing you lot are all out there fighting against this stuff keeps me warm at night, it really does. But don't ever forget how many more Lee-on-Solents there are than Brixtons.

 

[Anna Key]

So what would you do about it then? Would white people buying flats be able to be sued or prosecuted for "indirect dicrimination" or racism? Or would a building firm who build some new flats for sale be able to be prosecuted because their flats were too expensive for black people etc, and therefore their sales policy is racist?

Just wondering....

Giles..

Long-term:-

Market forces should be removed from UK housing provision, exactly as they were abolished (largely) from UK health provision in 1946 and from UK pre-university education in the 1960s.

But relax Giles.

A commitment to exterminate the UK private housing market won’t appear in Labour’s 2005 Election Manifesto.

I suspect they’ll do the opposite: introduce right-to-buy for housing association homes. The poor old Brits are obsessed with their ‘properties’ as a glance at the TV schedule illustrates.

Short-term:-

It should be written into Lambeth’s Unitary Development Plan that all proposed developments in the borough must undergo an ‘Ethnic and Cultural Diversity Impact Assessment’ before planning permission may be granted.

Such an assessment would ask the question:-

“Would this development impact adversely, either directly or indirectly, on the ethnic and cultural diversity of the borough?”

The planning bureaucrats would need to answer the question and the politicians then vote on the proposed development in the usual way, but taking account of the Assessment.

I suspect that to deny planning permission on grounds of an adverse ‘Ethnic and Cultural Diversity Impact Assessment’ would currently be illegal.*

It would certainly induce amusing howls from Lambeth’s property developer classes.

“Burdens on business!”

“Bureaucratic red tape!”

“Over-regulation!“

“Holding the borough back!“

“Pickling Brixton in aspic!“

“Social workers with clipboards socially-engineering hard-working ordinary folk!”

“Political correctness on the rates!”

“The Nanny State gone mad!”

“Lesbians wrest control of Lambeth Town Hall in May-Day Coup!”

All code for:

“Swivel-eyed lefties are preventing me stuffing my pockets with cash while:

(a) buggering up the borough;

(b) destroying Brixton’s unique ethnic and cultural diversity;

(c) screwing the poor; and

(d) discriminating indirectly against BMEs.”

But the law can be changed. That’s why we elect the buggers to the best Gentleman’s Club in London.

A one line Bill can be stuck though Westminster in a few hours. It might even be possible via secondary legislation with a stroke of a pen by a Secretary of State and the laying of a bit of paper on one of those grotesque fake-Gothic House of Commons tables.

Direct and indirect race discrimination are illegal in UK workplaces. Why not make them illegal in planning also?

Only the BNP, the Freedom Association and a few loony saloon bar bores in Essex disagree. What do their views matter? Let them mutter into their Wetherspoons ‘mixed meat platters.’

I don’t see why the principle couldn’t also be applied to licensing decisions. It might have:

- prevented Dogstar and Living Bar from abolishing two traditional black pubs on Coldharbour Lane in favour of yuppie hellholes.

- helped Mingles fight their recent license problem.

- helped J-Bar defend itself six weeks ago from the occupants of nearby yuppie flats pissed about their property resale values.

- prevented the closure of Bradys - the Irish are a large and important minority group in Brixton who have just lost the Queen on Ferndale Road also. The new owners want to demolish for ‘private luxury apartments.’

- help the Windmill in the future when the occupants of that big block of yuppie flats nearby fight their entertainment license on grounds of their too-slowly inflating property resale values.

It depends whether you think there’s a gentrification problem in Brixton.

If you believe Brixton should defend itself, through legal and democratic means, from wall-to-wall yupppiefication by the (predominantly) white London middle classes (and their property developer/BBG/Living Bar Storm Trooper allies) then it’s exactly this sort of strategic ‘nuts and bolts’ provision which might deliver.

If you don’t think there’s a problem - that Lambeth’s unique ethnic and cultural diversity - 192 languages spoken - isn’t worth defending - then do nothing.

Roll-on Hoxton, Notting Hill, Starbucks and Jamie Oliver.

Pucka!



* Fuzzy? Is this true? Would a planning permission refused on grounds of an adverse ‘Ethnic and Cultural Diversity Impact Assessment’ (grounded in the UDP) face being overturned at appeal? Would Councillors on planning committee applying such a policy risk surcharge?

 

[editor]

prevented Dogstar and Living Bar from abolishing two traditional black pubs on Coldharbour Lane in favour of yuppie hellholes.

Not this fantasy again.

The Coach and Horses wasn't a "traditional black pub". By the early 90s, it was a traditionally empty pub, shunned by just about the entire Brixton community. No one went there and that's why it closed. And I should know - we went there enough times and we were usually the only people there (save for one or two stout-drinking old boys).

I never saw you there. How often did you drink there?

For the record: I don't like the Living Bar. But I can't think of anyone who wants the Coach and Horses back either.

And the Atlantic was - regardless of whether you personally happened to know someone behind the bar or not - one of the least welcoming pubs on earth. It gained a notorious reputation as a drug dealing den which might explain the complete lack of community outcry when it closed.

I really can't bear this rose-tinted twist on history. There are issues to be addressed about what's happening in Brixton, but trotting out Mills and Boons versions of thriving, much-loved, cuddly community pubs cruelly closed down by gangs of evils gentrifiers doesn't help anyone.

 

[Anna Key]

But I can't think of anyone who wants the Coach and Horses back either.

I do! I used to go in with my mum. Infininately preferable to Living Bar.

It was fine until the owner got ill. It then went down hill.

 

[hatboy]

Good post AK. I don't know how you get this "diversity/community impact" thing to be effective and not just PC council waffle - but it's definitely needed.

Look at The Harriers. Not only was it closed down. It was razed to the ground! The plans for that site now show a designer-looking building with a penthouse on it - at Loughborough Junction.

But what about all the people who used and enjoyed that pub. It isn't just trivia about drinking venues. It's about destroying social-networks and ripping out community facilities from under people.

 

[editor]

I do! I used to go in with my mum. Infininately preferable to Living Bar.

Heavens above.

Middle class white people drinking in a 'traditional black pub'?

Gentrifiers!

 

[hatboy]

Mike said:

"And the Atlantic was - regardless of whether you personally happened to know someone behind the bar or not - one of the least welcoming pubs on earth. It gained a notorious reputation as a drug dealing den which might explain the complete lack of community outcry when it closed".

Wrong Mike, wrong. The Atlantic certainly had its dodgyness, weed was sold there, so what? But it was not unwelcoming. I drank there quite a bit before it went. I had a laugh in there and sometime a friend would bang on the window and beckon me in. NOT UNWELCOMING.

The police couldn't wait to get rid of it as it was difficult for them to control and understand. It was pretty much "no go" for them. They hated it and wanted it gone.

I remember when the Atlantic sign was painted over by Dogstar. People on the street were amazed. Alot of the older black men (bare in mind that pub had a place in some people's hearts as a meeting point for decades) couldn't believe that bit of history was being erased.

 

[Anna Key]

Heavens above.

Middle class white people drinking in a 'traditional black pub'?

Gentrifiers!

Nonsense. Just enjoying a small corner of Brixton's ethnic and cultural diversity before the yuppyfiiers wrecked it.

 

[Pickman's model]

The police couldn't wait to get rid of it as it was difficult for them to control and understand. It was pretty much "no go" for them as soon as they walked in.

what's so hard to understand? it was a pub where drugs were sold and where the police felt their writ didn't necessarily run. such pubs may last for a while, but no pubs, however good, last forever. and if they were able to "walk in" what's no go about it?

you may not have found it unwelcoming, but not everyone likes a lawless boozer!

 

[Pickman's model]

yuppyfiiers

shurely "yuppyfilers", escaped yuppie prisoners.

 

[hatboy]

Pickmans - You need to change your quote because I hadn't finished getting my post right.

One man's law is another man's lawless. It was OK. But can I explain that here? (sighs).

 

[tom796]

Nonsense. Just enjoying a small corner of Brixton's ethnic and cultural diversity before the yuppyfiiers wrecked it.

<AK pulls drawbridge up behind him/her>

 

[pooka]

“Would this development impact adversely, either directly or indirectly, on the ethnic and cultural diversity of the borough?”

What would constitute adverse impact? Any sort of overall change? Changes between parts of the borough within overall stasis. And what should be the benchmark - the situation now or as it was ten, twenty or thirty years ago? What's so special about the present day?

Would you expect to come back in 100 years time and find Lambeth just as it is today? Wouldn't it be unprecedented, remarkable and a bit unhealthy if it were? Alternatively, if you can entertain the prospect of change over that time scale, then over what time scale can't you?

Which brings us to the real issue - the pace of change, the impact that has on winners and loosers and the duties of the authorities to manage that change. That's why our elected representatives sit on a planning committee.

It depends whether you think there’s a gentrification problem in Brixton.

Quite so. And I'd put community safety, decent secondary education, a declining retail centre, environmental shabbiness, pockets of low skills and high unemployment amongst young men, high rates of teenage pregnancy, etc, etc..well ahead of the shifting styles of boozers. Or, for that matter, the fate of Rushcroft Road, which is at the heart of these ever more elaborate edifices you're busy constructing.

 

[miss minnie]

i didn't think the coach and horses was up to much. bit of an old man's pub, usually a bit empty. always seemed a bit sad in there.

i walked into the canterbury arms the other day, to collect the jacket i'd lost at hdif. as soon as i walked in, all eyes were upon me. whilst stood at the bar i had that old-fashioned creepy feeling of being inspected thoroughly. there were about 15 customers sat at the bar, all men, all over 40. again, i'd only go in there for a drink accompanied by a man.

i had a few good times at the atlantic, a few fun afternoons with friends. but i would never go in there without a bloke. it was not the sort of place a girl could slip into for a quiet pint on her own, imvho. not just a case of being stared at the atlantic, you wouldn't be allowed to sit on your own for long.

 

[hatboy]

Pooka said:

"Quite so. And I'd put community safety, decent secondary education, a declining retail centre, environmental shabbiness, pockets of low skills and high unemployment amongst young men, high rates of teenage pregnancy, etc, etc..well ahead of the shifting styles of boozers."

Sure, but the controling and closing of some pubs, especially some of the blacker pubs is an issue. Let the pubs change, let them evolve, if they remain welcoming to previous patrons. But when the original crowd are just chucked out on the street - The Queen, the Harriers - that's not right.

And PS, just cos there was a shooting near the Harriers doesn't mean it's anything to do with most customers or the management. That is an all too easy assumption for some.

 

[pooka]

Sure, but the controling and closing of some pubs, especially some of the blacker pubs is an issue. Let the pubs change, let them evolve, if they remain welcoming to previous patrons. But when the original crowd are just chucked out on the street - The Queen, the Harriers - that's not right.

And PS, just cos there was a shooting near the Harriers doesn't mean it's anything to do with most customers or the management. That is an all too easy assumption for some.

I agree about pubs changing and evolving. Sadly, that often means decent pubs being replaced by pseudo-nightclubs with heavies on the door. But that isns't just down to gentrification - it's happening the legnth and breadth of the country.

The Queen I wouldn't have down as a Black pub, but it did have the air of a pub on the way out. A causual attitutude to licensing hours usually indicates (1) a good relationship with the local police or (2) a landlord who's not too bothered about losing his licence.

I didn't know the Harriers. But I live not far from the Wellington, which was closed about the same time, for the same reasons. It's passing's not mourned round here. We've had no shootings, in the street and to the risk of dozens of people going about their business, since it was shut having had several previously.

 

[hatboy]

Pooka -

1) I never said the Queens was a black pub. But it was a pub full of all sorts, many who couldn't afford and wouldn't be admitted to a "style bar".

2) The Wellington was not the same as the Harriers (I agree with the Wellington's closure from what I've heard). The Harriers wasn't the Wellington.

 

[Mr BC]

Not in the employment field.

An employer who establishes structures which discriminate indirectly against BMEs by insisting, say, that a high standard of English is spoken when the job doesn't require it, may be fined by an industrial tribunal for "indirect race discrimination."

The defence "I had no intenton of practising indirect race discrimination against my employees" would have no effect: the employer may be fined by an employment tribunal regardless of the employer's intention.

In my book "indirect race discrimination against BMEs" is a for of racism.

I'm pleased to have got the argument "gentrification in Brixton = racism" (in precis) out in the open. Until now it's seldom been mentioned, and makes some people nervous and angry when it is.

But even Pooka now seems to agree with it.

Surely I dealt with this point by explaining that where processes or systems were in existence, there was an argument that they could be institutionally racist, because they were, so to speak, man made. That is precisely the case in your advert example, but is not the case in the economics of gentrification.

I agree it's good to air this debate. It is thought provoking.

 

[Anna Key]

Surely I dealt with this point by explaining that where processes or systems were in existence, there was an argument that they could be institutionally racist, because they were, so to speak, man made. That is precisely the case in your advert example, but is not the case in the economics of gentrification.

I don't want to labour the point but I'd argue that market-led gentrification is also man-made.

Politicians take a decision to let market forces rip. When they could, equally, have decided to intervene.

An analogy would be a doctor standing by while a man bleeds to death. When he could, equally, have applied a torniquet and saved the man's life.

 

[Mr BC]

The thing is that using the word "racism" is as accurate as launching into a long and over-analytical spiel about inbuilt structural and economic disparities

Yeah, let's just ditch argument and analysis and see who can shout the loudest instead. That'll be really edifying.

 

[Mr BC]

I don't want to labour the point but I'd argue that market-led gentrification is also man-made.

Politicians take a decision to let market forces rip. When they could, equally, have decided to intervene.

An analogy would be a doctor standing by while a man bleeds to death. When he could, equally, have applied a torniquet and saved the man's life.

Yeah, but that makes the politicians who allow market forces to let rip (i.e. every government we have ever had) the racists, not the people who move into the houses. Your point was that the people buying the houses were racist (albeit indirect racist).

 

[pooka]

Isn't this utterly academic?

We already seen that the loss of social housing (Anna Key's key mechanism in his gentrification=racism logic), is glacially slow - about 0.1% per annum.

This source tells us that between 1991 and 2001, the proportion of households in social tenure, in Lambeth, dropped from 47% to 42.5%. But the number of households increased from 108k to 118k. So the number of households in social tenure changed, over the period, from 50.7k to 50.2k, a loss of 500 or about 1% over the ten year period.

(By the way, have you yet had chance to think about the implications of these figures for your line of argument, Anna?)

Lambeth's digest of Census statistics also tells us:

People from Non-white ethnic groups constituted 30.3% of Lambeth’s population in 1991.....whilst people from Non-white groups made up
37.6% in 2001

Source

So, looks like Anna's Department for Ethnic and Cultural Impact Assessments and Gentrification Afffairs, will have bugger all to do.

 

[Mr BC]

Isn't this utterly academic?

We already seen that the loss of social housing (Anna Key's key mechanism in his gentrification=racism logic), is glacially slow - about 0.1% per annum.

Lambeth's digest of Census statistics also tells us:

Source

So, looks like Anna's Department for Ethnic and Cultural Impact Assessments and Gentrification Afffairs, will have bugger all to do.

Hmmm. These statistics do seem pretty telling.

But, I suspect that the more important truth is that the proportion of BME people on estates is rising whilst on the private roads it is falling. Couple that with the growing prosperity of people on the private roads and the prospects for an intergrated and harmonious community in Lambeth are looking less good all the time.

 

[pooka]

proportion of BME people on estates is rising whilst on the private roads it is falling

Really? ... on what would you base that? Is it to an appreciable degree on the scale of things?

 

[Mr BC]

Really? ... on what would you base that? Is it to an appreciable degree on the scale of things?

I have to confess it's on the basis only of my own observations.

 

[hatboy]

But, I suspect that the more important truth is that the proportion of BME people on estates is rising whilst on the private roads it is falling. Couple that with the growing prosperity of people on the private roads and the prospects for an intergrated and harmonious community in Lambeth are looking less good all the time.

My comment - Right to Buy, fucked-up policy. Good quality street property sold-off, ghetto estate rabbit hutches remain. Consequence more ghettosation of both rich and poor separately. Less harmony (with or without the racial implications/proportions).

Mixed streets are what you need - owners, HA, council, private renters. People talking over fences, on doorsteps, people getting on. Provided people want to engage - this works. It may sound corny but it does. It works in my street. But it is under threat in my street from the possible sell off of some HA property and the forced moving of tenants and by some of the new people who seem suspicious to mix.