"Young professionals" to infest flats above Iceland
- Thread starter OldSlapper
- Start date
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
Perception makes a lot of difference. An example: Hoxton is (imho and apologies to Hoxtonites) a crumbling dump. Howver, various "agents" (the style mags, the "local magazine" tv progs etc) "sold" Hoxton as a hip, happening and trendy place. Result? The perception of Hoxton being fostered by certain interested parties meant that house prices rocketed (even places that smelt of piss apparently), spaces got developed into "aprtments for young professionals" etc, and the locals got pushed out.tarannau said:
That's the difference perception makes.
I don't disagree on the suitability. My cynical nature does however make me wonder whether a lift could have been easily fitted.
I don't find the term "young professional" at all unpleasant. It's the connotations of housing developers, estate agents etc attempting to appeal to such a narrow band of house-needing humanity that I find disturbing, for all the reasons I've previously stated.
editor said:
I would have used this phrase myself. I have nothing against the people who move into flats built over pubs that were destroyed for their home dreams, but you do wonder sometimes about societal change in your neighbourghood.
ViolentPanda said:
Does this not have a lift then? I think you have to if its more than four floors high. I would have though these small flats, with no garden or play area, maybe no lift, but several floors up anyhow, and no parking would not be ideal for families or older people, especially given the noisy area that they are located in.
And re Hoxton - I don't understand how the kind of "locals" you mean, who are mostly secure RSL or council tenants, would get pushed out? They are secure tenants. And if they owned places that they then sold for loads more than they paid, that's not getting pushed out, is it?
Giles..
editor
hiraethified
So that I may recognise one in the future, could someone complete this tick box list so that I can spot a yuppie about to infest Brixton?
So far I've got:
SINGLE PROFESSIONAL x
NOT FROM ROUND THESE PARTS X
CAN AFFORD TO BUY A 'POKEY' FLAT ABOVE A TATTY SUPERMARKET X
PROBABLY DOESN'T BUY FOOD IN THE AREA X
USES BRIXTON AS A DORMITORY X
NOT VERY COMMUNITY MINDED X
CONCERNED ABOUT SHAPING BRIXTON IN THEIR IMAGE X
RATHER MORE NERVOUS ABOUT THE PLACE X
What else do I need to complete the list?
So far I've got:
SINGLE PROFESSIONAL x
NOT FROM ROUND THESE PARTS X
CAN AFFORD TO BUY A 'POKEY' FLAT ABOVE A TATTY SUPERMARKET X
PROBABLY DOESN'T BUY FOOD IN THE AREA X
USES BRIXTON AS A DORMITORY X
NOT VERY COMMUNITY MINDED X
CONCERNED ABOUT SHAPING BRIXTON IN THEIR IMAGE X
RATHER MORE NERVOUS ABOUT THE PLACE X
What else do I need to complete the list?
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
young?editor said:
upwardly mobile?
i don't see why a yuppie need be nervous about brixton - would you move to an area you were nervous about?
perhaps if you'd put "can afford to buy a 'pokey' flat above a tatty supermarket which will be worth a fair sight more in a few years time when they sell up and leave" it might have fitted the profile of the yuppie who infests an area for a few years then buggers off leaving the place in a worse state than s/he found it, as what was once a proper community degenerates into atomised, demoralised, priced-out people in a barren yuppie-created social desert.
as tacitus would have said, they will make a wasteland and call it gentrification.
editor said:
I'm reluctant to do this, editor, honestly, but ....
In answer to the question I've bolded ...
A more complete list might perhaps come from a less simplistic and less polarised reading of some of the discussions and debates that have actually been happening in this thread?? In the more thoughtful and considered parts of it anyway!
To me it seems like you're picking up on a selction of the more pejorative phrases used by Old Slapper at the start of this thread, some of them agreed ridiculous, without really recognising that the totality of the debate from other posters has been a lot more subtle and nuanced than that.
Tarranau and Justin for instance, Newbie and Violent Panda, hendo and even Giles (despite his insulting instruction in his first post to Justin to get a better job -- thankfully he's not being as obnoxious in subsequent posts) --- all of these contributors are arguing from very different directions, and they along with other posters have been trying to bring the discussion forward, very well too I think in the main ...
Personally I agree with VP and Justin most, but it really doesn't help to have their views charactured as kneejerk resentment of anyone buying property. The whole issue is much more multidimensional than that.
Donna Ferentes
jubliado
Well, it'd cut down on the Conservative vote.cllr said:
brixtonvilla
should be Oslovilla, really
What about people who don't fit into the neat "yuppie parasite" or "righteous community-minded local" pigeonholes? What about (for example) property-owning key workers? Not many I know, but where to they fit into this?
Donna Ferentes
jubliado
I don't suppose the lack of nuance is actually present only in your imagination?brixtonvilla said:
Donna Ferentes
jubliado
I have to admit your party has lost out on the younger selfish vote in the last two elections. Next one too, I imagine. But keep at it!cllr said:
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
Giles said:
A shorthold tenant is only "secure" for a six month period at a time, as you well Know, that's the kind of locals who get pushed out, the ones who found that the only way to continue living in "their" borough was to rent a flat or bedist, and then get edged out by rising rental prices and/or the landlord's whim.
Please don't insult me by saying athat this doesn't happen. It does, in spades, in every locality that gets "gentrified". I've seen members of my own immediate and extended family move out into the home counties because it was the nearest to London they could afford to live after being edged out of their own communities by rising prices.
You also seem to not bother to factor in the nature of community into your thinking. A person can also be "edged out" of their community if that community changes drastically in a short span of time. I saw this happen in Battersea, in Balham, and then start to occur in parts of Streatham in the early 1990s, and it's happening in Brixton. Why would a person, homeowner or no, stay in a commumity where they no longer feel wanted or needed?
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
brixtonvilla said:
To me there's one thing above all that is a mark of whether someone "fits" into an area, and that's whether they give (and have a willingness to give) as well as take. I've nothing against "property-owning key workers" because they make a contribution to local (and wider) society. If the Ed owned his own property and was a "yuppie" (or whatever other perjorative phrase coud be used to describe him) I'd say that Urban75 was ON BALANCE a big enough contribution to Brixton's cause, both locally and globally, to indicate that he's given more than enough to the community, whether or not I agree with some of his (IMHO) rather laboured rants about this and that.
By "giving" I don't necessarily mean being a righteous community activist of the tub-thumping type, I mean preserving community values that mean we take notice of each other and care about our community. I know all to many people (my own brother included) who don't give a fuck for their community except insofar as what they can get out of it, and in how it reflects in the value of their property
What I'm saying is, personally I'll welcome anyone who's prepared to participate in their community on a reciprocal basis, give as well as take, but in my personal experience there will always be a significant minority of "incomers" (horrible word) who refuse to participate, either for reasons of social class/status or because their entry into the community is almost entirely on a (financially) speculative basis (i.e. they're living in their short-term investment opportunity until such as time as they can afford to move on to somewhere more appropriate to the status they've imagined themselves to hold).
editor
hiraethified
So you'd agree that it's a bit silly labelling everyone moving into a property above a supermarket as "infesting yuppies"?ViolentPanda said:
You see, I agree with the majority of your post but can't help getting pissed off when people slap up blanket assumptions about the motives and personality of people they've never met just because they're able to afford a none-too glamorous property in Brixton.
Wow! Is this some sort of anti-yuppie indemnity even if I suddenly strike it rich?!ViolentPanda said:
But you're making my point for me: if I just happened to have been moving into those buildings on Electric Avenue, some people here would have already condemned me as a yuppie (or even worse, an "infesting yuppie!"), I'd have to face the full force of Justin's 'resentment'
and put up with all the other prejudices posted up here just because I bought a 'pokey' flat!It's the blanket condemnation that offends me, but that doesn't mean that I don't sincerely wish that those buildings hadn't been put into use for social housing decades ago.
If the building was turning into a luxury yuppie development a la Atlantic 66 I could get worked up about it. But I find it hard to work up much of a lather over a building that's been empty for twenty years being converted into (for London) cheap flats.
Given the realistic, real world choice of it remaining empty and rotting away (like some other Elec Avenue buildings) and being put to so some less-than-ideal use, I'd prefer the latter.
Although - to repeat - I'd rather it be put to community/social use. But that, sadly, wasn't an option and there's nothing I could do about that.
Donna Ferentes
jubliado
And what a daily burden that would be. It'd be like the Fifth Station of the Cross.editor said:
Donna Ferentes
jubliado
It was noted. Note the presence of 'humour' in my post. And 'irony'.
I don't see what the fuss is about. If there is not enough affordable housing for low income people, that's a seperate issue.
Even yuppies need somewhere to fucking live. There is always going to be a housing market. If the market can't provide houses for people on ALL incomes, then it's those at the bottom end of the market who suffer the most.
If planning permission were to always be turned down because "Only yuppies will live there" - all that will happen, is yuppies will live in smaller places and those at the bottom end of the market will be priced out of any kind housing.
Even yuppies need somewhere to fucking live. There is always going to be a housing market. If the market can't provide houses for people on ALL incomes, then it's those at the bottom end of the market who suffer the most.
If planning permission were to always be turned down because "Only yuppies will live there" - all that will happen, is yuppies will live in smaller places and those at the bottom end of the market will be priced out of any kind housing.
Donna Ferentes
jubliado
Yes, I think that grasps most of the salient points.
De te fabula narratur.editor said:
Donna Ferentes
jubliado
Heh. Being post Vatican II, I had to look it up.
Donna Ferentes
jubliado
Did the Christian Brothers manage to learn you any Latin?
Donna Ferentes
jubliado
Yeah, but they're fun to know, y'know? Even though I wish I'd done German O-Level instead.
oryx
Sitting on the bok of the day
ViolentPanda said:
I have lived in Battersea for 20 years & all my old neighbours who moved on were not in any way "edged out" - they made a killing on small 2-bed terraced houses they had bought some time ago, probably cheaply, & moved further out to the "suburbs" & to bigger properties - with proper gardens & more bedrooms - BECAUSE THEY WANTED TO and not because they were forced out by property developers. I would say this is typical of any inner London gentrified area.
I don't think it is the old communities who are edged out - but it is definitely the case that the many of children of older inhabitants cannot afford to live in places like Battersea, Brixton or Hoxton. Rather than old communities being edged out, it's more a case that their offspring (and other working class people) are priced out.
The latter does of course amount to a demographic change, often not for the better, but I do think it's largely a myth that long-standing inhabitants are forced out of areas to make way for wealthy incomers.
Similar threads
