Same Streets,Different Worlds!

[mutley]

Are there really a lot of people out there so lame that they'd be attracted to somewhere that's got a dodgy reputation just for the sake of it? I think it's more likely that crime & poverty are keeping the property prices down in some places, attracting middle-class buyers priced out of other areas.

No there aren't people like that, I think you've basically identified the real mechanism at work.

 

[JHE]

Sure, it's mainly about prices. Nevertheless, there are silly arses who blather on about how 'vibrant' and 'edgy' high-crime areas of London are.

 

[Dan U]

Sure, it's mainly about prices. Nevertheless, there are silly arses who blather on about how 'vibrant' and 'edgy' high-crime areas of London are.

yes. but i really don't think it's the prime reason for moving to places.

 

[ViolentPanda]

yes. but i really don't think it's the prime reason for moving to places.

This has been said before, but IME you have "waves" of settlement in poor areas. First of all you get the "alternative" folk, the squatters etc, who're (generally) good people who bring buildings back into use, whic often gives that area a "boost" in terms of making it visible to the next wave; the "arty types" who move in because of cheap housing/rents. This is often followed, once a "scene" develops, with the bohos moving in, and on their coat-tails come the "edgy vibrant" crew, hoping some of the edgy vibrancy rubs off on them, colouring their humdrum 9-5 lives by association (sweeping generalisation to annoy Crispy ).

Of course, the result is that the latter parts of this "colonisation" don't generally have the redeeming features of the former parts, as they tend to not contribute to the locale in the same way.

That's my (admittedly class-prejudiced) opinion, anyway.

 

[Dan U]

This has been said before, but IME you have "waves" of settlement in poor areas. First of all you get the "alternative" folk, the squatters etc, who're (generally) good people who bring buildings back into use, whic often gives that area a "boost" in terms of making it visible to the next wave; the "arty types" who move in because of cheap housing/rents. This is often followed, once a "scene" develops, with the bohos moving in, and on their coat-tails come the "edgy vibrant" crew, hoping some of the edgy vibrancy rubs off on them, colouring their humdrum 9-5 lives by association (sweeping generalisation to annoy Crispy ).

Of course, the result is that the latter parts of this "colonisation" don't generally have the redeeming features of the former parts, as they tend to not contribute to the locale in the same way.

That's my (admittedly class-prejudiced) opinion, anyway.

I'd agree with that pretty much. Except to say we differ slightly on the last part of the process - i think it is at least about cheaper rent's/house prices for first time buyer's as wanting to live somewhere 'edgy'.

All of this, as i said in my first post on this thread, really polarizes communities and it's a gap which imo is growing ever larger.

 

[newbie]

I'd agree with that pretty much. Except to say we differ slightly on the last part of the process - i think it is at least about cheaper rent's/house prices for first time buyer's as wanting to live somewhere 'edgy'.

All of this, as i said in my first post on this thread, really polarizes communities and it's a gap which imo is growing ever larger.

It's also about proximity to the City/West End. The new people moving in mostly aren't earning their crust locally, they work in highly competitive, well paid jobs which for the most part aren't available to those who got a poor, innercity education.

While a huge portion of the wealth of the country is generated in a tiny area of central London it's absolutely inevitable that the dormitory areas will fill up with over-achievers from all over the country, marginalising the indiginous young people.

 

[treelover]

Word...

 

[pinkmonkey]

I can see a link.

If you live on an estate on a low family income cheek by jowl to young affluent people in expensive flats - all the things society tell's us to aspire to but you see no way of getting it you *may* chose to try and take it. Through crime, gangs, drugs etc.

I am not blaming any group for this but this yawning, growing chasm between the poor in society and everybody else is certainly a factor imo.

A specific example of this is Landor Road where this latest lad to get shot lived off - one side of the road council estate, the other side £350k+ flats/houses stuffed full of affluent people often young with all the trappings.

Somewhere in the middle of the street is a thriving drugs market.

This is common all over London

I lived off landor road about 12 years ago. I lived there because we could afford to rent a maisonette there for cheaper than most other places, but also coz it was so convenient for the tube. My flatmates boss bought a house opposite ours. I really doubt that she bought it to feel edgy, more likely that it was a big attractive looking house, but far cheaper than most other places and convenient for the tube.
My mate was brought up on that estate where the kid was from. It always had a problem with regards drugs and muggings, but I really really doubt that anyone thought it was cool and edgy for that.

 

[BarryB]

Yeah OK i think that a lot of white middle class incomers do " give abit of a shit" but how does that translate to the actions they take? You look at somewhere like Hackney where they have colonised. Loads of people i know who grew up in the area have moved out as they have started families etc due to the high price of housing and crime.
In Hackney there are Cricket clubs and Inner city tennis clubs for the Middle Classes but very little for Working Class kids to do, a real shortage of youth and football clubs.
The white middle class incomers may not see that as important,but it would be a good way of stopping kids get into gangs.
And lots of trendy white middle class incomers help fuel the drugs wars.

People moving into and out of Hackney is hardly something new. Its been going on for decades.

As for not enough football clubs if you look at the sports pages of the Hackney Gazette there seem to be loads of them. As for youth clubs there probably should be more. But how important they are to prevent crime Im a bit dubious about.

BarryB

 

[Tom A]

Oi, stop using my oxygen, you rapacious middle class cunt!

*Hrrrrrrrrrrrgh Paaaaaaaaaaaaargh.... Hrrrrrrrrrrrgh Paaaaaaaaaaaaargh.... Hrrrrrrrrrrrgh Paaaaaaaaaaaaargh....*

It is USELESS to resist!

*Force-chokes ViolentPanda*

 

[poster342002]

Because they are often the sort of liberals who don't want to do anything about crime, indeed they think there is some sort of 'glamour' about living somewhere, as others have alluded to, a bit rough and 'edgy', even if they avoid the nastiest bits.

I've actually known these types to get irate when working class people in these areas (and who've lived there a lot longer than the jonny-come-lately middle classes) start making demands for crime and antisocial behaviour to be dealt with by the authorities. They start stomping their foot and screeching things along the lines of "but that would spoil the charecter of the area!" and then the classic "if they don't like things the way they are here, why don't they just move to another area!".

 

[poster342002]

No there aren't people like that

Yes there bloody well are: I've heard them braying and arfing at the top of their voices as they arrive in Brixton.

 

[Crispy]

I can honestly swear that I have never met one of these awful people. And by the sounds of it, I should be swimming in them.

 

[poster342002]

Check the exit to the tube station after 8:00 pm. And many of the enterntainment venues after that.

 

[Crispy]

I suppose I don't find myself in their natural habitat very often

 

[xenon]

It's way too simplistic to put it all in black and white terms anyway - in the Clapham shooting, a guy who was half white and half Thai got shot, and two white men and a black man were seen leaving the scene, and it's not as if somewhere like Glasgow, which I don't think has too big a black population, doesn't have a massive problem with gun crime.

Precisely.
London and guns are sexy. It's after all where most of the media are based. These curiously edgie neighbourhoods are only a tube ride away. As seen across the UK, Stabbings, criminality and misplaced destructive commercial enterprise are endemic any where there's a culture of status through wealth and very little possibility of social movement. It's not even about poverty persay.

The cultural tourists some of these places atract are only a simptom.

 

[FruitandNut]

Oi, stop using my oxygen, you rapacious middle class cunt!

It is not your oxygen either, ownership belongs to the collective, private ownership is bourgeois and reactionary; as a good comrade you may have licence to borrow what is allotted to you by the Party.

 

[fela fan]

I can see a link.

If you live on an estate on a low family income cheek by jowl to young affluent people in expensive flats - all the things society tell's us to aspire to but you see no way of getting it you *may* chose to try and take it. Through crime, gangs, drugs etc.

I think the biggest threat to a cohesive society is vast disparity of income.

It seems to me that when this gap is particularly visible, then crime is inevitable. What form and shape that crime takes will be dependent on other factors that belong to that overall society.

Isn't it objectively sound to say that gangs form because invidual members get no respect from the society they've grown up in?

And another thing, isn't education in britain these days as bad as it's ever been? At least for a significant section of society?

Same streets, different worlds... surely we should have found a way to solve this by now?

 

[Tom A]

It is not your oxygen either, ownership belongs to the collective, private ownership is bourgeois and reactionary; as a good comrade you may have licence to borrow what is allotted to you by the Party.

So... do as the Party tells you or they'll cut the oxygen off... very clever...

 

[tbaldwin]

This has been said before, but IME you have "waves" of settlement in poor areas. First of all you get the "alternative" folk, the squatters etc, who're (generally) good people who bring buildings back into use, whic often gives that area a "boost" in terms of making it visible to the next wave; the "arty types" who move in because of cheap housing/rents. This is often followed, once a "scene" develops, with the bohos moving in, and on their coat-tails come the "edgy vibrant" crew, hoping some of the edgy vibrancy rubs off on them, colouring their humdrum 9-5 lives by association (sweeping generalisation to annoy Crispy ).

Of course, the result is that the latter parts of this "colonisation" don't generally have the redeeming features of the former parts, as they tend to not contribute to the locale in the same way.

That's my (admittedly class-prejudiced) opinion, anyway.

Agree with that. I think it does come in waves and also think that gentrification is not neccesarilly always a bad thing either.
But it does quite often have some really shit effects and people should be honest about them.

 

[tbaldwin]

People moving into and out of Hackney is hardly something new. Its been going on for decades.

As for not enough football clubs if you look at the sports pages of the Hackney Gazette there seem to be loads of them. As for youth clubs there probably should be more. But how important they are to prevent crime Im a bit dubious about.

BarryB

Yeah Barry but the thing is that most of the teams mentioned are not actually playing or training in Hackney.
There is a definite lack of football teams for young people in Hackney and there is definetely a lack of youth clubs...But interestingly enough the middle classes are well catered for with Cricket and Tennis clubs. And of course there was all the money the very clever people at the council spent on Clissold Leisure centre...........

 

[tbaldwin]

Just to add to the football bit for barry.A couple of years ago my son played for Hackney Schools there home ground was in WALTHAMSTOW as there were no suitable facilities in Hackney for representative football. Will that change now that Hacney is a supposedly Olympic borough.
Does anybody on the council actually give a shit about the non posh youth in Hackney.

 

[glenquagmire]

Several of the pitches on Hackney Marshes are going to be lost to a coach park for the Olympic Games, so...doesn't look like it.

 

[zoltan]

This isnt a black/ white/mixed issue and is worng to categorise it is asuch

Its not even about poverty as such

its an issue of difference, of jealousy and a culture of ostentatious consumption - on both sides.

Its all about perception of affluence and percetion of deprivation.

 

[vauxhallmum]

Has anyone mentioned bastard gated communities yet?

 

[tbaldwin]

Several of the pitches on Hackney Marshes are going to be lost to a coach park for the Olympic Games, so...doesn't look like it.

Yes it looks as though all Hackney will get out of the 2012 Olympics is Car Parks and traffic jams. But i'm sure a few richer people who live in Hackney will be working as consultants etc.

 

[sayjann3]

Indeed. This class has done incalculable damage with their stupid lifestyle-tourism. It's time they were told to shut up and give these places a a chance to rebuild themselves - which they can't do as long as these arseholes are making a virtue out of the problems.

Hi there, how are they making a virtue out of the problems in an area. These "middle-class" incomers are not causing the gun crime, they arent breaking down doors and shooting children in their beds..

I dont see what problem they could be creating apart from jealousy.

I too think they are mad living in a shit hole when they can afford elsewhere but I dont think they are causing any problems in these areas.

SJ

 

[durruti02]

People moving into and out of Hackney is hardly something new. Its been going on for decades.

As for not enough football clubs if you look at the sports pages of the Hackney Gazette there seem to be loads of them. As for youth clubs there probably should be more. But how important they are to prevent crime Im a bit dubious about.

BarryB

for a hackney boy you seem remarkably ignorent of how things have changed mate

of course people have moved in and out of hackney for generations .. for ever really ... and there have always been m/c areas BUT there are today huge differrences to past patterns

never has it been in a period with a
- such a sustained period of youth unemployment as we have now ..

- or with such a lack of real job opportunities ( what replaced lesneys metal box bergers burberrys maynards gestetners etc etc? .. city jobs which are not available to most hackney kids)

- or such a wealth discrepancy of the newcomers to those on estates

as a Labour councillor i would have thought you would have been concerned to put your indiginous and generally poor electorate before the rich newcomers


and again as TB has pointed out and again you should know hackney kids and football clubs/teams have always had to go to the marshes to play football and now most go further afield than that. The sports facilities in this borough are pathetic.

your comments on lack of youth clubs having no baring on crime is equally astonishing .. as you are aware the Labour Council in Hackney shut and sold of virtually all youth clubs in the 8ts and 9ts .. you seriously claiming that this has had no effect on people in the borough?? of course they are not a panacea but if as you suggest they are no use why have any?

 

[durruti02]

Hi there, how are they making a virtue out of the problems in an area. These "middle-class" incomers are not causing the gun crime, they arent breaking down doors and shooting children in their beds..

I dont see what problem they could be creating apart from jealousy.

I too think they are mad living in a shit hole when they can afford elsewhere but I dont think they are causing any problems in these areas.

SJ

of course the individuals do not cuase gun crime directly .. but their life style based on a class based / unfair society is the fundamental cause of the breakdown that leads to gun crime ... and in fact that you can not seen that is clealry part of the problem

 

[Giles]

of course the individuals do not cuase gun crime directly .. but their life style based on a class based / unfair society is the fundamental cause of the breakdown that leads to gun crime ... and in fact that you can not seen that is clealry part of the problem

Right, so merely seeing people with decent jobs and a nice car/flat living nearby is enough to make people go out, get a gun and take up crack dealing?

Hmmmmm....

Giles..