A debate has been raging all week underneath Times columnist Giles Coren’s jocular post about the gentrification or otherwise of Kentish Town, much of it centred on whether the area is now a “sterile little village” (coined by commentator Gerry Slater) – compared to how it was twenty years ago.
In response to some of the criticism, Coren has replied today that he’s “reappropriating the word ‘shit hole’ to mean something positive. I know how KT looks to outsiders and I’m not ducking it. I am proud of it, regardless of its one or two aesthetic and social failings compared to the ‘London Prime Property’ beloved of the international market.”
But did you know there’s another, scarier level of the g-word? Today The Guardian reports that research by poverty charity the Cripplegate Foundation suggests our neighbouring borough Islington will soon be the preserve of the “ultra-rich and ultra-poor”. This, it argues, is a result of “supergentrification”.
But what is supergentrification? Fuelled by “London’s financial elite,” it’s all sky-high salaries, bonuses and zero community feel. The middle-income, middle class professional families – from teachers to lecturers and journalists – who make up that horrible phrase, the “chattering classes” – are now squeezed out of such areas, as they are, of course, in many parts of our very own borough.
The report’s co-author, Faiza Shaheen, a researcher at the New Economics Foundation, said “widening social inequality and the gradual exclusion of low and middle-income families in Islington is replicated in other areas of inner London, such as Camden and Hackney, with potentially damaging effects on the stability and health of local communities”.
So is it the end of what Coren might call the inner London “shithole”? Is supergentrification unstoppable? Is there a natural ceiling, or is it too late?
What do you think?
11 thoughts on “Big Question: Supergentrification – will it price us all out?”
not sure if you know about this already, but there are plans in motion over the regeneration of the estates in Gospel Oak. I live in one of these. In nutshell the council will use a compulsory purchase order to buy out the leaseholders and then not give us any housing in return. Instead they will be building specific units for sale to new leaseholders at hugely inflated prices to make a profit on the whole redevelopment. having spoken to some of the leasholders we don’t want to move, we won’t be able to afford anything with whatever they give us in the area and NW5 will loose people/families who have been part of the community for decades if not centuries.
Of course it is. The Kentishtowner actually published a great piece earlier this year about why its the rich as well as the poor who cause social damage in Camden
http://www.kentishtowner.co.uk/2013/07/15/why-it-matters-a-more-equal-camden/
I don’t really care what Giles Coren has to say – I just want to sleep with him. Call me old-fashioned but isn’t that how everyone feels about him?
You can’t squeeze out anyone who’s bought a property and been living here for years. Many of the “working class” who left bought their council houses thanks to Thatcher and then sold them for big profits and moved to Barnet and the like.
KT was a shit hole many years ago. When I shared a flat with a mate during the 70s we reckoned that we had a higher proportion of people up on murder charges in our street than possibly anywhere else in London. The pubs were mostly terrible (cf. The Cardinal Wolsey {now Annie’s} and the Jolly Anglers {Nando’s}). If you wanted a decent meal you had to go down to Camden Town; no Asian restaurants within miles; many miserable shopkeepers in KT Road. There are few places that I miss, Honky Tonk Records (now Meadows or its latest reincarnation), Carter’s fish shop and Waltons the greengrocers.
It’s improved greatly in recent years with better shops and things like the revamped Alma Street Fair,,but there’s also a great danger that the nimbyism of the Residents’ Associations, opposing student housing, licence extensions etc. (despite their right-on rhetoric), will limit the development of KT.
As to the disappearance of the chattering classes, well they seemed to be in abundance at the recent Camden Brewery bash.
It’s great that KT is safer now than it was, but that’s part of a general UK trend. And countries in Scandinavia show that crime rates are dependent on people being richer, it’s about levels of inequality.
The central point about London is that as long as sterling is cheap and credit is cheap in the UK, then foreign money is going to be drawn in to the UK and the best place to put it is in to the bricks and mortar of London. Property in the centre is most desirable, hence the ‘doughnut effect’ of more and more property and developments taking place in zone one, people selling up and moving out, pushing prices up in zone two, and eventually in zone three, four etc.
It’s not really that complicated. London’s population is expected to hit 9m by 2019, that’s just five and a bit years away. The Mayor estimates that it will require over 400,000 new homes built over the next decade. http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/londons-population-hits-new-high-of-83m-8674589.html Can anyone see that happening? The Mayor’s own research shows that two thirds of new property is being bought by by-to-let investors, the rest bought by foreign investors.
So in Kentish Town we get terrible developments like ‘Princes Park’ overshadowing Talacre, with all the units sold off to mugs in the Far East, before Londoners even get a sniff.
Coupled with policies like the Bedroom Tax and cuts to local services by the Coalition Government, delivered by Labour Councils, that result in evictions of the poor – it’s less gentrification, more socio-economic cleansing.
Also could be noted that our media can be a bit snobbish, favouring new openings that fit in with the ‘gentrification’ narrative. Great that Kentishtowner reviews a new local business like Bunny Little’s, but what about Gregg’s in Kentish Town when it got refurbed in the summer? Lots of celebration of international chains like Soho House, but what about McDonald’s or Nando’s?
Can ‘gentrification’ be halted? I personally think ‘gentrification’ is too crude a term, things that generally improve and revive or are part of a natural evolution of an area, that are accepted by the majority of the people in the area, shouldn’t be a bad thing. It’s not ‘gentrification’, it’s just change.
What people seem to be complaining about when they talk about ‘gentrification’ is prices going up and the area becoming more economically segregated, and that’s not ‘natural’ – there’s nothing natural about economics; it’s not cyclical; it’s completely a consequence of human decision-making. House prices go up because of policies designed to make them go up, and that has a knock-on effect with retailers and other services in an area.
You can check the house price rise to something more sustainable that doesn’t force other such rapid social change on an area – but our political leaders don’t want to.
Some options include:
A land value tax http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/392c33a6-211f-11e3-8aff-00144feab7de.html
Building more supply, to meet the demand http://www.leftfootforward.org/2013/09/boris-leaving-housing-crumbs-for-londoners/
Councils reforming Council tax to more accurately reflect value of property, enabling them to raise revenues – or just unfreeze Council tax, which is effectively enabling them to subsidise the rich in a borough whilst cutting services to the poor, selling off Council housing etc.
Wider national controls to better regulate foreign investors buying UK land/property
That’s just for starters. Our local and national leaders have deliberately allowed this situation to occur, and it can equally be equally, if we want it.
Of course in my first paragraph I meant to say “that crime rates are not dependent on people being richer…”
And at the end, I meant to say “and it can equally be changed, if we want it”.
Apologies for typos, can they be amended?
Thanks,
Tim
Anyone interested in who is buying the flats in the Prince’s Park development at Talacre and what these buyers think their obligations and service charges will be should bookmark and regularly look at the Latest News page on http://www.savetalacre.co.uk. The Land Registry is revealing quite a lot of information and discussions with buyers are showing that they simply don’t realise they become part owners of the new narrow road and have to pay for it to be marshalled. Conveyancing solicitors are being “reminded” of the legal situation and have been given quotations from eg a local solicitor who wrote to the Borough Solicitor saying that in his view solicitors would have a problem advising their clients to buy in view of the risks.
As an ex practicing barrister who was once the Chair of Camden’s planning committee commented “this is going to end in tears.
Nick
I live a mile up the road in Highgate and my house has gone up in “value” from £385k to almost a million since 2004 – but that’s small change compared to the £25 – £65 million houses along the edge of the Heath. (Try searching for houses to buy in N6 or N2 on PrimeLocation.com!)
Never mind Kentish Town, the comfortably off are being priced out of parts of London by the oligarchs and far eastern property speculators.
I also wonder how many of the “luxury appartments” being built in the new Aldwych development and similar will ever be lived in. More probably they’ll be snapped up by Malaysian and Chinese speculators and barely ever visited at all.
It’s almost as if large parts of London’s “housing stock” are becoming the empty Centre Points of the 2010s – buildings which serve no useful practical purpose whatsoever.
I lived in Tufnell Park for five years, until the beginning of this year. I was lucky to have a vaguely dodgy landlord who never put my rent up during that period, but I was paying way under the going rate for a flat next to The Junction. Don’t think I could afford to move back now even though I do love Tufnell Park and KT.
Gentrification can be irritating – how many boutique coffee shops does an area really need? That sad, although I didn’t really get the point of Future and Found, it looked a lot better out of my window than a vacant, boarded up building. And when Ruby Violet opened I couldn’t have been more excited!
But the whole gentrification/hipsterfication thing is happening everywhere – Berlin, Brighton, Brixton, pockets of East London. It’s cyclical: an area is a bit rough, but cheap to live in so people start moving there and it gradually gets nicer. Suddenly, there are 10 trendy cafes and ice cream shops on every road and the ratio of men with waxed moustaches has risen dramatically. Now rent prices have shot up and everyone needs to find the next cheap place to live.
Who knows, it might even happen to Archway next…
For those wary of gentrification and the proliferation of cupcake shops and tattooed baristas, the bad news is that KT is still lagging compared to other gentrifying parts of London. Outside of a slew of excellent pubs, there is still not a surfeit of good cafes, supermarkets, grocers, bakers….where’s the Wholefoods/Planet Organic? Where’s the Monmouth Coffee? There’s a way to go yet, I’m afraid…
What you lose on the swings you gain on the roandabouts! We have definitely experienced the good and bad effects of gentrification in KT. Yes the value of our property has gone up and it is nice to have more choice in restaurants and shops – I hope there will be room for everyone from Stagnells to Bunny Littles, Mario’s to Chicken Shop, that is what makes KT so much fun at the moment and I hope it always stays like that. Many of these new business like Ruby Violets, Lost and Found and Bunny Littles have been set up by long standing residents. As for Pizza East they have been great at giving support to local schools offering freebies to give away for fund raising etc.
The bad well as this blog has reported on before I and other friends lost out in the school admissions round when our local school was targeted by several families new to the area who decided to rent additional homes next to Eleanor Palmer School for the duration of the admissions period to ensure they got a place at what they felt was the only acceptable state primary school in the whole of KT! This has always gone on but it was an unprecedented number this year. The outstanding Ofsted the low free school meal uptake and the d list celebrities meant some parents felt it was worth trampling over genuine honest applicants to bag a place.
I lucked out in the end and got another great local school Tufnell Park Primary and we love it. Other friends were not so lucky and got no local schools. The whole experience has revealed to me that gentrification has in recent years brought with it some residents who care little for the local community they have moved into. They are totally unaware that their actions create a great deal of divisiveness within it. Two of the families have already moved back to their real homes and are incredulous about the resentment created within the community. But how else are longstanding local residents supposed to feel when they cross paths every morning with these parents going to the school closest to their homes as they make their way to the school closer to the school cheats? Farcical! Families who have lived here for generations feel side lined and resentful when this type of behaviour goes on and new residents would do well to be a little more discrete, empathetic and community minded.