# Brixton features in 4 page feature in Qantas flight magazine



## editor (May 23, 2016)

It's all taking a turn for 'the better' thanks to Brixton Village and Pop Brixton, apparently, so we're now a vibrant foodie destination.


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## ViolentPanda (May 23, 2016)

Slight hyperbole by the author.


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## Gramsci (May 23, 2016)

What an aggravating piece to read. 

I was in Market Row on Saturday. My shopping was to get 5 Brixton£ from the machine next to Francos, kitchen roll from one of last remaining non hip shops and Nour. 

Nor did she notice the cafes in Brixton Station road.


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## ViolentPanda (May 23, 2016)

Gramsci said:


> Nor did she notice the cafes in Brixton Station road.



The cafes probably didn't have enough of an "edgy vibe" for her.


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## Rushy (May 23, 2016)

Qantas.


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## JimW (May 23, 2016)

Qunts


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## editor (May 24, 2016)

Gramsci said:


> Nor did she notice the cafes in Brixton Station road.


Of course not. They don't exist to people like her and her target audience and they won't exist for anyone else soon once the rents have soared and every shop has been turned into a chain, a fucking foodie theme park, a pop up craft beer trinket-shunter or some vibrant edgy hipster bollocks.


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## hendo (May 24, 2016)

It's great that Brixton is featuring on several pages of a leading airline's inflight magazine. It means tourists and their money will keep pouring in here, and that's a good thing for jobs and the local economy. 
The piece focuses on the food scene and that's a fair thing for a lifestyle magazine piece to do. It's not that journalists job to write a gritty piece analysing the social cleansing effects of gentrification, it's not what her employers want. Instead (in the inset box) she's suggested having a picnic in Brockwell Park or going to a gig at the Academy. In the main piece she's focused on local start up restaurants and it's hard not see their arrival and coverage here as positive, given it's these - and not the tax avoiding chains - who pay tax.
No, it's a decent piece given the brief. We have to look elsewhere for coverage of the disaster overtaking the housing situation in our capital.


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## editor (May 24, 2016)

hendo said:


> It's great that Brixton is featuring on several pages of a leading airline's inflight magazine. It means tourists and their money will keep pouring in here, and that's a good thing for jobs and the local economy.


It's great if you're lucky enough to own your home or live in secure housing because all of this publicity will continue to increase the area's appeal, and thus send property and rent values soaring. Landlords rejoice!

The same applies if you're a business person who owns your own premises. But for many others, the news is not so jolly. Tourists aren't particularly interested in unfashionable businesses that operate on low turnovers, so there'll be the first to go once the rents ratchet up even higher and we all know what's been happening to housing rents and house prices. Already, many of my friends have been priced out of the area and many more are just hanging on.  One more rent increase and they'll be gone too.

As for the jobs, most of the new ones are in the notoriously low-paid service sector, many with zero hour contracts. Not every new business hires locals either and they're sometimes just replacing existing businesses who did.

So no, having my hometown being presented as a tourist hotspot for Champagne-quaffing, foodie globe-trotting travellers isn't something I feel like celebrating. Anyone who's lived long enough in London to know what happened in Camden may understand my lack of enthusiasm.


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## skyscraper101 (May 24, 2016)

I do so hate the word 'foodie'


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## hendo (May 24, 2016)

I'd certainly agree that a lot of the side effects of this consumer led prosperity in Brixton - and in many other areas of the capital - have decidedly negative results for many members of our community. It's impossible not to sympathise with the people on the Guinness estate and Cresswell Gardens who are being priced out to god knows where. I miss AC Continental Deli as much as anyone and I'm in Cafe Max every Sunday morning so I'm in some sympathy with what you say. The Arches is a scandal, really harmful to the area's character. 

I'm not going to argue that zero hour contracts are a good thing either - but neither can I pretend that the revitalisation of the area is _all_ bad and I don't think you can either editor. The fact is that these new businesses do employ people and do pay tax locally and nationally. People are coming into Brixton, and they're spending money in businesses a great many of which started here and continue to be based here. A great deal of what is happening in Lambeth is happening across the capital under a government which is hostile to social housing as we've enjoyed it for decades. None of this is the fault of people who produce and read a Quantas in-flight magazine. 

It's kneejerk to describe the tourists who'll read this piece as 'Champagne quaffing foodie globe trotting travellers' - anyone who's been say, to New York for a few days to sample the nightlife could be described as that. Frankly if they've hacked economy for 23 hours to come to Brixton I'll give them a bloody medal.


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## editor (May 24, 2016)

hendo said:


> It's kneejerk to describe the tourists who'll read this piece as 'Champagne quaffing foodie globe trotting travellers'...


The article is - by its very nature - aimed at globe trotting travellers - and opens with a reference to Champagne & Fromage and then concentrates more or less solely on new foodie enterprises and cocktail bars. There's a whole strata of this community that receives little benefit from Brixton being turned into a tourist-luring, internationally-promoted tourist hotspot, so I find nothing in that article to celebrate or feel good about.

And of course not all of the area's revitalisation is bad, but there's a growing feeling amongst my friends that it's now way out of control and really only benefiting those at the top.


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## hendo (May 24, 2016)

Mama Lan and Kaosarn have been here for years, and it's surely in everyone's interest that people visit the Ritzy, another of the piece's prominent suggestions.


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## editor (May 24, 2016)

hendo said:


> Mama Lan and Kaosarn have been here for years, and it's surely in everyone's interest that people visit the Ritzy, another of the piece's prominent suggestions.


The multinational owned Ritzy has long become unaffordable to many residents and should be shamed by the prices offered at the Peckhamplex. Why should I care if international tourists go there when it remains unaffordable to locals?


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## T & P (May 24, 2016)

editor said:


> The article is - by its very nature - aimed at globe trotting travellers - and opens with a reference to Champagne & Fromage and then concentrates more or less solely on new foodie enterprises and cocktail bars. There's a whole strata of this community that receives little benefit from Brixton being turned into a tourist-luring, internationally-promoted tourist hotspot, so I find nothing in that article to celebrate or feel good about.
> 
> And of course not all of the area's revitalisation is bad, but there's a growing feeling amongst my friends that it's now way out of control and really only benefiting those at the top.


The article is aimed at anyone who finds themselves on a plane flying to a different country. A lot of the people on that plane, more than 80% of them in fact, will be travelling economy and not necessarily wealthy at all, as any of us who have ever flown abroad can testify.

The article is not any different from every article I've read on any airline in-flight mag to any destination, whether it might be British Airways to the USA, or Easyjet to Spain.

To see the publication of that article as anything other than positive seems uber bizarre to me, tbh.


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## hendo (May 24, 2016)

Isn't it a bit rough to single out the Ritzy as somehow worthy of opprobrium because it's unaffordable to many residents? London is one of the most expensive cities in the world. Frankly, a lot of London is inaccessible to the people who live here; one of the curses of living in a capital with massive influxes of global cash. I don't think the Ritzy is a brilliant example. Like any business I would assume it aims its offerings at the local community and other consumers at a price it thinks they can afford and which allows it to operate at a profit.

But this argument isn't about the Ritzy, it's about the piece in the Quantas in-flight magazine; which I think, despite the stringent criticisms here, is a good thing. Brixton is becoming famous and a lot of the reasons are positive. I'm not going to lose sleep over this article.


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## editor (May 24, 2016)

hendo said:


> Isn't it a bit rough to single out the Ritzy as somehow worth of opprobrium because it's unaffordable to many residents? London is one of the most expensive cities in the world. Frankly, a lot of London is inaccessible to the people who live here; one of the curses of living here. I don't think the Ritzy is a brilliant example. Like any business I would assume it aims its offerings at the local community and other consumers at a price it thinks they can afford and which allows it to operate at a profit.


You brought up the Ritzy as something that was in "everyone's interest" to support. Given that its prices are very much unaffordable to many, I'm not sure why it should be deserving of universal and uncritical support, even more so when their prices are nearly_ three times as much_ as a cinema a couple of miles away.


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## twistedAM (May 24, 2016)

Damn. They left out the Windmill but we were in the Easyjet inflight mag for a while


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## hendo (May 24, 2016)

Without wanting to get into a he said she said spiral, I felt the need to defend the Ritzy as an example of a business that was in the piece and deserves general support because it enriches the area culturally. At any rate, it'll continue to get mine. I don't want to see our local cinema close.  I can't imagine many people do. I stand by my original point; that's it's in everyone's interest that people visit it, be they tourists or other Londoners. Obviously if movies are cheaper down the road and loads of people are getting the bus then that's a problem for the Ritzy, I'd suggest.


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## Dan U (May 24, 2016)

20 pages.


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## editor (May 24, 2016)

T & P said:


> To see the publication of that article as anything other than positive seems uber bizarre to me, tbh.


Maybe this article may give some ideas why tourism doesn't come without its downsides; 



> “Gentrification and tourism,” concludes Gotham, “are largely driven by mega-sized financial firms and entertainment corporations who have formed new institutional connections with traditional city boosters (chambers of commerce, city governments, service industries) to market cities and their neighborhoods.”
> 
> Miriam Greenberg tells a similar story in _Branding New York: How a City in Crisis Was Sold to the World_. Concerned that the city’s reputation had been all but annihilated by high rates of crime and poverty, the New York State Department of Commerce launched the “I Love New York” campaign in the late 1970s as part of an effort to make the city attractive to tourists and moneyed outsiders.
> 
> ...


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## krtek a houby (May 24, 2016)




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## ViolentPanda (May 24, 2016)

hendo said:


> It's great that Brixton is featuring on several pages of a leading airline's inflight magazine. It means tourists and their money will keep pouring in here, and that's a good thing for jobs and the local economy.



Sorry, but I have to disagree - so far, much of the service industry employment generated has been low-grade and "zero hours"-based, according to local councillors, and the local economy only benefits either from the wages generated by those workers, or if the business services some of its' supply needs locally. According to local suppliers, a majority don't.


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## ViolentPanda (May 24, 2016)

skyscraper101 said:


> I do so hate the word 'foodie'



Would you prefer "gourmand" or "gourmet"?


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## Rushy (May 24, 2016)

hendo said:


> But this argument isn't about the Ritzy, it's about the piece in the Quantas in-flight magazine;



Qantas.


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## ViolentPanda (May 24, 2016)

hendo said:


> I'd certainly agree that a lot of the side effects of this consumer led prosperity in Brixton - and in many other areas of the capital - have decidedly negative results for many members of our community. It's impossible not to sympathise with the people on the Guinness estate and Cresswell Gardens...



That's *Cressingham* Gardens, you charmless nerk. 



> ...who are being priced out to god knows where. I miss AC Continental Deli as much as anyone and I'm in Cafe Max every Sunday morning so I'm in some sympathy with what you say. The Arches is a scandal, really harmful to the area's character.



It's not merely a matter of being "priced out". It's also a matter of social cleansing. If you think that "social cleansing" is too emotive a term, we can go with "demographic homogenisation", if you prefer, because that's the result - not just of rising rent and property prices, but of the complicity of our local authority in facilitating and promoting change that benefits those with disposable income over and above any other resident.


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## editor (May 24, 2016)

ViolentPanda said:


> .... but of the complicity of our local authority in facilitating and promoting change that benefits those with disposable income over and above any other resident.


That's pretty much nailed it.


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## hendo (May 24, 2016)

I've a good deal of sympathy with this latest broad point. It's a more narrow, on-thread topic argument I wanted to pursue. It's pointless to ask people running a pop up dumpling shop to carry the guilt for deregulated labour in the UK and it's equally futile to lambast the writer of a lifestyle piece for a give away airline magazine for her writing about Brixton's diverse range of restaurants.


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## editor (May 24, 2016)

hendo said:


> It's pointless to ask people running a pop up dumpling shop to carry the guilt for deregulated labour in the UK ....


Has anyone done that?


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## beesonthewhatnow (May 24, 2016)

editor said:


> The article is - by its very nature - aimed at globe trotting travellers


So who is the extensive guide to NYC on this site aimed at?

While the gentrification problems are very real, I don't think this article is quite as bad as people are making out...


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## hendo (May 24, 2016)

editor said:


> Has anyone done that?


I was responding to VP's point that "much of the service industry employment generated has been low-grade and "zero hours"-based, according to local councillors" which is valid, but a problem the service sector has generally, and which can only be addressed by employment regulation.


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## T & P (May 24, 2016)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> So who is the extensive guide to NYC on this site aimed at?
> 
> While the gentrification problems are very real, I don't think this article is quite as bad as people are making out...



It's not bad at all. And the arrival of any tourists who've read it and decide to visit Brixton will only have a positive effect, however small this might be. But it will still be a positive effect, not a negative one.


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## editor (May 24, 2016)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> So who is the extensive guide to NYC on this site aimed at?


Not foodies and people looking for champagne and cocktail bars, that's for sure.

These kind of off-topic, point-scoring, personal cheap shots piss me off, to be honest. How the fuck can you compare a personal, non profit street photography blog to a piece of commissioned tourist fluff mainly promoting trendy foodie outlets, published in an in-flight magazine for a massive airline?


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## editor (May 24, 2016)

T & P said:


> It's not bad at all. And the arrival of any tourists who've read it and decide to visit Brixton will only have a positive effect, however small this might be. But it will still be a positive effect, not a negative one.


So, again, you think there is zero negative impact to Brixton being promoted as an international tourist destination for mainstream visitors? It's all good for everyone, yes?


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## hendo (May 24, 2016)

I think it's great that Brixton is being promoted abroad, and while there's much to be mourned about many of the changes we're seeing, it's a good thing generally that people are being encouraged to come here and spend their time and money.


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## pesh (May 24, 2016)

People have always come to Brixton to spend their time and money, they're just spending it on far duller things now.


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## beesonthewhatnow (May 24, 2016)

editor said:


> So, again, you think there is zero negative impact to Brixton being promoted as an international tourist destination for mainstream visitors? It's all good for everyone, yes?


Zero impact? No. But I do think there can be positives form stuff like this. It's not simple good/bad.



> These kind of off-topic, point-scoring, personal cheap shots piss me off, to be honest. How the fuck can you compare a personal, non profit street photography blog to a piece of commissioned tourist fluff mainly promoting trendy foodie outlets, published in an in-flight magazine for a massive airline?


It wasn't meant as a cheap shot, I was just pointing out that you have created a guide for people who, by definition, are "globe trotting travellers". Using this phrase as a negative just doesn't work.


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## Rushy (May 24, 2016)

Can someone please define "mainstream visitor"?




ETA  It guess not!


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## T & P (May 24, 2016)

editor said:


> So, again, you think there is zero negative impact to Brixton being promoted as an international tourist destination for mainstream visitors? It's all good for everyone, yes?


Of course I do. However small, the benefits of increased tourist visits to Brixton generated by that article will still be far, far greater proportionally than any possible negative effects.


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## editor (May 24, 2016)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> It wasn't meant as a cheap shot, I was just pointing out that you have created a guide for people who, by definition, are "globe trotting travellers".


Er, no. The New York section is not a guide to upmarket foodie joints, champagne bars, cocktail bars and the like, neither was it written for a commercial airline's promotional material. 

It is, for the greater part, a street photography blog and trying to suggest that it's comparable to a commercial piece of writing aimed at foodies for an inflight magazine is some fucking leap.


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## editor (May 24, 2016)

T & P said:


> Of course I do. However small, the benefits of increased tourist visits to Brixton generated by that article will still be far, far greater proportionally than any possible negative effects.


That _very much_ depends on your own circumstances. Do you own your own home? Things sure look a lot rosier and cosier than if you're on a low income (perhaps in one of these new service industry jobs) and renting in the area.


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## T & P (May 24, 2016)

editor said:


> That _very much_ depends on your own circumstances. Do you own your own home? Things sure look a lot rosier and cosier than if you're on a low income (perhaps in one of these new service industry jobs) and renting in the area.


How are people on low incomes going to be negatively affected by a few hundred overseas tourists from Australia visiting Brixton in the coming weeks? At worst, they won't directly benefit from their visit. But they won't lose out at all, other than perhaps a seat on the Tube on their way home from work.


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## editor (May 24, 2016)

T & P said:


> How are people on low incomes going to be negatively affected by a few hundred overseas tourists from Australia visiting Brixton in the coming weeks? At worst, they won't be affected at all.


I note you sidestepped the question, but I would have thought it rather obvious that this discussion is about the wider national and international promotion of Brixton as a must-see foodie tourist destination. Qantas is just the latest example.


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## beesonthewhatnow (May 24, 2016)

editor said:


> Er, no. The New York section is not a guide to upmarket foodie joints, champagne bars, cocktail bars and the like, neither was it written for a commercial airline's promotional material.


I'm not comparing it to an airline magazine, I'm saying that the content you have that's a guide to bars, cafes, museums etc is by definition aimed at international air travellers. This is a good thing in my mind, it's a useful resource. But by using that description as a negative you weaken your argument, that's all.



> It is, for the greater part, a street photography blog and trying to suggest that it's comparable to a commercial piece of writing aimed at foodies for an inflight magazine is some fucking leap.


I've not compared it like that.

As for who it's aimed at - I'd say the author has, within what's capable in the confines of an in flight magazine, done a reasonable job of highlighting a range of things. See the bit about having a picnic in the park etc. This isn't going to bring hoards of business travellers from the first class lounge into Brixton...


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## hendo (May 24, 2016)

Though the thought of rounding off a bit of globetrotting with a quaff of champagne in Brockwell park isn't without appeal.


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## editor (May 24, 2016)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> I'm not comparing it to an airline magazine, I'm saying that the content you have that's a guide to bars, cafes, museums etc is by definition aimed at international air travellers.


By that argument, any photo taken in any place anywhere in the world is "by definition aimed at international air travellers." Is a ridiculous point to be labouring. Most of the photos I took were of bridges, snow, trains, urban decay, graffiti, street signs and have very little to do with promoting trendy foodie joints and cocktail bars and all the other cherry-picked 'lifestyle' consumerist stuff promoted in that magazine. 

But, whatever. You keep stretching this ad hominem and pretending it's not a cheap shot


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## T & P (May 24, 2016)

editor said:


> I note you sidestepped the question, but I would have thought it rather obvious that this discussion is about the wider national and international promotion of Brixton as a must-see foodie tourist destination. Qantas is just the latest example.


That's not how the discussion started, I thought. Certainly, this particular article is a drop in the ocean and is indeed very old news as far as how Brixton is perceived by others is concerned.

In any case, the overall suggestion of the article is 'visit Brixton'. In common with just every article ever written about a place that might be worth visiting, the writer will of course suggest a number of hightlights to check out. That's what you do when you write such article. And if interesting food is one of the pulls of Brixton, so be fucking it. People are not robots. If they bother to come to Brixton, most of them will have a look around the place, rather than just go to what the article names and promptly fuck off back to their hotel. Whichever way you look at it, of course it is not going to be financially harmful to the residents of Brixton. Certainly not this late into the game.


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## editor (May 24, 2016)

hendo said:


> Though the thought of rounding off a bit of globetrotting with a quaff of champagne in Brockwell park isn't without appeal.


I'm sure it's lovely if you can afford it.


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## snowy_again (May 24, 2016)

You can buy an award winning bottle at Lidl for £9.99 or Aldi for £10.


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## editor (May 24, 2016)

T & P said:


> That's not how the discussion started, I thought. Certainly, this particular article is a drop in the ocean and is indeed very old news as far as how Brixton is perceived by others is concerned.
> 
> In any case, the overall suggestion of the article is 'visit Brixton'. In common with just every article ever written about a place that might be worth visiting, the writer will of course suggest a number of hightlights to check out. That's what you do when you write such article. And if interesting food is one of the pulls, so be fucking it. People are not robots. If they bother to come to Brixton, most of them will have a look around the place, rather than just go to what the article names and promptly fuck off back to their hotel. Whichever way you look at it, of course it is not going to be financially harmful to the residents of Brixton. Certainly not this late into the game.


I can only assume you do own your own house then, because I can't think why else you'd find it so hard to understand why the relentless promotion of Brixton as a must-see tourist attraction for those with plenty of disposal income causes problems for those struggling to keep up with their ever-rising rents. Now that it's being promoted internationally, those rents are going to go up even more. It's what happens in tourist areas (see: St Ives for a recent example). 

Rents are rising everywhere across London of course, but the growing popularity of Brixton as a place to stay and visit is hyper-accelerating those rents locally.


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## editor (May 24, 2016)

snowy_again said:


> You can buy an award winning bottle at Lidl for £9.99 or Aldi for £10.


And how much does the globetrotting bit cost?


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## snowy_again (May 24, 2016)

I don't know, I don't do it as much anymore. I think the 37 bus there and back might set you back some £$ though.


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## editor (May 24, 2016)

snowy_again said:


> I don't know, I don't do it as much anymore. I think the 37 bus there and back might set you back some £$ though.


How thigh slappingly amusing.


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## Winot (May 24, 2016)

editor said:


> And how much does the globetrotting bit cost?



I thought we'd agreed that international travel wasn't the problem? Presumably you're not concerned if someone flies here economy class, buys a bottle of fizz from Lidl and drinks it in the park? That would be most unwelcoming.


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## beesonthewhatnow (May 24, 2016)

editor said:


> By that argument, any photo taken in any place anywhere in the world is "by definition aimed at international air travellers." Is a ridiculous point to be labouring. Most of the photos I took were of bridges, snow, trains, urban decay, graffiti, street signs and have very little to do with promoting trendy foodie joints and cocktail bars and all the other cherry-picked 'lifestyle' consumerist stuff promoted in that magazine.
> 
> But, whatever. You keep stretching this ad hominem and pretending it's not a cheap shot


I'm not talking about the photos 

How is this an ad hominem


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## editor (May 24, 2016)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> I'm not talking about the photos
> 
> How is this an ad hominem


Remind me why my NYC photos/features are being brought up again?


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## hendo (May 24, 2016)

Winot said:


> I thought we'd agreed that international travel wasn't the problem? Presumably you're not concerned if someone flies here economy class, buys a bottle of fizz from Lidl and drinks it in the park? That would be most unwelcoming.


The problem with aiming this kind of all embracing opprobrium at harmless articles about restaurants is that it runs the risk of extending to a kind of joyless take on all forms of enjoyment experienced in Brixton, incase they somehow contribute towards more social exclusion or homogenisation. It starts with a disapproval of airline tickets and prosecco in the park, then progresses to a ban on ball games and dancing round the maypole on a Sunday. It lends credence to the idea that the left is obsessed with the destruction of pleasure, or at least the promotion of a list of types of pleasure that can be judged ideologically sound, the premises that may be frequented, and the denigration of the rest.


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## cyberfairy (May 24, 2016)

Last time I went to Brixton, went to the 121 centre for a read of some anarchist fanzines, a great record shop near the tube, spent ages buying random stuff like riot grrl hairclips  from the eclectic smelly market by and under the arches and then went to that great crusty club whose name was also made of numbers on Electric Avenue (I think) *definitely not been to Brixton in a while*


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## Rushy (May 24, 2016)

Winot said:


> I thought we'd agreed that international travel wasn't the problem? Presumably you're not concerned if someone flies here economy class, buys a bottle of fizz from Lidl and drinks it in the park? That would be most unwelcoming.


Perhaps you have not been paying attention. My understanding is that mainstream international travel in particular is in fact a problem. People who engage in this practice would do well to stay at home and read the online musings of experienced non mainstream travellers.


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## editor (May 24, 2016)

Winot said:


> I thought we'd agreed that international travel wasn't the problem? Presumably you're not concerned if someone flies here economy class, buys a bottle of fizz from Lidl and drinks it in the park? That would be most unwelcoming.


Ah, ridicule, the standard method of closing down a discussion around here.


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## Rushy (May 24, 2016)

hendo said:


> The problem with aiming this kind of all embracing opprobrium at harmless articles about restaurants is that it runs the risk of extending to a kind of joyless take on all forms of enjoyment experienced in Brixton, incase they somehow contribute towards more social exclusion or homogenisation. It starts with a disapproval of airline tickets and prosecco in the park, then progresses to a ban on ball games and dancing round the maypole on a Sunday. It lends credence to the idea that the left is obsessed with the destruction of pleasure, or at least the promotion of a list of types of pleasure that can be judged ideologically sound, the premises that may be frequented, and the denigration of the rest.


Superbly put.


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## TruXta (May 24, 2016)

Rushy said:


> Superbly put.


Drivel, actually. Then again all sides in this discussion couldn't give a fuck about arguments, it's all about the big fat beef.


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## editor (May 24, 2016)

hendo said:


> The problem with aiming this kind of all embracing opprobrium at harmless articles about restaurants is that it runs the risk of extending to a kind of joyless take on all forms of enjoyment experienced in Brixton, incase they somehow contribute towards more social exclusion or homogenisation. It starts with a disapproval of airline tickets and prosecco in the park, then progresses to a ban on ball games and dancing round the maypole on a Sunday. It lends credence to the idea that the left is obsessed with the destruction of pleasure, or at least the promotion of a list of types of pleasure that can be judged ideologically sound, the premises that may be frequented, and the denigration of the rest.


Wow. Don't let me get in the way of that wonderful piece of projection.


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## Winot (May 24, 2016)

Rushy said:


> Perhaps you have not been paying attention. My understanding is that mainstream international travel in particular is in fact a problem. People who engage in this practice would do well to stay at home and read the online musings of experienced non mainstream travellers.



I do find it very hard to keep up with such nuanced arguments.


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## Rushy (May 24, 2016)

TruXta said:


> Drivel, actually. Then again all sides in this discussion couldn't give a fuck about arguments, it's all about the big fat beef.


Gees. I hadn't thought of it like that before.


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## TruXta (May 24, 2016)

Yeah this is why I gave up posting in this forum.


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## editor (May 24, 2016)

TruXta said:


> Yeah this is why I gave up posting in this forum.


I think there really is an important discussion to be had about the impact of tourism in Brixton, but the debate has already been diverted into pointless stuff about pleasure destructing lefties, Aldi prices, number 37 buses, quaffing champagne in Brockwell Park and the tourist-luring appeal of my NY photos, accompanied by the usual sarcastic sniping from predictable faces. 

Well done, everybody. Job done, eh?


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## leanderman (May 24, 2016)

The mistake here of course is to assume, once again, that Brixton is somehow being singled out for 'promotion'.

It's one article in one issue of one airline magazine.


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## hendo (May 24, 2016)

TruXta said:


> Yeah this is why I gave up posting in this forum.


Could you see your way to giving up again?


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## editor (May 24, 2016)

leanderman said:


> The mistake here of course is to assume, once again, that Brixton is somehow being singled out for 'promotion'.
> 
> It's one article in one issue of one airline magazine.


I don't believe anyone has made that claim either, but there is no doubting that Brixton is indeed being heavily promoted now, receiving the kind of international foodie-attracting coverage that would have been unthinkable a decade ago. I don't see Tooting, Stockwell or Streatham receiving this kind of coverage.


----------



## editor (May 24, 2016)

hendo said:


> Could you see your way to giving up again?


Charming.


----------



## Manter (May 24, 2016)

editor said:


> I don't believe anyone has made that claim either, but there is no doubting that Brixton is indeed being heavily promoted now, receiving the kind of international foodie-attracting coverage that would have been unthinkable a decade ago. I don't see Tooting, Stockwell or Streatham receiving this kind of coverage.


London’s Streatham loses ‘ugly sister’ image as new buyers move in - FT.com


----------



## hendo (May 24, 2016)

editor said:


> Charming.


Well he's not made a huge contribution to this thread has he.


----------



## leanderman (May 24, 2016)

editor said:


> I don't believe anyone has made that claim either, but there is no doubting that Brixton is indeed being heavily promoted now, receiving the kind of international foodie-attracting coverage that would have been unthinkable a decade ago. I don't see Tooting, Stockwell or Streatham receiving this kind of coverage.



You make that claim. And you are making it again

And Stockwell? Really?


----------



## TruXta (May 24, 2016)

hendo said:


> Could you see your way to giving up again?


Touchy are we? But yeah, don't worry, I'll leave it to others to point out your hyperbolic nonsense.


----------



## SpamMisery (May 24, 2016)

TruXta said:


> Drivel, actually. Then again *all* sides in this discussion couldn't give a fuck about arguments, it's all about the big fat beef.



Acknowledged with a like by at least one of those sides


----------



## twistedAM (May 24, 2016)

editor said:


> I don't believe anyone has made that claim either, but there is no doubting that Brixton is indeed being heavily promoted now, receiving the kind of international foodie-attracting coverage that would have been unthinkable a decade ago. I don't see Tooting, Stockwell or Streatham receiving this kind of coverage.



Streatham will never get it mainly cos it's just one big long strip and not that visually appealing even though it is great for shops and places to eat. Meanwhile Crystal Palace seems to be picking up press all over the place even though all the restaurants are mediocre, the pubs bland as fuck, a glut of third wave coffee shops and half a dozen  pricey gift shoppes. It is scenic though.


----------



## editor (May 24, 2016)

leanderman said:


> You make that claim. And you are making it again
> 
> And Stockwell? Really?


Yes, I am making the claim that Brixton is receiving a huge amount of international coverage. If you think Streatham is having as much, let's see the links.


----------



## TruXta (May 24, 2016)

SpamMisery said:


> Acknowledged with a like by at least one of those sides


I think you're the only one to spot that I took aim at ALL that had posted previous to the first post of mine. So yeah. Over and out.


----------



## editor (May 24, 2016)

Manter said:


> London’s Streatham loses ‘ugly sister’ image as new buyers move in - FT.com


Um, I said international press.


----------



## hendo (May 24, 2016)

TruXta said:


> I think you're the only one to spot that I took aim at ALL that had posted previous to the first post of mine. So yeah. Over and out.


Bye.


----------



## hendo (May 24, 2016)

editor said:


> Um, I said international press.


The FT publishes in the US and London.


----------



## Nanker Phelge (May 24, 2016)

TruXta said:


> Drivel, actually. Then again all sides in this discussion couldn't give a fuck about arguments, it's all about the big fat beef.



Peak burger


----------



## editor (May 24, 2016)

hendo said:


> The FT publishes in the US and London.


Oh FFS. It's in their UK Property 'house & home' section.


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## leanderman (May 24, 2016)

editor said:


> Yes, I am making the claim that Brixton is receiving a huge amount of international coverage. If you think Streatham is having as much, let's see the links.



Huge amount of international coverage! Really?

I didn't raise Streatham. You did.


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## editor (May 24, 2016)

leanderman said:


> Huge amount of international coverage! Really?


Yes. Much of it has been reported here but I can't be arsed to find it for you. Try looking yourself.


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## leanderman (May 24, 2016)

twistedAM said:


> Streatham will never get it mainly cos it's just one big long strip and not that visually appealing even though it is great for shops and places to eat. Meanwhile Crystal Palace seems to be picking up press all over the place even though all the restaurants are mediocre, the pubs bland as fuck, a glut of third wave coffee shops and half a dozen  pricey gift shoppes. It is scenic though.



There is a lot of Tooting hype as well.


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## editor (May 24, 2016)

leanderman said:


> There is a lot of Tooting hype as well.


Find me a comparable article to this (along with multiple referrences in in-flight magazines) and you might have some kind of point, rather than appearing to argue for the sake of it:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/05/w...ice-bars-and-tapas-a-new-brixton-emerges.html


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## leanderman (May 24, 2016)

editor said:


> Find me a comparable article to this (along with multiple referrences in in-flight magazines) and you might have some kind of point, rather than appearing to argue for the sake of it:
> 
> http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/05/w...ice-bars-and-tapas-a-new-brixton-emerges.html



I am pointing out that Brixton is probably no more heavily 'promoted' than many other areas.

We might think it more hyped because we notice Brixton articles, they are brought to our attention - often here.


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## Ol Nick (May 24, 2016)

We live in expansionary times in this country, and in particular in this city. Those who cannot catch the tide are destined to be crashed against the rocks or swept out to Milton Keynes. The world is on the move, both capital and labour, and is moving wealth around in unexpected ways. 

That said, a bunch of low-paid tourist jobs are not what the stayer-putters need. London should de prioritise tourism right away. There are enough other jobs to be done that don't involve trampling all a neighbourhood.

That said, Shoreditch is now unaffordable owing to a huge expansion in advertising and financial tech companies which presumably pay OK. 

Maybe we have to get used to the flip side of all the voluntary migration as being some involuntary migration. Being somewhere first counts for less than ever. Apparently Milton Keynes is very nice: lots of jobs.


----------



## Winot (May 24, 2016)

As someone* once said, if it's a choice between Milton Keynes and death - I choose death.

(*Virginia Woolf I think)


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## Winot (May 24, 2016)

Although a town jointly founded by Milton Friedman and John Maynard Keynes is bound to have a bit of an identity crisis.


----------



## Ol Nick (May 24, 2016)

You've stolen all the punchlines


----------



## Dan U (May 24, 2016)

Milton Keynes is fine tbh. Lots of right angles


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## T & P (May 24, 2016)

Dan U said:


> Milton Keynes is fine tbh. Lots of right angles


Aberration of a football team that should be forcefully liquidated though.


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## Dan U (May 24, 2016)

T & P said:


> Aberration of a football team that should be forcefully liquidated though.


Yep definitely


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## editor (May 24, 2016)

leanderman said:


> I am pointing out that Brixton is probably no more heavily 'promoted' than many other areas.
> 
> We might think it more hyped because we notice Brixton articles, they are brought to our attention - often here.


If that;s the case, then show me some of the many articles promoting Stockwell or Tooting in the NY newspapers and all the international in-flight mag features. Any streets on Stockwell appearing in Travel & Leisure mag? How about  a Conde Nast feature? How many £70 foodie tours are there for Stockwell?

I wish I didn't have to regularly read crap like this:


> The _Pièce de résistance_ of Brixton’ metamorphosis from cheap and undesirable to chic and trendy can be found in Brixton Village, an old and dilapidated market that has been transformed into one of the most reputed gastronomic centers in the city.
> Brixton - Hipster London at its Finest


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## Manter (May 24, 2016)

hendo said:


> The FT publishes in the US and London.


And is distributed in every major financial hub around the globe.....I'd venture it is seen by more people than the q(u)antas inflight magazine


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## Nanker Phelge (May 24, 2016)

cheap and undesirable

Charming


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## editor (May 24, 2016)

Nanker Phelge said:


> cheap and undesirable
> 
> Charming


Yeah, we were all scum and everything was shit until the yuppies, gentrifiers and rich kids saved us.


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## SpamMisery (May 24, 2016)

We're all agreed then


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## editor (May 24, 2016)

Manter said:


> And is distributed in every major financial hub around the globe.....I'd venture it is seen by more people than the q(u)antas inflight magazine


Yes, the House & Home section in the UK Property subsection is massively popular right across the globe. Thanks for making this important point. That one mention surely blows all the other arguments out of the water.


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## Nanker Phelge (May 24, 2016)

SpamMisery said:


> We're all agreed then



That's fucking cheap, man.


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## Manter (May 24, 2016)

editor don't you get tired of being so bloody angry all the time?!


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## editor (May 24, 2016)

Manter said:


> editor don't you get tired of being so bloody angry all the time?!


I'm not even slightly angry but thanks for your concern. And thanks for jumping in with that point about Streatham too. Decisive, it was. Now where do I sign up for the Streatham foodie tour? I've got £70 burning a hole in my pocket here!


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## Gramsci (May 24, 2016)

hendo said:


> Isn't it a bit rough to single out the Ritzy as somehow worthy of opprobrium because it's unaffordable to many residents? London is one of the most expensive cities in the world. Frankly, a lot of London is inaccessible to the people who live here; one of the curses of living in a capital with massive influxes of global cash. I don't think the Ritzy is a brilliant example. Like any business I would assume it aims its offerings at the local community and other consumers at a price it thinks they can afford and which allows it to operate at a profit.
> 
> .



Up here in Loughborough Junction I hear a lot of resentment. One being that the Ritzy is expensive. At a recent consultation for LJ people from the estate said they wanted a non "exclusive" cinema. ie one they can afford. Picturehouse charge what they think punters will pay. The fact that this excludes a swathe of the local population is just tough I suppose. Thats just how the world works. 

To my surprise a while back I found that Picturehouse ticket prices vary across London. Stratford is example


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## editor (May 24, 2016)

Gramsci said:


> To my surprise a while back I found that Picturehouse ticket prices vary across London. Stratford is example


Fuck me, they're really fleecing Brixtonites. Why the fuck should we be expected to support that kind of rip off pricing?


----------



## Gramsci (May 24, 2016)

hendo said:


> The piece focuses on the food scene and that's a fair thing for a lifestyle magazine piece to do. It's not that journalists job to write a gritty piece analysing the social cleansing effects of gentrification, it's not what her employers want. .



But she doesn’t just talk about foodie places she starts her article with an analysis of Brixton. She is making political points in her article. See the start of the article where she sets the scene.

If your point is that a "lifestyle" magazine is not political she certainly hasn’t followed that in her article.


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## Gramsci (May 24, 2016)

editor said:


> Fuck me, they're really fleecing Brixtonites. Why the fuck should we be expected to support that kind of rip off pricing?



I was surprised myself. Stratford is comparable to Brixton in distance from centre of London. Picturehouse must have looked at the changing demographic here and realised they can get people to pay the prices at Ritzy.


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## Manter (May 24, 2016)

editor said:


> I'm not even slightly angry but thanks for your concern. And thanks for jumping in with that point about Streatham too. Decisive, it was. Now where do I sign up for the Streatham foodie tour? I've got £70 burning a hole in my pocket here!


You might have to eat quite a bit to spend your £70 on the foodie tour Streatham Food Tour - Streatham Food Festival but you could just go to the latest pop up supper club Pushpa's Kitchen (which to be fair looks fantastic)

Point is Brixton is today's fashion, not unique, or particularly special. Media and fashion are moving on....


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## editor (May 24, 2016)

Manter said:


> You might have to eat quite a bit to spend your £70 on the foodie tour Streatham Food Tour - Streatham Food Festival)


That special yearly event is not even slightly comparable and you know it, so why post it up?


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## Gramsci (May 24, 2016)

hendo said:


> The piece focuses on the food scene and that's a fair thing for a lifestyle magazine piece to do. It's not that journalists job to write a gritty piece analysing the social cleansing effects of gentrification, it's not what her employers want.



And I wouldn’t dignify what she writes as journalism. Its advertising.


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## SpamMisery (May 24, 2016)

hendo said:


> The FT publishes in the US and London.



More people read the ft outside the UK than inside. 

2.2 million daily readership according to the website. I reckon about 2.2 people read the Qantas in flight magazine daily.


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## T & P (May 24, 2016)

Gramsci said:


> And I wouldn’t dignify what she writes as journalism. Its advertising.


It's on a par with what one would expect to find in any in-flight magazine. Travellers are likely to be interested in reading about the city they're about to visit. Such write-ups are the bread and butter of in-flight mags.


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## Monkeygrinder's Organ (May 24, 2016)

As far as it goes it seems to me that the article is more symptom than cause tbh - in-flight magazines tend to focus on exotic or glamorous places to try and add a bit of that when you're actually stuffed into a cramped seat working up your next thrombosis. I don't think many people actually go anywhere due to having read them. It's a symptom of significant change though, it's Brixton for a good reason and people certainly aren't writing those sort of articles about Streatham or wherever. There's not going to be a 'Qantas guide to Penge' any time soon.


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## editor (May 24, 2016)

T & P said:


> It's on a par with what one would expect to find in any in-flight magazine. Travellers are likely to be interested in reading about the city they're about to visit. Such write-ups are the bread and butter of in-flight mags.


The point is that the foodie-luring joints of Brixton never used to appear in such mags, and now they're subject to four page main features and true international coverage. At best, the place might have got a line or two about its music venues or Caribbean heritage but now it's all upmarket foodie stuff and Pop Brixton/Village.

And the Qantas isn't some throwaway read - it's a high end premium mag with a captive audience of about 2.3 million passengers a month, and a domestic readership of 589,000.

But of course, they're only one of many international magazines/websites to have joined in with the enthusiastic coverage of Brixton as the new, must-see foodie/trendy hang out, and anyone who thinks that nearby places like Streatham and Tooting are enjoying such mass foodie-tastic coverage really doesn't know what they're talking about.


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## Twattor (May 24, 2016)

Gramsci said:


> I was surprised myself. Stratford is comparable to Brixton in distance from centre of London. Picturehouse must have looked at the changing demographic here and realised they can get people to pay the prices at Ritzy.


Oddly Stratford isn't considered part of London in the eyes of Picturehouse - it comes under provincial membership and is not included in London membership.


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## SpamMisery (May 24, 2016)

I must have thumbed through a thousand in flight magazines. I can't recall a single article from any of them. It's forgetable guff whilst you ignore the safety demonstration.


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## Gramsci (May 24, 2016)

hendo said:


> The problem with aiming this kind of all embracing opprobrium at harmless articles about restaurants is that it runs the risk of extending to a kind of joyless take on all forms of enjoyment experienced in Brixton, incase they somehow contribute towards more social exclusion or homogenisation. It starts with a disapproval of airline tickets and prosecco in the park, then progresses to a ban on ball games and dancing round the maypole on a Sunday. It lends credence to the idea that the left is obsessed with the destruction of pleasure, or at least the promotion of a list of types of pleasure that can be judged ideologically sound, the premises that may be frequented, and the denigration of the rest.



The destruction of pleasure by the left. This is a generalisation.

The left is not just one thing.

Take the Brixton Rec. I am in the Brixton Rec Users Group. The Rec was designed and built as part of the post war optimism that pleasure should be accessible to all. A "Peoples Palace". The design of the Rec encourages people to mix (the atrium). It was build on a grand scale. Its why so many Brixtonians opposed the threat to it a few years ago. The pleasure that the Rec represents is outside the the consumerist marketplace.

The Rec is one example of an alternative vision of what a pleasureable society could be. One that since Thatcher has been denigrated.

Its not that the left is against pleasure. Its that an alternative vision of it is almost lost.

Lifestyle journalism is not harmless in the sense of being neutral. To put it another way Lifestyle journalism is not the direct cause of the inequality that Capitalism ( of the kind that London now has) causes but has an ideological function to validate it.


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## leanderman (May 24, 2016)

editor said:


> If that;s the case, then show me some of the many articles promoting Stockwell or Tooting in the NY newspapers and all the international in-flight mag features. Any streets on Stockwell appearing in Travel & Leisure mag? How about  a Conde Nast feature? How many £70 foodie tours are there for Stockwell?
> 
> I wish I didn't have to regularly read crap like this:




Stockwell, again?!  Are you arguing for the sake of it?


----------



## ViolentPanda (May 24, 2016)

hendo said:


> I've a good deal of sympathy with this latest broad point. It's a more narrow, on-thread topic argument I wanted to pursue. It's pointless to ask people running a pop up dumpling shop to carry the guilt for deregulated labour in the UK and it's equally futile to lambast the writer of a lifestyle piece for a give away airline magazine for her writing about Brixton's diverse range of restaurants.



I'm not asking anyone to carry guilt. I'm asking them to give or show consideration to the _milieu_ into which they're inserting themselves *beyond* the usual CSR-type bull.


----------



## editor (May 24, 2016)

leanderman said:


> Stockwell, again?!  Are you arguing for the sake of it?


Eh?  You're asserting that Brixton's foodie joints are receiving no more promotion or coverage than any other area, so it seems perfectly fair and rational to put that to the test and chose similar places close to Brixton as a comparison. 

So let's see their international coverage. What have you got?


----------



## ViolentPanda (May 24, 2016)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> So who is the extensive guide to NYC on this site aimed at?
> 
> While the gentrification problems are very real, I don't think this article is quite as bad as people are making out...



How about quantifying exactly how bad people are making the article out to be?


----------



## goldenecitrone (May 24, 2016)

Is Brixton the new Earl's Court?


----------



## ViolentPanda (May 24, 2016)

hendo said:


> I think it's great that Brixton is being promoted abroad, and while there's much to be mourned about many of the changes we're seeing, it's a good thing generally that people are being encouraged to come here and spend their time and money.



Your fundamental error is that you believe that "Brixton is being promoted abroad". It isn't.
What's being promoted, to the exclusion of almost any social consideration, is a *facet* of "new" Brixton culture, some of which parasitises established Brixton culture for financial ends.


----------



## leanderman (May 24, 2016)

editor said:


> Eh?  You're asserting that Brixton's foodie joints are receiving no more promotion or coverage than any other area, so it seems perfectly fair and rational to put that to the test and chose similar places close to Brixton as a comparison.
> 
> So let's see their international coverage. What have you got?



Stockwell is no comparison


----------



## ViolentPanda (May 24, 2016)

pesh said:


> People have always come to Brixton to spend their time and money, they're just spending it on far duller things now.



A broad swathe of people, from most social strata, used to do so.
Nowadays that swathe is narrow, perhaps mostly confined to those with a decent amount of disposable income.


----------



## editor (May 24, 2016)

leanderman said:


> Stockwell is no comparison


Oh, so you're shifting your position. 

Here's what you originally claimed: 


leanderman said:


> I am pointing out that Brixton is probably no more heavily 'promoted' than many other areas.
> We might think it more hyped because we notice Brixton articles, they are brought to our attention - often here.


----------



## ViolentPanda (May 24, 2016)

T & P said:


> Of course I do. However small, the benefits of increased tourist visits to Brixton generated by that article will still be far, far greater proportionally than any possible negative effects.



I'm sure that Brixtonites having their walls pissed up by tourists, will rush to agree with you about the benefits! 

It should be noted, however, that the *significant* increase in spend and footfall in central Brixton *hasn't* resulted in any extra public conveniences for full-bladdered tourists to relieve themselves in.


----------



## leanderman (May 24, 2016)

editor said:


> Oh, so you're shifting your position.



And I stand by it. You brought up the ridiculous Stockwell comparison.

ETA: I would further note that your Conde Nast article is from four years ago, the NY Post from March 2015.


----------



## ViolentPanda (May 24, 2016)

T & P said:


> That's not how the discussion started, I thought. Certainly, this particular article is a drop in the ocean and is indeed very old news as far as how Brixton is perceived by others is concerned.
> 
> In any case, the overall suggestion of the article is 'visit Brixton'. In common with just every article ever written about a place that might be worth visiting, the writer will of course suggest a number of hightlights to check out. That's what you do when you write such article. And if interesting food is one of the pulls of Brixton, so be fucking it. People are not robots. If they bother to come to Brixton, most of them will have a look around the place, rather than just go to what the article names and promptly fuck off back to their hotel. Whichever way you look at it, of course it is not going to be financially harmful to the residents of Brixton. Certainly not this late into the game.



The overall suggestion of the article is more "visit Brixton's nu-eateries", as opposed to "visit Brixton, there's interesting food there". What's being promoted is a mediated experience of culture, like one of those restaurant tours that are utterly divorced from the cultural context of the area they take place in.


----------



## T & P (May 24, 2016)

ViolentPanda said:


> A broad swathe of people, from most social strata, used to do so.
> Nowadays that swathe is narrow, perhaps mostly confined to those with a decent amount of disposable income.


 Not sure that is the case at all, as far as people coming to Brixton is concerned anyway. Up until 6-8 years ago, a very wide swathe of people wouldn't come to Brixton at all, due to the reputation the place had among those who didn't know it first-hand and the depiction it got in the media. So if anything, a far more varied range of social groups visit Brixton now than they did 10 years ago, IMO at least.


----------



## editor (May 24, 2016)

leanderman said:


> And I stand by it. You brought up the ridiculous Stockwell comparison.


So your position is now: "I am pointing out that Brixton is probably no more heavily 'promoted' than many other areas. Except Stockwell."


----------



## editor (May 24, 2016)

ViolentPanda said:


> The overall suggestion of the article is more "visit Brixton's nu-eateries", as opposed to "visit Brixton, there's interesting food there". What's being promoted is a mediated experience of culture, like one of those restaurant tours that are utterly divorced from the cultural context of the area they take place in.


Once again you have nailed it.


----------



## ViolentPanda (May 24, 2016)

hendo said:


> The problem with aiming this kind of all embracing opprobrium at harmless articles about restaurants is that it runs the risk of extending to a kind of joyless take on all forms of enjoyment experienced in Brixton, incase they somehow contribute towards more social exclusion or homogenisation.



"All embracing opprobrium"? Where? For opprobrium to be all-embracing, any criticism of the article would have to be highly detailed. It isn't. The criticism is specific to particular issues. 



> It starts with a disapproval of airline tickets and prosecco in the park, then progresses to a ban on ball games and dancing round the maypole on a Sunday. It lends credence to the idea that the left is obsessed with the destruction of pleasure, or at least the promotion of a list of types of pleasure that can be judged ideologically sound, the premises that may be frequented, and the denigration of the rest.



What a load of sub-_Telegraph_ "political correctness gone mad" bollocks. You should be ashamed of yourself.


----------



## ViolentPanda (May 24, 2016)

Rushy said:


> Superbly put.



How unsurprising that *you* would think so.


----------



## Pickman's model (May 24, 2016)

Rushy said:


> Superbly put.


A splendid example of arslikhan


----------



## ViolentPanda (May 24, 2016)

TruXta said:


> Drivel, actually. Then again all sides in this discussion couldn't give a fuck about arguments, it's all about the big fat beef.



I give a VERY BIG fuck about the arguments, whereas I don't care at all about the beef.
I *do* care about seeing the same old clichés trotted out by the same group of posters time and again while having a pop at the ed. Apart from anything else, it's boringly unoriginal.


----------



## leanderman (May 24, 2016)

editor said:


> So your position is now: "I am pointing out that Brixton is probably no more heavily 'promoted' than many other areas. Except Stockwell."



It's exactly the same position.

Stockwell is too small to compare with Brixton, East Dulwich, Dalston, Peckham, Camberwell, Balham, Clapham, Shoreditch, Chiswick etc.


----------



## ViolentPanda (May 24, 2016)

leanderman said:


> The mistake here of course is to assume, once again, that Brixton is somehow being singled out for 'promotion'.
> 
> It's one article in one issue of one airline magazine.



It's not about the dissemination, or about the specific target of a specific article, it's about the impact of such promotion.
For some people that's a positive - the price of the property they own rises along with the fortunes of some in the promoted area. For others it's a negative. The price of the property they rent rises along with the fortunes of some in the promoted area.


----------



## ViolentPanda (May 24, 2016)

hendo said:


> Could you see your way to giving up again?



Could you see yours to growing up?


----------



## ViolentPanda (May 24, 2016)

Manter said:


> London’s Streatham loses ‘ugly sister’ image as new buyers move in - FT.com



TBF, Streatham has always been more of a church-going maiden aunt, than an ugly sister.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (May 24, 2016)

ViolentPanda said:


> How about quantifying exactly how bad people are making the article out to be?


It's 23.6% bad.


----------



## ViolentPanda (May 24, 2016)

Dan U said:


> Milton Keynes is fine tbh. Lots of right angles



Very acutely observed, that man!


----------



## SpamMisery (May 24, 2016)

ViolentPanda said:


> I do care about seeing the same old clichés trotted out by the same group of posters time and again while having a pop at *Pop*. Apart from anything else, it's boringly unoriginal.



Fixed the spelling mistake for you


----------



## leanderman (May 24, 2016)

ViolentPanda said:


> It's not about the dissemination, or about the specific target of a specific article, it's about the impact of such promotion.
> For some people that's a positive - the price of the property they own rises along with the fortunes of some in the promoted area. For others it's a negative. The price of the property they rent rises along with the fortunes of some in the promoted area.



Though I doubt this alleged 'promotion' has much, if any, effect on house prices.


----------



## ViolentPanda (May 24, 2016)

Manter said:


> editor don't you get tired of being so bloody angry all the time?!



Perhaps, like me, he's got good reason to be "angry" when he lives in local authority social housing that his local authority has already shown has very little security any more - a local authority some of whose Labour councillors have praised the demographic change gentrification is causing, and who support "regeneration" of council estates on the most flimsy of excuses.
Let me be blunt. If you live in local authority social housing in any area where the authority has pretensions toward "raising" the demographic bottom line, there's plenty to be angry about.


----------



## ViolentPanda (May 24, 2016)

SpamMisery said:


> Fixed the spelling mistake for you



Go fuck some livestock.


----------



## ViolentPanda (May 24, 2016)

Gramsci said:


> But she doesn’t just talk about foodie places she starts her article with an analysis of Brixton. She is making political points in her article. See the start of the article where she sets the scene.
> 
> If your point is that a "lifestyle" magazine is not political she certainly hasn’t followed that in her article.



It's a pretty poor analysis - bog-standard "cribbed from another shit article" poor.


----------



## editor (May 24, 2016)

leanderman said:


> Though I doubt this alleged 'promotion' has much, if any, effect on house prices.


Wait. So you're saying that when an area becomes fashionable and gets featured in trendy mags, in-flight publications and the international media as a must-see destination, it has no impact on house prices?


----------



## SpamMisery (May 24, 2016)

And were at the "name calling" stage


----------



## leanderman (May 24, 2016)

editor said:


> Wait. So you're saying that when an area becomes fashionable and gets featured in trendy mags, in-flight publications and the international media as a must-see destination, it has no impact on house prices?



I said that I doubt alleged 'promotion' in a smattering of publications has much or any impact.


----------



## sealion (May 24, 2016)

ViolentPanda said:


> Go fuck some livestock.


Not another posh Burger bar.


----------



## ViolentPanda (May 24, 2016)

goldenecitrone said:


> Is Brixton the new Earl's Court?



Do you mean "is Brixton full of racist Aussies", or something more subtle?


----------



## SpamMisery (May 24, 2016)

Actually, if you think about it, advertising Pop Brixton and the Village is genius for flights from Australia - we always need more bar staff


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## editor (May 24, 2016)

leanderman said:


> I said that I doubt alleged 'promotion' in a smattering of publications has much or any impact.


That's nice. But seeing as Brixton has been widely featured in London, national and international media, what is your point?


----------



## ViolentPanda (May 24, 2016)

T & P said:


> Not sure that is the case at all, as far as people coming to Brixton is concerned anyway. Up until 6-8 years ago, a very wide swathe of people wouldn't come to Brixton at all, due to the reputation the place had among those who didn't know it first-hand and the depiction it got in the media. So if anything, a far more varied range of social groups visit Brixton now than they did 10 years ago, IMO at least.



In my experience over the last 30+ years, the only people who ever really stayed away from Brixton were provincials and suburbans who believed what the newspapers told them.
I'd actually contend that what we see now *visiting* Brixton is a far more homogeneous social group than ever before - the monied middle-class.


----------



## Treacle Toes (May 24, 2016)

leanderman said:


> I said that I doubt alleged 'promotion' in a smattering of publications has much or any impact.



I once saw London Fields and Hackney feature in the inflight magazine for Easyjet...it didn't help us locals at all...it encouraged the gentrification.


----------



## leanderman (May 24, 2016)

editor said:


> That's nice. But seeing as Brixton has been widely featured in London, national and international media, what is your point?



I am afraid you've lost me there


----------



## editor (May 25, 2016)

leanderman said:


> Stockwell is too small to compare with Brixton, East Dulwich, Dalston, Peckham, Camberwell, Balham, Clapham, Shoreditch, Chiswick etc.


Stockwell has a bigger population (14,777) than East Dulwich (12,321),  Dalston (10,722) and Balham (14,751). Camberwell is only marginally bigger (15,032). Is there a point to your increasingly unfocussed ramblings?

Your original claim was very clear ("I am pointing out that Brixton is probably no more heavily 'promoted' than many other areas"), but now you seem to be backtracking all over the place.


----------



## Rushy (May 25, 2016)

Perfect entertainment for my uber home. Thanks all. Goodnight.


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## BigMoaner (May 25, 2016)

i thoght of Brixton fondly this week after a visit to a small town up north, where if you order anything but chicken tikka massalla from the menu they look at you as if you are mad, where one bloke i met called indian food "paki food", and the local fake American dinner is seen as the height of experiencing world cuisine.


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## stethoscope (May 25, 2016)

BigMoaner said:


> i thoght of Brixton fondly this week after a visit to a small town up north, where if you order anything but chicken tikka massalla from the menu they look at you as if you are mad, where one bloke i met called indian food "paki food", and the local fake American dinner is seen as the height of experiencing world cuisine.



Where? Not wanting to call bullshit but I live these days in a small northern town and we have Italian, Spanish, Thai, Chinese, Indian, and more recently a Caribbean place opened up. I don't know any northern town that doesn't have at least an Indian and Chinese which is established. As well as plenty of more trad British takeaways and pubs.

Sounds more like anti working class sneery shit (despite your protestations that you are working class and hate gentrification) which puts you right at home here on the Brixton forum tbh.


----------



## stethoscope (May 25, 2016)

This thread is a fucking disgrace btw - a new low for the privileged mob piling into Ed. So, Brixton forum finally goes on ignore.


----------



## isvicthere? (May 25, 2016)

skyscraper101 said:


> I do so hate the word 'foodie'



^^^^this times a trillion.


----------



## isvicthere? (May 25, 2016)

hendo said:


> It's kneejerk to describe the tourists who'll read this piece as 'Champagne quaffing foodie globe trotting travellers' - anyone who's been say, to New York for a few days to sample the nightlife could be described as that. Frankly if they've hacked economy for 23 hours to come to Brixton I'll give them a bloody medal.



Whatever you call them (I quite like "cunts") Brixton was more interesting when they were scared to come down here.


----------



## isvicthere? (May 25, 2016)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> So who is the extensive guide to NYC on this site aimed at?
> ...



Seriously cheap shot, with a side order (gastronomic term for all you "foodie" twats) of disingenuousness.


----------



## isvicthere? (May 25, 2016)

A lot of the posts on here are redolent of "I'm not racist, but..." 

"Whilst may be gentrification an issue..."

"Although local businesses being driven out by rapacious landlords with the connivance of the council has its downsides..."

&c. &c. &c.


----------



## mauvais (May 25, 2016)

This whole thing - it's primarily tourism. Are tourists gentrifiers, or the product of gentrification? There's a feedback loop of course, but I think at best it's an enabler of something that's already happening.

Meanwhile this is a site that arguably promotes Brixton in a similar way, with just a little bit of class & economic distance between its focus and the article's. Plus a site that I think loses some of those 'affordable' credentials when evangelising £600 mobile phones on rotation, and whatever else, but has a problem with, what, cocktails and popular boho eateries because they're symbols of a pattern that may play out negatively in your own lives. It's not quite traditional NIMBY is it, but there's a whiff of it. There's a legit complaint in there somewhere but it doesn't seem to have materialised properly.

All this whilst London as a whole rots, is a pulsing beacon for _national_ inequity, and is barely accessible to a lot of people anyway - including M/C tourists - not already engaged somehow in its satirical pyramid scheme.

Why not compile a list of what it is and isn't acceptable to do with a given amount of disposable income?


----------



## isvicthere? (May 25, 2016)

snowy_again said:


> I don't know, I don't do it as much anymore. I think the 37 bus there and back might set you back some £$ though.



A regular little Jonathan Swift, aren't we?


----------



## mauvais (May 25, 2016)

I'm not even clear where Urban draws its own line.

Like this, from the thread on popup restaurants: In photos: Barrio Brixton, a Latin-themed restaurant/bar opens in Acre Lane, Brixton

So it's what, fine to give that and its £9 cocktails publicity as long as it's local publicity for local people? I guess Australian IPs are blocked. Or is it just because they're down-to-earth £9 cocktails and not the excesses of a champagne bar - is that where the bar is set?


----------



## Manter (May 25, 2016)

ViolentPanda said:


> TBF, Streatham has always been more of a church-going maiden aunt, than an ugly sister.


Great description!


----------



## Manter (May 25, 2016)

ViolentPanda said:


> Perhaps, like me, he's got good reason to be "angry" when he lives in local authority social housing that his local authority has already shown has very little security any more - a local authority some of whose Labour councillors have praised the demographic change gentrification is causing, and who support "regeneration" of council estates on the most flimsy of excuses.
> Let me be blunt. If you live in local authority social housing in any area where the authority has pretensions toward "raising" the demographic bottom line, there's plenty to be angry about.


I kind of see your point, but (and I know you and I have had this conversation before) I really struggle with the vitriol. Apart from the fact you don't persuade anyone of anything by shouting at them, I think a good/interesting conversation often gets lost in here because everyone retreats to entrenched positions and abuse. There has to be a way where mixed communities can thrive alongside one another? I don't know what that is (I'm no specialist in urban development) but I'd love to have a conversation about it. Never seems possible here- disappointingly as there are real experts on here, and people with interesting perspectives- because it instantly dissolves into sneering and a slanging match.


----------



## T & P (May 25, 2016)

isvicthere? said:


> Whatever you call them (I quite like "cunts") Brixton was more interesting when they were scared to come down here.


Let me get this straight. Anyone who has ever travelled abroad by air to visit another country is a cunt in your book?

Wow


----------



## editor (May 25, 2016)

mauvais said:


> Meanwhile this is a site that arguably promotes Brixton in a similar way, with just a little bit of class & economic distance between its focus and the article's. Plus a site that I think loses some of those 'affordable' credentials when evangelising £600 mobile phones on rotation, and whatever else, but has a problem with, what, cocktails and popular boho eateries because they're symbols of a pattern that may play out negatively in your own lives.


Just listen to yourself. What _the fuck_ does people talking about phones got to do with this debate? Explain yourself please. 

My phone costs £260, by the way. Is that OK with you? What does that entitle me to talk about?


----------



## editor (May 25, 2016)

mauvais said:


> I'm not even clear where Urban draws its own line.
> 
> Like this, from the thread on popup restaurants: In photos: Barrio Brixton, a Latin-themed restaurant/bar opens in Acre Lane, Brixton
> 
> So it's what, fine to give that and its £9 cocktails publicity as long as it's local publicity for local people? I guess Australian IPs are blocked. Or is it just because they're down-to-earth £9 cocktails and not the excesses of a champagne bar - is that where the bar is set?


So, you've brought up expensive mobile phones but drew a bit of a blank there, so now you're bringing up an article I wrote on another site in another cheap attempt to have a pop at me. If you bothered to read the article, I pointed out that the cocktails are "priced very much at nu-Brixton market rates (£8.50/£9 a go)." That's not a compliment, you know, not that it's got anything to do with what 'urban' supposedly thinks, or the topic under discussion. 

Oh, and this notion of 'urban' drawing 'it's own line' - like it's some sort of single entity with a party line - is beyond embarrassing.

OK, so that's £600 phones and Buzz covered. What are you going to dredge up next?


----------



## mauvais (May 25, 2016)

editor said:


> Just listen to yourself. What _the fuck_ does people talking about phones got to do with this debate? Explain yourself please.
> 
> My phone costs £260, by the way. Is that OK with you? What does that entitle me to talk about?


A big chunk of this place is, or certainly historically has been, an uncritical celebration of technology and technology consumerism. That's so self-evident that it doesn't really need demonstrating, but I can if you like?

So it's bleakly amusing to me that kind of consumerism is fine, and indeed when I've criticised those aspects of this place in the past it's not been well received. But if you take that cash over to wherever you live and want to fritter it away on a different flavour of consumerism - cocktails or craft beer or aspirational cheese, even outright hipster bollocks if you like - then for the same outlay you're suddenly the enemy.

Now they are different things. Gentrification is not simple consumerism, and I'm sure you have a valid complaint about that. But this expression of it seems to be inconsistent and contradictory. If you're having a go at anyone it's apparently people in much the same boat that spend their money slightly differently. That's basically barking at your own tail.



editor said:


> So, you've brought up expensive mobile phones but drew a bit of a blank there, so now you're bringing up an article I wrote on another site in another cheap attempt to have a pop at me. If you bothered to read it the article, I pointed out that the cocktails are "priced very much at nu-Brixton market rates (£8.50/£9 a go)." That's not a compliment.


Drawn a blank in the six minutes between your posts? What is this, internet High Noon?

Not that it matters, but you posted it on here actually. Brixton food news: new restaurants, pop ups, cafes and more

And I did read it all. It's a pretty positive review that would encourage most people to go there, me included, in contrast to your more negative comment about the chain/price nature of it on these boards.


----------



## editor (May 25, 2016)

mauvais said:


> A big chunk of this place is, or certainly historically has been, an uncritical celebration of technology and technology consumerism.


An 'uncritical celebration'? Nope, that's a big fat lie right there.

Has there been robust debate on technological developments - yes. Has urban's tech forums helped a lot of people sort out tech problems - yes. Is an expensive mobile phone the exclusive preserve of the wealthy - no. Are the tech forums solely concerned with expensive gear - no. For many, mobile phones  - whatever their price - are an essential work/life tool.

So what's the fuck has any of this got to do with tourism, gentrification and Brixton? Why are you even bringing it up?


mauvais said:


> Now they are different things. Gentrification is not simple consumerism, and I'm sure you have a valid complaint about that. But this expression of it seems to be inconsistent and contradictory. If you're having a go at anyone it's apparently people in much the same boat that spend their money slightly differently. That's basically barking at your own tail.


Ah, the ad hominem approach, again, all delivered from that comfort blanket of anonymity.

It seems this kind of disruptive, personalised sniping is just about all your capable of these days. Sad, really.


----------



## mauvais (May 25, 2016)

editor said:


> Is an expensive mobile phone the exclusive preserve of the wealthy - no.


Is it not? Who else can afford a £629 phone?



editor said:


> So what's the fuck has any of this got to do with tourism, gentrification and Brixton? Why are you even bringing it up?


What are you complaining about in the OP? Tourism? Expensive things? People with money? The increasingly middle class, consumerist nature of Brixton? _All _of that has to do with wealth and consumerism, but it comes in many flavours.



editor said:


> Ah, the ad hominem approach, again, all delivered from that comfort blanket of anonymity.


What does this even mean?



editor said:


> It seems this kind of disruptive, personalised sniping is just about all your capable of these days. Sad, really.


That's a _beautifully _self-contained bit of hypocrisy. Perhaps you can evidence it?


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## editor (May 25, 2016)

mauvais said:


> Is it not? Who else can afford a £629 phone?


I've really no idea what you're on about, who has bought this £629 phone or what any of it has to do with this Brixton or this discussion.


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## mauvais (May 25, 2016)

Wrong link, my apologies. Now updated.


----------



## Gramsci (May 25, 2016)

stethoscope said:


> This thread is a fucking disgrace btw - a new low for the privileged mob piling into Ed. So, Brixton forum finally goes on ignore.



I do hope you don't give up on this forum. Its good to have you posting on here.


----------



## editor (May 25, 2016)

mauvais said:


> Wrong link, my apologies. Now updated.


Now that you've linked to a discussion on a phone I don't own and are unlikely to ever own, perhaps you might reach your triumphant BIG POINT? 

PS You can pick up an s7 for £395 if you're that interested.


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## pengaleng (May 25, 2016)

just get advertising on here, then instead of retiring with that money you could just buy brixton.


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## mauvais (May 25, 2016)

The point couldn't be much clearer. One kind of consumerism = fine, another taking place on your doorstep = not.

It's not some newly invented opinion of mine for the purposes of argument either - we did this years ago: Dear! Tech! Forum!

If you can't see why one makes the other difficult for me to reconcile as coherent politics, then whatever, disagree away, it's just opinion. But it's hardly a complex critique, so don't pretend to be bewildered by it.


----------



## editor (May 25, 2016)

stethoscope said:


> This thread is a fucking disgrace btw - a new low for the privileged mob piling into Ed. So, Brixton forum finally goes on ignore.


That's two old school posters in two days, ffs. This forum is beginning to reflect real-life Brixton, with the rich, the privileged, the pushy and the landlords elbowing out locals and silencing dissent.

No doubt some posters will view this as a victory, but it's not. It's a fucking disgrace.


----------



## editor (May 25, 2016)

Oh, and stethoscope  and TruXta : I'd really, really like it if you stayed and kept on contributing here.


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## SpamMisery (May 25, 2016)

Isn't a forum about Brixton supposed to reflect real-life Brixton?


----------



## pengaleng (May 25, 2016)

editor said:


> Oh, and stethoscope  and TruXta : I'd really, really like it if you stayed and kept on contributing here.




prob cus everyone keeps fucking off leaving the boards dead


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## pengaleng (May 25, 2016)

serious about the advertising money btw,you coulda got advertising years ago and bought properties in brixton that everyone loves and invested it in community projects, but everyone would rather moan about not selling out to the man. lost opportunities init.


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## editor (May 25, 2016)

pengaleng said:


> serious about the advertising money btw,you coulda got advertising years ago and bought properties in brixton that everyone loves and invested it in community projects, but everyone would rather moan about not selling out to the man. lost opportunities init.


I could have indeed retired off the income but that's not how I like to do things.


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## Magnus McGinty (May 25, 2016)

mauvais said:


> Is it not? Who else can afford a £629 phone?



The answer is you, isn't it?


----------



## mauvais (May 25, 2016)

Magnus McGinty said:


> The answer is you, isn't it?


Nope. I have a four year old S3 with a shattered screen, cos real Urban credentials Could be worth as much as £12! 

And a (shit) Nexus 5X that work paid for


----------



## Magnus McGinty (May 25, 2016)

mauvais said:


> Nope. I have a four year old S3 with a shattered screen, cos real Urban credentials Could be worth as much as £12!
> 
> And a (shit) Nexus 5X that work paid for



I have an iPhone 6 AND an iPad Air 2. I wouldn't waste money on artisan horse piss bread though.

Anyway, I said you could AFFORD it. Not that you had one.


----------



## mauvais (May 25, 2016)

Magnus McGinty said:


> I have an iPhone 6 AND an iPad Air 2. I wouldn't waste money on artisan horse piss bread though.
> 
> Anyway, I said you could AFFORD it. Not that you had one.


I probably love a bit of artisan horse piss bread, whatever that is. And I probably can afford the latest phone iteration. But I'm the target audience of Qantas in-flight mags: middle class, cocktail drinker, 'foodie' (ick), frequenter of all this shit, would-be gentrifier. In fact I probably am already gentrifying somewhere, it's just not Brixton. That I can't afford, AFAIK.

There's no doubt about any of that, and you should probably hang me from a lamp post for my sins, but there aren't any contradictions in it either.


----------



## Magnus McGinty (May 25, 2016)

Glad to see you've backed down.


----------



## mauvais (May 25, 2016)

Magnus McGinty said:


> Glad to see you've backed down.


From what to where?


----------



## ViolentPanda (May 25, 2016)

Manter said:


> I kind of see your point, but (and I know you and I have had this conversation before) I really struggle with the vitriol. Apart from the fact you don't persuade anyone of anything by shouting at them, I think a good/interesting conversation often gets lost in here because everyone retreats to entrenched positions and abuse.



So we need to ask why that happens.
I'd contend that at least part of the cause is people not declaring their interests in an argument of this nature. I try to always do so, by making clear my position on the loss of social housing and affordable housing, and the ongoing loss of retail and other outlets that service the occupants' needs.
Similarly, most people know the position of Gramsci and editor on what's happening to Brixton. They're both long-term residents who are community activists, if you will.




> There has to be a way where mixed communities can thrive alongside one another? I don't know what that is (I'm no specialist in urban development) but I'd love to have a conversation about it. Never seems possible here- disappointingly as there are real experts on here, and people with interesting perspectives- because it instantly dissolves into sneering and a slanging match.



There are also, unfortunately, people whose *only* interest is to sneer and slang. Until such posters resist the urge, and engage in actually debating and rebutting each others' positions, we'll just get more twattery.


----------



## Mr Retro (May 25, 2016)

I've just sat down on a Norwegian Flight. On the front page is "poo-smoked meat. The unusual flavours in Icelands latest food boom". That's house prices fucked in Iceland then 

(Posted on an iPhone 6)


----------



## ViolentPanda (May 25, 2016)

stethoscope said:


> This thread is a fucking disgrace btw - a new low for the privileged mob piling into Ed. So, Brixton forum finally goes on ignore.



Sad to see you go.


----------



## Nanker Phelge (May 25, 2016)

This thread might be the saddest descent into a point scoring derail that I've seen in a long while.


----------



## ViolentPanda (May 25, 2016)

mauvais said:


> This whole thing - it's primarily tourism. Are tourists gentrifiers, or the product of gentrification? There's a feedback loop of course, but I think at best it's an enabler of something that's already happening.



What do *you* mean by "tourism"?
The way you identify what the word means, matters for whether "tourists" can be seen as drivers of gentrification or not.



> Meanwhile this is a site that arguably promotes Brixton in a similar way, with just a little bit of class & economic distance between its focus and the article's.



More than a "little bit". This site and its' sister "Brixton Buzz", are seen as *too* "red" for the borough's political and civic elite.



> Plus a site that I think loses some of those 'affordable' credentials when evangelising £600 mobile phones on rotation, and whatever else...



I think you need to meditate on the difference between analytic journalism, and evangelisation.



> but has a problem with, what, cocktails and popular boho eateries because they're symbols of a pattern that may play out negatively in your own lives.



It's little to do with the semiotics of negative experience, and a lot to do with the *impact* of the proliferation of such "boho eateries" on the local populace. 



> It's not quite traditional NIMBY is it, but there's a whiff of it. There's a legit complaint in there somewhere but it doesn't seem to have materialised properly.



It's not at all NIMBY. No-one is saying "no restaurants, only Peoples' Canteens!", or "no cocktail bars, only pubs". 
What we *are*saying - as evidenced time and again on this and similar threads - is "there's too many, and catering to a minority is affecting the social and economic environment of the majority". 



> All this whilst London as a whole rots, is a pulsing beacon for _national_ inequity, and is barely accessible to a lot of people anyway - including M/C tourists - not already engaged somehow in its satirical pyramid scheme.



So we shouldn't worry about the hometown, because the mother-country is going to shit?



> Why not compile a list of what it is and isn't acceptable to do with a given amount of disposable income?



Way to massively miss the point.


----------



## ViolentPanda (May 25, 2016)

Mr Retro said:


> I've just sat down on a Norwegian Flight. On the front page is "poo-smoked meat. The unusual flavours in Icelands latest food boom". That's house prices fucked in Iceland then
> 
> (Posted on an iPhone 6)



Not exactly new, smoking meat over burning dried dung. The Saxons did it 1500 years ago, the Greeks 2500 years ago. Who doesn't love mildly sulphurous smoked meat?


----------



## pengaleng (May 25, 2016)

editor said:


> I could have indeed retired off the income but that's not how I like to do things.



rather moan about everything instead, yeah? morals are so cool. 

will lend you a fiver when my financial sector shares float because I'm nice.


----------



## mauvais (May 25, 2016)

ViolentPanda said:


> What do *you* mean by "tourism"?
> The way you identify what the word means, matters for whether "tourists" can be seen as drivers of gentrification or not.


In this case, it's pretty clear, the target of an in-flight mag. Someone who sees a destination in a magazine and thinks, I'd like to visit there, probably for days or a week on a one-off holiday.



ViolentPanda said:


> This site and its' sister "Brixton Buzz", are seen as *too* "red" for the borough's political and civic elite.


Based on your other comments, which I certainly don't dispute, that doesn't surprise me, but it's not mutually exclusive from the opinion I expressed. It merely depends where these points are on the spectrum.



ViolentPanda said:


> I think you need to meditate on the difference between analytic journalism, and evangelisation.


I simply don't agree that it's more the former than the latter.



ViolentPanda said:


> It's not at all NIMBY. No-one is saying "no restaurants, only Peoples' Canteens!", or "no cocktail bars, only pubs".
> What we *are*saying - as evidenced time and again on this and similar threads - is "there's too many, and catering to a minority is affecting the social and economic environment of the majority".


The reason I posted on this thread to begin with (since I have nothing to do with Brixton) is in part because I feel the former _is _a theme of late, an attitude on here against a certain lifestyle and tastes that often is actually coming from people who live a closely parallel existence with a bunch of only superficially different proclivities. I read posts here most days and I don't feel like some sort of socio-economic outlier, after all. It's mostly similar people doing similar things.



ViolentPanda said:


> So we shouldn't worry about the hometown, because the mother-country is going to shit?


Not at all. But barking at passing tourists, restaurant businesses and even passive gentrifiers with no infernal agenda is barking at the outcome, not the input or machinery, and my point was to boot, people not actually that dissimilar to some of the complainants. The mechanism is things like the massive national flow of everything towards London, the ridiculous globalisation and commoditisation of property, the private ownership of everything and the corruption of numerous nationally-held values like community. You stop any of those things and you stem the flow of these outcomes.

Now there's a few things to be said about that: I'm well aware that that _is _happening, on here, and indeed there's various threads on here that clearly evidence that. I'm also not oblivious to the fact that there's very little that _can _be effectively done in the face of the above and the forces that direct it. And if you were to say that in your battles with Lambeth etc, people like me might generally be a closer match to Lambeth's objectives than yours, then that might be a workable line, if not necessarily true.

However I do think this whole thing would only be a compelling argument if:

(a) the battle lines could be drawn more coherently such that people don't waste their credit directing vitriol at their neighbours and in particular people who are ultimately going about much the same lives a percentile or two away and face much the same problems

and to a slightly lesser extent

(b) it didn't jar with some of the other implicit and explicit narratives on here - not least, if you find yourself (not literally you) using ever more convoluted filters to distinguish your support for & patronage of enjoyable local facilities from your hatred for expensive gentrifiers, then it's already a crumbling rhetoric

As you can hopefully gauge, I consider myself reasonably well aligned to what you're pursuing in the longer term, even if not perfectly so. I just don't think the argument this thread - and many gentrification arguments in general, tbf - is based around is productive, not least because it folds in on itself and ends up directed at what would be its proponents, were it better structured.


----------



## isvicthere? (May 25, 2016)

SpamMisery said:


> Isn't a forum about Brixton supposed to reflect real-life Brixton?



Fast forward to point please.


----------



## 3Zeros (May 25, 2016)

The influx of the "foodie" businesses, the promotion of them on a national and international level, the arrival of the monied middle classes, and the process of gentrification are all inextricably linked. To deny that is wilfully ignorant, or worse: it shows you don't give a fuck.

Claims that it all benefits the local economy ignore the fact that a "local economy" doesn't exist in any real sense. Most of the revenues are funnelled straight out of the area. Even if every business in the area was owned by a local (which they certainly aren't), it would still only be benefitting a minority, while the negative effects of gentrification would continue to impact those who can least afford it.

And for posters to repeatedly suggest that if you have ever been a "consumer", or have had a drink in one of these bars, or once produced a travel-blog, then your criticisms are null and void is, quite frankly, bollocks. We are all participants in this economy and it is how behave within it, and what we demand of it, that makes the difference.


----------



## mauvais (May 25, 2016)

3Zeros said:


> And for posters to repeatedly suggest that if you have ever been a "consumer", or have had a drink in one of these bars, or once produced a travel-blog, then your criticisms are null and void is, quite frankly, bollocks. We are all participants in this economy and it is how behave within it, and what we demand of it, that makes the difference.


You mischaracterise this, as I'm sure you know. _Everyone _is inconsistent and hypocritical; everyone who expresses some value has almost certainly contradicted it at some point. The snapshots of that are irrelevant, as you describe.

Whether you're consistently inconsistent is more pertinent.

If (purely hypothetical), over time, you frequently engage in or even evangelise one thing, unapologetically so, whilst taking issue with someone else's differently flavoured version of the same, then it's probably not an immediately credible position. And so it is when it comes to challenging other people's arrival - be they new locals or tourists - when the fundamentals of it aren't far removed from your own behaviour.

And AFAICS, noone is denying that gentrification exists, nor what its effects entail, nor failing to give their quota of fucks. As before, I simply think it's futile to blame the outcome and people at the tail end who are basically just going about their lives as shaped by the rest of the system. How are you going to stop them anyway? Class War et al probably feel differently about that, and you can judge whether that's productive.

And this isn't really an individual thing, or about Qantas, or about Urban outside of the inconsistencies I described to VP - it's the whole gentrification argument when and wherever it happens, and the question of whether you should fight the symptoms or the illness.


----------



## 3Zeros (May 25, 2016)

Your post suggests that those "at the tail end" are just "passive gentrifiers", which I don't agree with at all. The businesses at what I would call the "front end" are active participants in the process and a large percentage of the customers will be too.

You identified in your post to Violent Panda some of the higher level mechanisms at play (_national flow of everything towards London, the ridiculous globalisation and commoditisation of property, the private ownership of everything_) and we can be, and are, critical of those things. But I don't agree that we shouldn't be criticising the lower level mechanisms too.


----------



## ViolentPanda (May 25, 2016)

mauvais said:


> In this case, it's pretty clear, the target of an in-flight mag. Someone who sees a destination in a magazine and thinks, I'd like to visit there, probably for days or a week on a one-off holiday.



Interesting, given that the main "tourism" affecting Brixton at the moment is an entirely different type - the same sort of "drinks and eats" tourism that affects Clapham and environs - to that which would see people staying in Brixton "for days or a week" (especially given the single medium-capacity hotel in the _locale_.



> Based on your other comments, which I certainly don't dispute, that doesn't surprise me, but it's not mutually exclusive from the opinion I expressed. It merely depends where these points are on the spectrum.



No-one has claimed that it's mutually-exclusive. My point was that you emphasised a particular quality - a point on your spectrum - that I rebutted.



> I simply don't agree that it's more the former than the latter.



Well, it'd hardly be in your interest to, would it? 



> The reason I posted on this thread to begin with (since I have nothing to do with Brixton) is in part because I feel the former _is _a theme of late, an attitude on here against a certain lifestyle and tastes that often is actually coming from people who live a closely parallel existence with a bunch of only superficially different proclivities. I read posts here most days and I don't feel like some sort of socio-economic outlier, after all. It's mostly similar people doing similar things.



I disagree. In my opinion, attending a pub that you've patronised for a decade or two, in your local area, or a cafe, is a vastly different thing to doing a Clapham at the new bars and eateries of Brixton. You may or may not have noticed the demography of the new custom over the old, but I have. It's different. I'd love to convince Lambeth Council to let me do a longitudinal - say 2 years - study on somewhere like Coldharbour Lane or Pop Brixton, recording the demographics of visitors, but I'm also fairly sure it'd produce results that the council would find embarrassing.



> Not at all. But barking at passing tourists, restaurant businesses and even passive gentrifiers with no infernal agenda is barking at the outcome, not the input or machinery, and my point was to boot, people not actually that dissimilar to some of the complainants.



Some of us "bark" at all elements of the issues, as a non-holistic approach is, as you recognise, futile.
And why piss off one narrow stream of people, when you can piss off lots?  



> The mechanism is things like the massive national flow of everything towards London, the ridiculous globalisation and commoditisation of property, the private ownership of everything and the corruption of numerous nationally-held values like community. You stop any of those things and you stem the flow of these outcomes.
> 
> Now there's a few things to be said about that: I'm well aware that that _is _happening, on here, and indeed there's various threads on here that clearly evidence that. I'm also not oblivious to the fact that there's very little that _can _be effectively done in the face of the above and the forces that direct it. And if you were to say that in your battles with Lambeth etc, people like me might generally be a closer match to Lambeth's objectives than yours, then that might be a workable line, if not necessarily true.



The problem there is that many of us are too busy keeping the roofs over our heads to be able to articulate and promote a message that might draw in support, except on a piecemeal basis. 



> However I do think this whole thing would only be a compelling argument if:
> 
> (a) the battle lines could be drawn more coherently such that people don't waste their credit directing vitriol at their neighbours and in particular people who are ultimately going about much the same lives a percentile or two away and face much the same problems
> 
> ...



So, it's a case of incorporate, incorporate, incorporate.
Politically, there's historically and currently one big problem with doing what you suggest - it makes the argument more "friendly", and therefore more amenable to being appropriated by the same forces that are causing the issues in the first place.


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## ViolentPanda (May 25, 2016)

3Zeros said:


> The influx of the "foodie" businesses, the promotion of them on a national and international level, the arrival of the monied middle classes, and the process of gentrification are all inextricably linked. To deny that is wilfully ignorant, or worse: it shows you don't give a fuck.



Or, worse still, that admitting to yourself that such a chain of links exists causes you enough cognitive dissonance, that you *can't* give a fuck without causing yourself psychological distress.



> Claims that it all benefits the local economy ignore the fact that a "local economy" doesn't exist in any real sense. Most of the revenues are funnelled straight out of the area. Even if every business in the area was owned by a local (which they certainly aren't), it would still only be benefitting a minority, while the negative effects of gentrification would continue to impact those who can least afford it.



I made the same points earlier in the thread. Some posters just aren't open to such ideas.  



> And for posters to repeatedly suggest that if you have ever been a "consumer", or have had a drink in one of these bars, or once produced a travel-blog, then your criticisms are null and void is, quite frankly, bollocks. We are all participants in this economy and it is how behave within it, and what we demand of it, that makes the difference.



Well said.


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## ViolentPanda (May 25, 2016)

3Zeros said:


> Your post suggests that those "at the tail end" are just "passive gentrifiers", which I don't agree with at all. The businesses at what I would call the "front end" are active participants in the process and a large percentage of the customers will be too.



Indeed. What drives those businesses is an already-established (elsewhere) template that shows that appropriation of elements of local culture, along with an environment that can be presented as having an element of "danger" (the legacy of many since-"gentrified" spaces), is a near-perfect selling-ground for the "drinks and eats" market. Outsider businesses attracting outsiders by selling a blandified version of local culture along with their gourmet trinkets.



> You identified in your post to Violent Panda some of the higher level mechanisms at play (_national flow of everything towards London, the ridiculous globalisation and commoditisation of property, the private ownership of everything_) and we can be, and are, critical of those things. But I don't agree that we shouldn't be criticising the lower level mechanisms too.



Quite. The approach needs to be holistic - interrogate the whole issue, not just specific symptoms.


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## hendo (May 25, 2016)

"There are also, unfortunately, people whose *only* interest is to sneer and slang. Until such posters resist the urge, and engage in actually debating and rebutting each others' positions, we'll just get more twattery."

You're one of the most thuggish posters on here, "Violentpanda". The only one of your crew who elevates beyond sarcasm and vitriol is Gramsci who actually makes skilful argument.


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## hendo (May 25, 2016)

"Claims that it all benefits the local economy ignore the fact that a "local economy" doesn't exist in any real sense. Most of the revenues are funnelled straight out of the area. Even if every business in the area was owned by a local (which they certainly aren't), it would still only be benefitting a minority, while the negative effects of gentrification would continue to impact those who can least afford it."

I can't see how this can easily be proved, since if you're not a chain you have to pay a range of rents and taxes, both local and national.


----------



## Treacle Toes (May 25, 2016)

_Has the Brixton Forum reached Peak Beef?_

If I start that thread it would be deemed a call out thread wouldn't it?


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## ViolentPanda (May 25, 2016)

hendo said:


> "There are also, unfortunately, people whose *only* interest is to sneer and slang. Until such posters resist the urge, and engage in actually debating and rebutting each others' positions, we'll just get more twattery."
> 
> You're one of the most thuggish posters on here, "Violentpanda". The only one of your crew who elevates beyond sarcasm and vitriol is Gramsci who actually makes skilful argument.



Your criticism would be valid if you weren't busily attempting to establish an equivalence between me mentioning posters who *only* sneer, and the fact that you find me a "thuggish poster", "hendo". The equivalence doesn't stand up, on the basis that my interest *isn't* only to "sneer and slang". I'm interested in making points on social issues too. 

E2A: I don't have a "crew", and that you seek to roll opinions contradicting your own into that of a crew, indicates childishness at best, and dishonesty at worst.


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## 3Zeros (May 25, 2016)

hendo said:


> "Claims that it all benefits the local economy ignore the fact that a "local economy" doesn't exist in any real sense. Most of the revenues are funnelled straight out of the area. Even if every business in the area was owned by a local (which they certainly aren't), it would still only be benefitting a minority, while the negative effects of gentrification would continue to impact those who can least afford it."
> 
> I can't see how this can easily be proved, since if you're not a chain you have to pay a range of rents and taxes, both local and national.



I don't think it needs to be "proved". A basic understanding of how the economy works will demonstrate that it is so.


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## mauvais (May 25, 2016)

3Zeros said:


> Your post suggests that those "at the tail end" are just "passive gentrifiers", which I don't agree with at all. The businesses at what I would call the "front end" are active participants in the process and a large percentage of the customers will be too.


I realise it's another symbiotic feedback loop, but business is risk averse and doesn't set up entirely predicated in the hope of attracting new people into an area. It might piggyback a trend, or amongst other developments even constitute one, but it's based off there being some existing market.

But you can't do much about that in advance unless you've got some kind of Minority Report-for-hipsters thing going on. And you can't do anything like boycott it after the fact because you're not the target market anyway, too late. So really it comes down to either some metropolitan version of burning down people's holiday homes or more likely chasing shadows and trying to convince random people not to live there - or not to live like *that*, or write about it, or try what some writer suggested - which is somewhere between unreasonable and a good way to get sectioned.

There is an answer, which is systemic protection. Like Berlin's rent controls and banning Airbnb, or more generally, protecting lower income tenants and long running small businesses. Basically maintaining a space in society such that you can't completely transform the makeup of an area from one thing to another by displacing people. Of course those in charge would have to not be in league with the devil in the first place.

But still a better option than going after your own neighbours because you've decided they embody something bigger. And I stick to 'passive'; big difference between an apolitical 'let's move to X as it's up-and-coming' and a strategy of 'let's conspire to radically overhaul the area on our terms'.


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## isvicthere? (May 25, 2016)

3Zeros said:


> And for posters to repeatedly suggest that if you have ever been a "consumer", or have had a drink in one of these bars, or once produced a travel-blog, then your criticisms are null and void is, quite frankly, bollocks. We are all participants in this economy and it is how behave within it, and what we demand of it, that makes the difference.



Nail. Meet. Head.

Welcome to urban, 3Zeros!


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## Winot (May 25, 2016)

3Zeros said:


> Your post suggests that those "at the tail end" are just "passive gentrifiers", which I don't agree with at all. The businesses at what I would call the "front end" are active participants in the process and a large percentage of the customers will be too.
> 
> You identified in your post to Violent Panda some of the higher level mechanisms at play (_national flow of everything towards London, the ridiculous globalisation and commoditisation of property, the private ownership of everything_) and we can be, and are, critical of those things. But I don't agree that we shouldn't be criticising the lower level mechanisms too.



So how do you think the criticism of the businesses should be exercised?


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## editor (May 25, 2016)

Two long term posters have effectively been bullied/co-coerced off these boards in the past two days. I'd like to think that those who played a part in it will now take a long hard look at their behaviour and amend it immediately.

I'm getting really, really tired of meeting people in the street/pub/cafe who say they'd love to get involved here and add their own new/opinions/insights, but they're put off by the toxic atmosphere created by a handful of dominant posters (quite often they'll consistently name the same culprits).

If posters actually want a forum that reflects the diversity of opinions heard in Brixton, then I'd suggest they stop all the personal attacks, cheap potshots and sneering and concentrate on the topics under discussion. That way we all end up with a better forum.


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## editor (May 25, 2016)

Winot said:


> So how do you think the criticism of the businesses should be exercised?


Prices, profits, wages and community engagement seem good starting points to me.


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## Rushy (May 25, 2016)

3Zeros said:


> I don't think it needs to be "proved". A basic understanding of how the economy works will demonstrate that it is so.



I'm going to hazard a guess that people have a few different understandings of how the economy works (or doesn't). Even at the most basic level.


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## leanderman (May 25, 2016)

editor said:


> Two long term posters have effectively been bullied/co-coerced off these boards in the past two days. I'd like to think that those who played a part in it will now take a long hard look at their behaviour and amend it immediately.
> 
> I'm getting really, really tired of meeting people in the street/pub/cafe who say they'd love to get involved here and add their own new/opinions/insights, but they're put off by the toxic atmosphere created by a handful of dominant posters (quite often they'll consistently name the same culprits).
> 
> If posters actually want a forum that reflects the diversity of opinions heard in Brixton, then I'd suggest they stop all the personal attacks, cheap potshots and sneering and concentrate on the topics under discussion. That way we all end up with a better forum.



You should name the alleged culprits.


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## editor (May 25, 2016)

leanderman said:


> You should name the alleged culprits.


I'm pretty sure they know who they are.


----------



## isvicthere? (May 25, 2016)

editor said:


> If posters actually want a forum that reflects the diversity of opinions heard in Brixton, then I'd suggest they stop all the personal attacks, cheap potshots and sneering and concentrate on the topics under discussion. That way we all end up with a better forum.



Sounds good, editor, but you haven't thought it through. How can the smug, pro-gentry lobby justify their position without impugning you for owning a mobile phone and having visited New York.


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## leanderman (May 25, 2016)

editor said:


> I'm pretty sure they know who they are.



Well I don't.


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## editor (May 25, 2016)

leanderman said:


> Well I don't.


Sure you don't.


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## T & P (May 25, 2016)

There is sniping, rude behaviour, personal attacks and general unpleasantness from all sides, not just one 'camp'. And plenty of posters who no longer want to visit/ feel they've been bullied out of this forum by the actions of a completely different set of posters, actually. Let's not pretend it's just one set of people to blame here.

Personally I wish there were no camps at all, just a collection of individuals exhanging their opinions. But unfortunately at present it seems anyone dipping their toes into any of the hot topics regularly debated here will soon be classed as part of one group or another, whether they agree with it or not.


----------



## Rushy (May 25, 2016)

To be fair, Truxta has made less than 20 posts in this forum over the past 12 months. And IIRC, last time he popped in out of no where to have an unsolicited and feisty pop at Teuchter. Then back tracked and apologised because, credit due, he accepted that he'd been entirely mistaken. 

This time, rather than get involved in the debate, he waded in out of nowhere again accusing everyone of beef. Bullying clearly means different things to different people. But he's a fighty fellow, there's little doubt.


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## Nanker Phelge (May 25, 2016)

There are camps and crews now? Blimey.

It's like Game of Thrones around here...


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## mauvais (May 25, 2016)

Well, if it's potshots and attacks we're interested in, I'm still bemused as to what this is about:





editor said:


> It seems this kind of disruptive, personalised sniping is just about all your capable of these days. Sad, really.


I mean, the first bit appears to be the board argument version of an out-of-office reply, which is fine, you've got to have days off, but the last bit is actually the more confusing, like I had some hotly anticipated second album but then tragically lost my way thanks to heroin/glue/artisan cheese tasting evenings. I don't think I even had a debut single tbh, but perhaps it was all perdu au fromage.

No matter


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## ViolentPanda (May 25, 2016)

Nanker Phelge said:


> There are camps and crews now? Blimey.
> 
> It's like Game of Thrones around here...



Camps, crews, factions and fractions, uncle Tom Cobbley and all.
And a  "thuggish poster" too.


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## Nanker Phelge (May 25, 2016)

mauvais said:


> Well, if it's potshots and attacks we're interested in, I'm still bemused as to what this is about:I mean, the first bit appears to be the board argument version of an out-of-office reply, which is fine, you've got to have days off, but the last bit is actually the more confusing, like I had some hotly anticipated second album but then tragically lost my way thanks to heroin/glue/artisan cheese tasting evenings. I don't think I even had a debut single tbh, but perhaps it was all perdu au fromage.
> 
> No matter



Blimey. Wtf are you babbling on about? Ffs...what nonsense!!!


----------



## T & P (May 25, 2016)

Nanker Phelge said:


> There are camps and crews now? Blimey.
> 
> It's like Game of Thrones around here...


There certainly are allegations of it. As a regular poster here, I doubt this will come as news to you. Why, look no further than this very thread.


----------



## goldenecitrone (May 25, 2016)

Nanker Phelge said:


> Blimey. Wtf are you babbling on about? Ffs...what nonsense!!!



He's clearly saying that Editor is a massive hypocrite, whining about personal attacks one minute, whilst quite happily indulging in them himself. Is that clear enough for you, dimwit?


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## Nanker Phelge (May 25, 2016)

This thread is a mess.


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## Nanker Phelge (May 25, 2016)

goldenecitrone said:


> dimwit?



Name calling. So sweet.


----------



## editor (May 25, 2016)

T & P said:


> There is sniping, rude behaviour, personal attacks and general unpleasantness from all sides, not just one 'camp'. And plenty of posters who no longer want to visit/ feel they've been bullied out of this forum by the actions of a completely different set of posters, actually. Let's not pretend it's just one set of people to blame here..


This one single thread has seen two long term posters leaving for good, and I fully understand why they've given up. And it's a fucking disgrace.


----------



## mauvais (May 25, 2016)

Nanker Phelge said:


> Blimey. Wtf are you babbling on about? Ffs...what nonsense!!!


Comprehension on this thread is strangely proportional to agreement, don't you think? You got a passive/aggressive 'like' out of it though so probably worth your effort.

TL;DR: more babbling, don't you worry about it


----------



## editor (May 25, 2016)

goldenecitrone said:


> He's clearly saying that Editor is a massive hypocrite, whining about personal attacks one minute, whilst quite happily indulging in them himself. Is that clear enough for you, dimwit?


Nicely spun. Now imagine if those personal attacks never took place in the first place. Then I'd have nothing to react to and thus I'd be spared the charge of "massive hypocrisy" and the topic could be discussed without disruption. 

Seems to me what needs sorting is the people doing the attacks in the first place, and then there'd be no need for any kind of "whining" response and the atmosphere would be better all round. Problem solved.


----------



## editor (May 25, 2016)

mauvais said:


> Comprehension on this thread is strangely proportional to agreement, don't you think? You got a passive/aggressive 'like' out of it though so probably worth your effort.
> 
> TL;DR: more babbling, don't you worry about it


Wow. A _passive/aggressive_ 'like', you say? Fascinating.


----------



## Nanker Phelge (May 25, 2016)

mauvais said:


> Comprehension on this thread is strangely proportional to agreement, don't you think? You got a passive/aggressive 'like' out of it though so probably worth your effort.
> 
> TL;DR: more babbling, don't you worry about it



Are you drunk?


----------



## mauvais (May 25, 2016)

editor said:


> Wow. A _passive/aggressive_ 'like', you say? Fascinating.


You give up on engaging with anything I add in pretty short order, but are still there to add likes to anyone's posts if _they_ persevere with it. So yes, that's pretty much what it is.


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## T & P (May 25, 2016)

editor said:


> This one single thread has seen two long term posters leaving for good, and I fully understand why they've given up. And it's a fucking disgrace.


Of course it is appalling that anyone might feel pushed away or so displeased by the atmosphere in the forum that they don't want to post anymore here. But the blame lies pretty much everywhere, not just at the door of a handful of posters. And there are others who have left and who lay the blame on completely different posters. It's nowhere near a black and white situation. That's all I'm saying.


----------



## editor (May 25, 2016)

mauvais said:


> You give up on engaging with anything I add in pretty short order, but are still there to add likes to anyone's posts if _they_ persevere with it. So yes, that's pretty much what it is.


I think your reading a _leeetle_ too much into things tonight. I can like things for all sorts of reasons, none of which are any of your business.


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## twistedAM (May 25, 2016)

leanderman said:


> I am pointing out that Brixton is probably no more heavily 'promoted' than many other areas.
> 
> We might think it more hyped because we notice Brixton articles, they are brought to our attention - often here.



Brixton probably does get more cultural/tourism features than the more far-flung places like Tooting and Palace - most of the many articles on those places are mainly about housing prices with some local points of interests tagged in e.g: buy a house in Crystal Palace and drink mediocre coffee or go to a park with loads of shit 60s buildings plonked right in the middle of it. That place is beige.


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## mauvais (May 25, 2016)

editor said:


> I think your reading a _leeetle_ too much into things tonight. I can like things for all sorts of reasons, none of which are any of your business.


Of course you can. All sorts of reasons.

In any case, you're the OP of this thread, it's your argument being put forward, and if you want anything other than uncritical agreement on the subject then perhaps you should say so from the outset, or publish it as a piece sans comments. It's hardly an ad hom personal attack to respond to said thread with an opinion, which is clearly all it is, even if you try to represent it as off-topic. Especially given that for much of it, it's in general terms, not about you. I admit - not entirely.

If we set that aside, it's also funny that I can debate much the same thing with VP & others all afternoon with neither of us apparently getting particularly aggrieved by one another or resorting to, well, what you've been doing. It makes no odds to me really, it's entirely forgettable - it's just unnecessary when you could have merely argued the toss possibly quite successfully without all this other stuff. I can think of all kinds of holes in my own argument, so it's hardly rocket science.

Eh, don't bother replying, it's bedtime.


----------



## editor (May 25, 2016)

T & P said:


> Of course it is appalling that anyone might feel pushed away or so displeased by the atmosphere in the forum that they don't want to post anymore here. But the blame lies pretty much everywhere, not just at the door of a handful of posters. And there are others who have left and who lay the blame on completely different posters. It's nowhere near a black and white situation. That's all I'm saying.


I'm often recognised around town as the person that's involved with these boards so a lot of people (shopkeepers, club owners, drinkers, community people, neighbours, activists etc ) do come up and talk to me - and I hear the same complaints about the same posters again and again.

I'm not saying that there aren't some people somewhere who may be put off by my posting style, but I really am fed up with talking to people who tell me they are choosing to stay away from this forum because of a handful of posters. 

I really believe that if I hadn't put some people on forced ignore these forums would be all but finished, and I think it's something that needs to be sorted out properly. And that should start with people leaving out the personal attacks.


----------



## editor (May 25, 2016)

mauvais said:


> In any case, you're the OP of this thread, it's your argument being put forward, and if you want anything other than uncritical agreement on the subject then perhaps you should say so from the outset, or publish it as a piece sans comments.


Because that would fix everything.


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## leanderman (May 25, 2016)

twistedAM said:


> Brixton probably does get more cultural/tourism features than the more far-flung places like Tooting and Palace - most of the many articles on those places are mainly about housing prices with some local points of interests tagged in e.g: buy a house in Crystal Palace and drink mediocre coffee or go to a park with loads of shit 60s buildings plonked right in the middle of it. That place is beige.



How rude! 

Dalston is the 'spotlighted' place in today's ES property section:


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## editor (May 25, 2016)

leanderman said:


> Dalston is the 'spotlighted' place in today's ES property section:


Yes. And...?


----------



## choochi (May 25, 2016)

editor said:


> I'm not even slightly angry but thanks for your concern. And thanks for jumping in with that point about Streatham too. Decisive, it was. Now where do I sign up for the Streatham foodie tour? I've got £70 burning a hole in my pocket here!



Since you asked... Streatham Food Tour - Streatham Food Festival

E2a I see I am a day late with that one. Oh well back to reading the rest of this riveting thread.


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## editor (May 25, 2016)

choochi said:


> Since you asked... Streatham Food Tour - Streatham Food Festival
> 
> E2a I see I am a day late with that one. Oh well back to reading the rest of this riveting thread.


You are indeed late. And it's already been pointed out that the two things aren't even remotely comparable. But thanks for your efforts, anyway.


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## twistedAM (May 25, 2016)

leanderman said:


> How rude!
> 
> Dalston is the 'spotlighted' place in today's ES property section:



Yeah Palace has been featured in that before. All the newcomers who recently bought property there get really excited by shit like this and another mediocre restaurant opening every month or so.


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## choochi (May 25, 2016)

editor said:


> You are indeed late. And it's already been pointed out that the two things aren't even remotely comparable. But thanks for your efforts, anyway.



You're welcome


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## editor (May 25, 2016)

Here's some fresh tourist-luring bullshit from a posh travel mag: 


> The neighbourhood of Brixton in South London gets a bad rap, or at least it did until the city’s young, creative community moved in a few years ago and jazzed it up. Now it’s known more for idiosyncratic pop-ups, tantalisingly tasty tuckers and a vivid music scene than its lurid past. Under the newly polished surface however, exists the raw energy and cultural nuances that gave it its spark in the first place and a combination of old and new prove to create a melting pot of all things creatively intriguing.
> About us | SUITCASE Magazine


Thank heavens for the 'city’s young, creative community' creating a 'vivid music scene.' Hurrah!


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## twistedAM (May 25, 2016)

editor said:


> Yes. And...?



I think leanderman was giving an example of how areas get hyped mainly though property prices. brixton went through that phase a couple of years ago when property was still affordable (by ES standards) compared to some other areas. Now a different breed of journos are focussing on things to do now that everyone knows Camden and Shoreditch are shit


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## BigMoaner (May 25, 2016)

if we tolerate this, thornton heath will be next.


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## editor (May 25, 2016)

twistedAM said:


> I think leanderman was giving an example of how areas get hyped mainly though property prices. brixton went through that phase a couple of years ago when property was still affordable (by ES standards) compared to some other areas. Now a different breed of journos are focussing on things to do now that everyone knows Camden and Shoreditch are shit


Dalston's been hyped to death for an eternity: "In 2009 _Vogue Italia_ declared Dalston the trendiest, coolest, most _caldissimo_ neighbourhood in London." 

Apparently it was all over three years ago: From boho to Bugaboo bland: is this the death of Dalston?


----------



## BigMoaner (May 25, 2016)

it's getting crazy to think where this will all end. Everyone is talking about housing, in London anyway. something's going to go pop, somehwere along line.


----------



## editor (May 25, 2016)

BigMoaner said:


> it's getting crazy to think where this will all end. Everyone is talking about housing, in London anyway. something's going to go pop, somehwere along line.


Please let the landlords and estate agents get it in the neck first.


----------



## editor (May 25, 2016)

A friend of mine works double, sometimes triple, shifts around Brixton for a minimum of five days a week, and pays over half of her income on rent. Many of my friends are in a similar position. Some have to squat just to make ends meet, or live in really shitty flatshares.  It's obscene.


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## BigMoaner (May 25, 2016)

it's a problem of housing, of a monopoly money like housing market, with people just using it as an invesment. even the banker twat with a 600k pad in brixton is really just a pawn, and he'll even be priced out eventually. what needs to be worked out is why prices are travelling upward so relentlessly, and so quickly all across london and try to change the mechanism that allows it. if you buy a place in london you should either rent it out or live in it yourself, would help for a start. if developers want to build flats, rules should be in place for a higher amount of social housing provided by said development, not a tiny percentage. protect rents. etc, etc. anything that is in place now CLEARLY is not working, so the structure of the beast needs further changing - all pretty obvious. hipster bars and wealthy creatives are just a symptom. it needs political change, not less beards.


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## BigMoaner (May 25, 2016)

i've blathered on about this before, but i always think the local schools are interesting when it comes to gentrification. there are always a good few exceptions, but the schools in these gentrified areas still are massively working class. it's that sort of "edgy when it suits us, but it's too edgy for my kids thank you very much" that gets on my tits, that division, that inequality, that using an area as a symbol of status and "coolness" but fleeing it just when you could really be part of the community by, ya know, raising a child in the local schools and the area. when schools are truly reflective of the communities they find themselves in, my respect for these wealthy incommers will double. i know people leave an area for a variety of reasons when they have kids, but, trust me, a great deal of these yuppies wouldn't send their dog to the local school, let alone entertain it for their darling off spring.


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## leanderman (May 26, 2016)

BigMoaner said:


> it's a problem of housing, of a monopoly money like housing market, with people just using it as an invesment. even the banker twat with a 600k pad in brixton is really just a pawn, and he'll even be priced out eventually. what needs to be worked out is why prices are travelling upward so relentlessly, and so quickly all across london and try to change the mechanism that allows it. if you buy a place in london you should either rent it out or live in it yourself, would help for a start. if developers want to build flats, rules should be in place for a higher amount of social housing provided by said development, not a tiny percentage. protect rents. etc, etc. anything that is in place now CLEARLY is not working, so the structure of the beast needs further changing - all pretty obvious. hipster bars and wealthy creatives are just a symptom. it needs political change, not less beards.



If you think the housing crisis is bad now, imagine what it will be like in 2024, when the population of London is set to be 13.7 per cent higher. Today's ES (again)


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## CH1 (May 26, 2016)

leanderman said:


> How rude!
> 
> Dalston is the 'spotlighted' place in today's ES property section:


Ashwin Street has perked up. I used to have to go to a dingy factory building there for meetings about voluntary sector training funding from the ESF (European Social Fund for Brexiteers). Back in the days when 336 Brixton Road offered training for disabled people.

I remember Ashwin Street as warehouse type business premises being recycled into a second life for voluntary sector and arts organisations - but by no means smart. The Evening Standard photo makes it look clean, green, airy and cafe oriented.


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## editor (May 26, 2016)

BigMoaner said:


> i've blathered on about this before, but i always think the local schools are interesting when it comes to gentrification. there are always a good few exceptions, but the schools in these gentrified areas still are massively working class. it's that sort of "edgy when it suits us, but it's too edgy for my kids thank you very much" that gets on my tits, that division, that inequality, that using an area as a symbol of status and "coolness" but fleeing it just when you could really be part of the community by, ya know, raising a child in the local schools and the area. when schools are truly reflective of the communities they find themselves in, my respect for these wealthy incommers will double. i know people leave an area for a variety of reasons when they have kids, but, trust me, a great deal of these yuppies wouldn't send their dog to the local school, let alone entertain it for their darling off spring.


The lack of integration and the creation of a two-tier Brixton, firmly divided along money lines, is what depresses me most about the recent changes.


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## CH1 (May 26, 2016)

I know this thread is about Quantas Inflight Magazine - but since we got onto the Standard property section I feel morally obliged to point out that the Standard has awarded their Best Regeneration Project award to Stockwell Park Walk (jointly with Portobello Square, Notting Hill)

The paper has a photo which I don't wholly recognise - with the legend "Stockwell Park Walk: left, Netweork Housing is behind a complete makeover for an unloved council estate in SW9. 

The text in the web edition (no photo) reads: 
Joint winner: Stockwell Park Walk, Stockwell SW9 by Network Housing
Post-war council estates are an endangered species, unloved by today’s politicians and town planners who can’t wait to bulldoze them in favour of shiny new neighbourhoods offering a mix of tenures. Stockwell Park council estate lies next to a coveted conservation area and is being given a complete makeover.

Greening-up work involves fresh landscaping, along with upgraded play areas and a “graffiti pen” for young residents, as well as new community spaces where disused garages once stood. 
A new 20-storey high-rise block with 75 private flats has a splendid communal roof garden.

London Evening Standard New Homes Awards special: the winning new-build homes you need to know about

Personally I feel more dubious about the Standard's musings than anythjing said in a Quantas Magazine. Aftrer all the Quantas reader is simply staving off the boredom of a 12 hour flight whereas the Standard Property section is perpetuating urban myths:

"unlovded council estate in SW9" - this needs a detailed meta-analysis. Gramsci?


----------



## isvicthere? (May 26, 2016)

editor said:


> Here's some fresh tourist-luring bullshit from a posh travel mag:
> Thank heavens for the 'city’s young, creative community' creating a 'vivid music scene.' Hurrah!



These articles always piss me off for many reasons, but mainly the way they casually dismiss the area before it came under their radar, when it _was_ creative and vivid (in the real, as opposed to estate agent, definition). But then, as I've said many times, that's when these "lifestyle" writers and their audience were too scared to come down here.


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## BigMoaner (May 26, 2016)

leanderman said:


> If you think the housing crisis is bad now, imagine what it will be like in 2024, when the population of London is set to be 13.7 per cent higher. Today's ES (again)


If brexit means 100s of k less people migrating to uk each year, I'm out. In the midst of a housing crisis, unsure of the logic of 100s of k each year tp add to the chase.


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## Rushy (May 26, 2016)

CH1 said:


> I know this thread is about Quantas Inflight Magazine - but since we got onto the Standard property section I feel morally obliged to point out that the Standard has awarded their Best Regeneration Project award to Stockwell Park Walk (jointly with Portobello Square, Notting Hill)
> 
> The paper has a photo which I don't wholly recognise - with the legend "Stockwell Park Walk: left, Netweork Housing is behind a complete makeover for an unloved council estate in SW9.
> 
> ...



Qantas.

(Queensland And Northern Territories Air Service, if it helps.)


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## CH1 (May 26, 2016)

Rushy said:


> Qantas.
> (Queensland And Northern Territories Air Service, if it helps.)


Very interesting. (The acronym that is).


----------



## Rushy (May 26, 2016)

BigMoaner said:


> i've blathered on about this before, but i always think the local schools are interesting when it comes to gentrification. there are always a good few exceptions, but the schools in these gentrified areas still are massively working class. it's that sort of "edgy when it suits us, but it's too edgy for my kids thank you very much" that gets on my tits, that division, that inequality, that using an area as a symbol of status and "coolness" but fleeing it just when you could really be part of the community by, ya know, raising a child in the local schools and the area. when schools are truly reflective of the communities they find themselves in, my respect for these wealthy incommers will double. i know people leave an area for a variety of reasons when they have kids, but, trust me, a great deal of these yuppies wouldn't send their dog to the local school, let alone entertain it for their darling off spring.


Not having kids I'm not all that up on schools. But there's not much choice in Brixton at secondary level, is there? Don't most of the kids have to travel out of Brixton? Camberwell, Streatham, Clapham.

I remember when the Evelyn Grace rebuild was complete and getting a lot of attention, (particularly due to Zaha Hadid) the head seemed to regularly remind reporters that Coldharbour ward was at that time the most violent district in Europe (no idea where that statistic came from). Not very helpful for for encouraging people on Brixton Hill to send their children down that way.


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## Winot (May 26, 2016)

Rushy said:


> Not having kids I'm not all that up on schools. But there's not much choice in Brixton at secondary level, is there? Don't most of the kids have to travel out of Brixton? Camberwell, Streatham, Clapham.



That's true if you mean Brixton itself, but none of those places are that far in terms of secondary school travel distances. We are in West Brixton and our eldest is going to Lambeth Academy in September - about a mile away. There were plenty of other schools about 2/3 miles away.


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## Winot (May 26, 2016)

Incidentally, the thing that put me off  Evelyn Grace school was not any perceived threat of violence, but the fact that the head teacher gave a rambling speech that went way over his timeslot, most of which was about the need for self discipline.


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## hendo (May 26, 2016)

editor said:


> Two long term posters have effectively been bullied/co-coerced off these boards in the past two days. I'd like to think that those who played a part in it will now take a long hard look at their behaviour and amend it immediately.
> 
> I'm getting really, really tired of meeting people in the street/pub/cafe who say they'd love to get involved here and add their own new/opinions/insights, but they're put off by the toxic atmosphere created by a handful of dominant posters (quite often they'll consistently name the same culprits).
> 
> If posters actually want a forum that reflects the diversity of opinions heard in Brixton, then I'd suggest they stop all the personal attacks, cheap potshots and sneering and concentrate on the topics under discussion. That way we all end up with a better forum.



While I wouldn't say I've been 'bullied off the boards' there's a couple of things that have put me off posting here for months; the first is the aggressive, rude and one-sided way people are dealt with if they dare to post a view that doesn't chime with yours, editor. The ad hominem attacks are used by both sides here, often by your squad first. If you doubt that look at the reaction to my posts on this thread. 

There's a kind of visceral fury (which I sympathise with) aimed at incomers, people who develop property in the district, people who 'own their own home' lifestyle writers about Brixton, and then it transfers smoothly into anyone who posts off the agreed line getting a kicking from Team Urban. I too have met people who've given up posting here. I was one of them. 

There's two sides to this, and people sometimes tell me the way this forum is moderated is at the root of the problem. We've been friends for years but the way you let posters get insulted on here really disappoints me. It's as if having been powerless to prevent the changes we both decry in our area your response is to run - and police -an anti gentrification zone on these boards. 

Well, you're free to do that, and Urban 75 is a big positive thing - I'll always believe that. It's saved lives, and enriched mine. But you should acknowledge that the bullying problem is experienced both ways on this forum. And the one-sided modding is an issue. It shuts down debate and encourages both sides to tackle off the ball.


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## editor (May 26, 2016)

hendo said:


> While I wouldn't say I've been 'bullied off the boards' there's a couple of things that have put me off posting here for months; the first is the aggressive, rude and one-sided way people are dealt with if they dare to post a view that doesn't chime with yours, editor. The ad hominem attacks are used by both sides here, often by your squad first. If you doubt that look at the reaction to my posts on this thread.
> 
> There's a kind of visceral fury (which I sympathise with) aimed at incomers, people who develop property in the district, people who 'own their own home' lifestyle writers about Brixton, and then it transfers smoothly into anyone who posts off the agreed line getting a kicking from Team Urban. I too have met people who've given up posting here. I was one of them.
> 
> ...


My "squad"? "Team Urban"? WTF are you on about? The only 'gang'' I see here are the ones who take it in turns to take potshots at me: the ones I've been forced to put on ignore for the sake of the boards. They're the only people in the history of these boards I've ever had to put on ignore so that should tell you something about who's at the root of the problems here.

As for the modding, while I'd be the first to agree that it's not perfect, I think you'd be hard pressed to find a thicker skinned, more tolerant mod anywhere. I regularly have to endure one sided attacks on all aspects of my personal life from posters who throw around criticisms and deliver lectures on my supposed 'hypocrisies' while they all sit comfortably behind a cowardly screen of anonymity.

They're free to point out the damning inconsistencies in my life (and hey, we've all got them) while their own lives remain secret and unprobed. In fact, for much of the time they seem more interested in scoring points against me than than actually discussing the topic.

Take this thread for example: articles I've written elsewhere, my supposed ownership of an expensive phone and street photos of New York have all been brought up, and it happens on other threads all the time.

I may be passionate and I may be angry - I'm not sitting as pretty as many of the posters here neither am I reaping the lovely benefits that a gentrified Brixton is bringing them - but fuck me, I put up with more shit than _anyone _else in this forum.

On 99% of other forums, I'd wager that the people I've had to put on ignore would have been banned a long, long time ago.


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## OvalhouseDB (May 26, 2016)

Winot said:


> That's true if you mean Brixton itself, but none of those places are that far in terms of secondary school travel distances. We are in West Brixton and our eldest is going to Lambeth Academy in September - about a mile away. There were plenty of other schools about 2/3 miles away.


But not many of the schools 2/3 miles away will admit from that distance. I'm not sure how far the catchment for the new E-Act Academy on the S Circular stretches now, Elmgreen and Dunraven will be out of reach unless you live at the Tulse Hill end of Tulse Hill. I think everyone will have one school they can get into - but probably not a realistic choice.

I agree with BigMoaners point about what some people look for / avoid in schools. I was looking at the list of primary school admissions following this January's allocations and note that Hillmead remains undersubscribed, despite an ofsted 'Outstanding' status.


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## Rushy (May 26, 2016)

So if kids have to travel anyway, rather than go to school immediately locally, it makes sense that you would choose the best one you could, surely?


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## mauvais (May 26, 2016)

editor said:


> Take this thread for example: articles I've written elsewhere, my supposed ownership of an expensive phone and street photos of New York have all been brought up, and it happens on other threads all the time.


One, not your supposed ownership of anything, but a prevailing attitude to consumerism - and not only yours by any means - which doesn't even necessarily involve buying anything. It's possible to evangelise and cheerlead this stuff without spending a single penny.

And secondly, modding is distinct - or ought to be - from posting opinion for discussion. So at least in this context, you're not being 'attacked' in any kind of mod capacity, but in exactly the same way as any other thread starter might be. You could complain about it reaching beyond the confines of this thread but that's about it.


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## editor (May 26, 2016)

mauvais said:


> One, not your supposed ownership of anything, but a prevailing attitude to consumerism - and not only yours by any means - which doesn't even necessarily involve buying anything. It's possible to evangelise and cheerlead this stuff without spending a single penny.


And here's proof of what I'm talking about. On a thread about the impact of tourism in Brixton, I'm being given a lecture about my supposed "prevailing attitude to consumerism" based on something that has nothing to do with Brixton or the topic under discussion. 

I give up, I really do.


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## Winot (May 26, 2016)

OvalhouseDB said:


> But not many of the schools 2/3 miles away will admit from that distance. I'm not sure how far the catchment for the new E-Act Academy on the S Circular stretches now, Elmgreen and Dunraven will be out of reach unless you live at the Tulse Hill end of Tulse Hill. I think everyone will have one school they can get into - but probably not a realistic choice.
> 
> I agree with BigMoaners point about what some people look for / avoid in schools. I was looking at the list of primary school admissions following this January's allocations and note that Hillmead remains undersubscribed, despite an ofsted 'Outstanding' status.



Agree that's an issue for some schools (certainly Dunraven), although we could have got into Elm Green or E-Act from where we are.

Interesting about Hillmead. The other side of the coin is St Saviour's in Dulwich, which I understand is very middle class and yet under-performing.


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## mauvais (May 26, 2016)

editor said:


> And here's proof of what I'm talking about. On a thread about the impact of tourism in Brixton, I'm being given a lecture about my supposed "prevailing attitude to consumerism" based on something that has nothing to do with Brixton or the topic under discussion.
> 
> I give up, I really do.


The whole thread is about consumerism. You can call the thread about some other thing, you can call every reply a lecture, etc, but it starts to look a bit daft.


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## editor (May 26, 2016)

mauvais said:


> The whole thread is about consumerism. You can call the thread about some other thing, you can call every reply a lecture, etc, but it starts to look a bit daft.


But it's not about ME, despite your best efforts to make it that way.


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## Gramsci (May 26, 2016)

hendo said:


> Without wanting to get into a he said she said spiral, I felt the need to defend the Ritzy as an example of a business that was in the piece and deserves general support because it enriches the area culturally. At any rate, it'll continue to get mine. I don't want to see our local cinema close.  I can't imagine many people do. I stand by my original point; that's it's in everyone's interest that people visit it, be they tourists or other Londoners. Obviously if movies are cheaper down the road and loads of people are getting the bus then that's a problem for the Ritzy, I'd suggest.



It used to get my support. The prices they charge now are to much for me. 

I no longer regard Ritzy as a local cinema. Its part of a large chain and does not care about locals who supported the Ritzy when Brixton was less fashionable. 

No surprise that it is in the lifestyle article.


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## Nanker Phelge (May 26, 2016)

I think the Ritzy still does plenty of stuff that the local community benefits from. It still has lots of free events upstairs. I don't feel comfortable just writing it off as part of a chain.

As a independent it was struggling. The maintenance was a disaster with regular screen closures due to HVAC issues and Projection failures. That's not as bad anymore.

The whole living wage thing was a sad chapter, but I still support the Ritzy and we would be a lesser Brixton without it.


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## ViolentPanda (May 26, 2016)

mauvais said:


> Well, if it's potshots and attacks we're interested in, I'm still bemused as to what this is about:I mean, the first bit appears to be the board argument version of an out-of-office reply, which is fine, you've got to have days off, but the last bit is actually the more confusing, like I had some hotly anticipated second album but then tragically lost my way thanks to heroin/glue/artisan cheese tasting evenings. I don't think I even had a debut single tbh, but perhaps it was all perdu au fromage.
> 
> No matter



How true. The above was all hot air.


----------



## editor (May 26, 2016)

Nanker Phelge said:


> I think the Ritzy still does plenty of stuff that the local community benefits from. It still has lots of free events upstairs. I don't feel comfortable just writing it off as part of a chain.
> 
> As a independent it was struggling. The maintenance was a disaster with regular screen closures due to HVAC issues and Projection failures. That's not as bad anymore.
> 
> The whole living wage thing was a sad chapter, but I still support the Ritzy and we would be a lesser Brixton without it.


I'm glad there's a cinema in Brixton too, but its owners' greed has ensured that a large chunk of the community can no longer afford to use it. 

There was a time when almost all of the events upstairs were free but there's loads of paid ones now, with some ticket prices going up to £12.


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## ViolentPanda (May 26, 2016)

editor said:


> Here's some fresh tourist-luring bullshit from a posh travel mag:
> Thank heavens for the 'city’s young, creative community' creating a 'vivid music scene.' Hurrah!



Out of their own mouths, just about everything that's been said regarding selling a sanitised version of local culture to tourists.


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## ViolentPanda (May 26, 2016)

BigMoaner said:


> it's getting crazy to think where this will all end. Everyone is talking about housing, in London anyway. something's going to go pop, somehwere along line.



Not just in London, but throughout the southeast and southwest of Britain, too. I've got a brother in Folkestone whose household income is about £45,000pa, but who can't afford to buy a 2-bed, and can barely afford to rent one (about £1000 a month), and cousins in Norfolk and Devon who are still living with their parents in their 30s and 40s because what little housing supply there is, is constantly eroded by 2nd-homers and BtL landlords.


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## Nanker Phelge (May 26, 2016)

editor said:


> Here's some fresh tourist-luring bullshit from a posh travel mag:
> Thank heavens for the 'city’s young, creative community' creating a 'vivid music scene.' Hurrah!



lurid past?

They can fuck right off....

Especially this cuntoid....

*Sebastian Bland - Creative Director*
Sebastian’s flair for design is what gives SUITCASE its inimitable appearance. Seb became one of the first members to join the team, designing our print edition, apps and website. A countryman through and through, he often escapes the city for the Cornish coast and the Shropshire countryside where he grew up. Forever in search of the ultimate burger, Seb is the inventor of Five Guys Fridays and knows his way around the steakhouses of Buenos Aires like the back of his hand.


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## ViolentPanda (May 26, 2016)

editor said:


> A friend of mine works double, sometimes triple, shifts around Brixton for a minimum of five days a week, and pays over half of her income on rent. Many of my friends are in a similar position. Some have to squat just to make ends meet, or live in really shitty flatshares.  It's obscene.



There are about half a dozen one-bed flats on Cressingham with private renters in them. Not one is paying less than £260 per week for the flat, so most of them are shared.

We're basically back to what my parents and foster-parents experienced in the '50s and '60s - even the smallest separate properties shared between people - sometimes between 2 families! It's nothing short of a scandal.


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## hendo (May 26, 2016)

I'll always remember a thread on U75 from years back. Someone was naive enough to come on here and ask if there was a personal trainer anyone could recommend. As I recall, she was promptly set on. She'd broken all the rules. She'd posted about an aspirational lifestyle on the Brixton boards. God help her. That was her last post on urban. And who led the charge? Take a look back, editor. To me that thread was the culmination of a host of problems and one of the reasons I took a step back from U75. 

In a way the polarisation on here reflects the social dysfunction in Brixton generally. The disparities are just getting wider all the time. You can see why an innocuous lifestyle piece on a Qantas mag attracts the ire of some posters here - and crucially the editor himself. 

But the fact you moderate here means the argument pitch is slanted. You've got a dog in the fight. I get that, it's my dog too to a degree. But it's not healthy for newcomers to step into this environment; only posters with a tough chin last long here. You should take a step back from modding in the Brixton forum if you want to be full throated in the argument. It's impossible to escape the thought that you want to play for one of the sides while refereeing a game which is increasing in importance all the time.


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## ViolentPanda (May 26, 2016)

Nanker Phelge said:


> lurid past?
> 
> They can fuck right off....
> 
> ...



Bland by name, self-regarding goat's ringpiece by nature.


----------



## Nanker Phelge (May 26, 2016)

hendo said:


> I'll always remember a thread on U75 from years back. Someone was naive enough to come on here and ask if there was a personal trainer anyone could recommend. As I recall, she was promptly set on. She'd broken all the rules. She'd posted about an aspirational lifestyle on the Brixton boards. God help her.



Never ask about a cleaner!


----------



## ViolentPanda (May 26, 2016)

hendo said:


> I'll always remember a thread on U75 from years back. Someone was naive enough to come on here and ask if there was a personal trainer anyone could recommend. As I recall, she was promptly set on. She'd broken all the rules. She'd posted about an aspirational lifestyle on the Brixton boards. God help her. That was her last post on urban. And who led the charge? Take a look back, editor. To me that thread was the culmination of a host of problems and one of the reasons I took a step back from U75.
> 
> In a way the polarisation on here reflects the social dysfunction in Brixton generally. The disparities are just getting wider all the time. You can see why an innocuous lifestyle piece on a Qantas mag attracts the ire of some posters here - and crucially the editor himself.
> 
> But the fact you moderate here means the argument pitch is slanted. You've got a dog in the fight. I get that, it's my dog too to a degree. But it's not healthy for newcomers to step into this environment; only posters with a tough chin last long here. You should take a step back from modding in the Brixton forum if you want to be full throated in the argument. It's impossible to escape the thought that you want to play for one of the sides while refereeing a game which is increasing in importance all the time.



It's *lovely* to know that you spent time trawling for a stick with which to beat someone who disagrees with you.


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## Nanker Phelge (May 26, 2016)

I suspect posts about 'aspirational lifestyles' would meet with a lot less animosity these day...


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## editor (May 26, 2016)

hendo said:


> I'll always remember a thread on U75 from years back. Someone was naive enough to come on here and ask if there was a personal trainer anyone could recommend. As I recall, she was promptly set on. She'd broken all the rules. She'd posted about an aspirational lifestyle on the Brixton boards. God help her. That was her last post on urban. And who led the charge? Take a look back, editor. To me that thread was the culmination of a host of problems and one of the reasons I took a step back from U75.


I've just looked that thread up - from _four years ago_, ffs - and you've quite shamefully misrepresented what went on.

I wasn't the first to 'lead the charge' and I immediately apologised to the poster when she explained her situation. And she liked my post in response. Later on in that thread, I summed up what I thought were helpful alternatives for her and posted some app suggestions.

And far from being "her last post on urban," she carried on contributing to the boards *for over two years. *So why are you posting up such disingenuous  bollocks?

What is worth noting is how the same faces did their very best to keep stirring the shit in that thread long after the apology had been posted.  That's where the problem is here, because the new poster was clearly happy to carry on posting.


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## ViolentPanda (May 26, 2016)

BigMoaner said:


> it's a problem of housing, of a monopoly money like housing market, with people just using it as an invesment. even the banker twat with a 600k pad in brixton is really just a pawn, and he'll even be priced out eventually. what needs to be worked out is why prices are travelling upward so relentlessly, and so quickly all across london and try to change the mechanism that allows it. if you buy a place in london you should either rent it out or live in it yourself, would help for a start. if developers want to build flats, rules should be in place for a higher amount of social housing provided by said development, not a tiny percentage. protect rents. etc, etc. anything that is in place now CLEARLY is not working, so the structure of the beast needs further changing - all pretty obvious. hipster bars and wealthy creatives are just a symptom. it needs political change, not less beards.



I don't think you can separate what you call "symptoms" from the rise in prices - the two are mutually-sustaining. An area gets called the "next big thing" by one bunch of monied people, to attract other monied people, which in turn attracts people who want to be "in on the next big thing", so you have this incestuous snake-eating-its-own-tail feedback loop, and it's a loop directly participated in by about 30% of our political representatives in the House of Commons. Political change will not happen through the current avenues of political discourse.


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## editor (May 26, 2016)

Nanker Phelge said:


> I suspect posts about 'aspirational lifestyles' would meet with a lot less animosity these day...


With two long-term left-leaning posters made to feel permanently unwelcome from just this one thread, it would appear the _lifestylers_ will soon be at even more at ease to chat about the things that really matter to them.


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## ViolentPanda (May 26, 2016)

Nanker Phelge said:


> I suspect posts about 'aspirational lifestyles' would meet with a lot less animosity these day...



I'm aspirational. I aspire to staying living in the same area in social housing.


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## hendo (May 26, 2016)

Well, I apologise for forgetting your apology. Still, my point holds; this is a tough environment for new posters. Without embarking on a yougov style assessment on why people stop coming here, I'll leave the point parked by suggesting that the atmosphere is unwelcoming to posters who don't pass an ideological health test. That's why I quit; I didn't want to be judged.


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## ViolentPanda (May 26, 2016)

isvicthere? said:


> These articles always piss me off for many reasons, but mainly the way they casually dismiss the area before it came under their radar, when it _was_ creative and vivid (in the real, as opposed to estate agent, definition). But then, as I've said many times, that's when these "lifestyle" writers and their audience were too scared to come down here.



But now there's a sanitised, safe version of Brixton on offer, they swarm like flies on shit.


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## Nanker Phelge (May 26, 2016)

I don't think anyone could deny that a thick skin is a requirement for anyone who wants to be part of the urban landscape.


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## editor (May 26, 2016)

hendo said:


> Well, I apologise for forgetting your apology.


It's not just my apology you forgot. You misrepresented the entire thing and made up nonsense about the poster leaving for good, in an attempt to slur me. Not nice or necessary. 





hendo said:


> Still, my point holds; this is a tough environment for new posters. Without embarking on a yougov style assessment on why people stop coming here, I'll leave the point parked by suggesting that the atmosphere is unwelcoming to posters who don't pass an ideological health test. That's why I quit; I didn't want to be judged.


Yet posters have been free to express opinions totally different to mine for years on end, and I get 'judged' by those very same posters in a manner that is entirely one sided for the reasons I've already explained.

This isn't Mumsnet and I've no problem with a wide range of opinions being expressed robustly or with passion and anger either, if that's what the poster feels. There's a lot of reasons for some people to be very angry about what's happening in Brixton now.

What I do object to however, is the tiresome attempts to turn every single Brixton debate into an opportunity to launch another sneering point-scoring personal attack: this thread being a perfect case in point.


----------



## ViolentPanda (May 26, 2016)

hendo said:


> While I wouldn't say I've been 'bullied off the boards' there's a couple of things that have put me off posting here for months; the first is the aggressive, rude and one-sided way people are dealt with if they dare to post a view that doesn't chime with yours, editor. The ad hominem attacks are used by both sides here, often by your squad first. If you doubt that look at the reaction to my posts on this thread.



"Squad"? Has it even occurred to you that a multiplicity of different people expressing the same opinion,might be doing so because the opinion happens to be a widely-held one, rather than the result of "squaddism", or the actions of an organised clique?



> There's a kind of visceral fury (which I sympathise with) aimed at incomers, people who develop property in the district, people who 'own their own home' lifestyle writers about Brixton, and then it transfers smoothly into anyone who posts off the agreed line getting a kicking from Team Urban. I too have met people who've given up posting here. I was one of them.



I can't remember when anyone who owns their own home has been treated with "visceral fury".
I *can* remember when landlords, and people owning more than one home have, though. Perhaps you're conflating the two?

As for "Team Urban" my thoughts on that are the same as for "squad", with added "grow up!".



> There's two sides to this, and people sometimes tell me the way this forum is moderated is at the root of the problem. We've been friends for years but the way you let posters get insulted on here really disappoints me. It's as if having been powerless to prevent the changes we both decry in our area your response is to run - and police -an anti gentrification zone on these boards.
> 
> Well, you're free to do that, and Urban 75 is a big positive thing - I'll always believe that. It's saved lives, and enriched mine. But you should acknowledge that the bullying problem is experienced both ways on this forum. And the one-sided modding is an issue. It shuts down debate and encourages both sides to tackle off the ball.



I'm not convinced by any argument that has as a premise that editor *lets* "posters get insulted". He's neither omnipresent nor omnipotent. Most of the time, barrages from both "sides" have landed way before he gets involved, and expecting him not to engage with it himself, given some of the vile shite hurled at him, is naive in the extreme.


----------



## editor (May 26, 2016)

For the record, here's a thread started by the poster who I was supposed to have scared off a year before.
She received nothing but helpful advice.


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## editor (May 26, 2016)

Nanker Phelge said:


> I don't think anyone could deny that a thick skin is a requirement for anyone who wants to be part of the urban landscape.


I think that depends on what topic they're discussing - some of the threads are all peace and love compared to here - but I'd say that because people can speak their minds here, it's a far a more compelling forum than most.


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## hendo (May 26, 2016)

I haven't looked back at that thread, so please accept my apology for not remembering your apology to that poster and her subsequent contributions. I took a step back at that point because I was so disappointed by what had happened. 

What I remember is my sense of her being a complete innocent in the Brixton Forum. This is a place you have to be very careful in. Just look at your anguished reaction to my criticism; somehow I'm posting 'bollocks' and embarking on a smear campaign. No. It's a straight point based on my flawed recall of what happened; you've refuted it and I've accepted that. You've got the power here remember, you can ban me with a click and erase my remarks. It's against this background I make these points and I have to think about that every time I post reply. 

The paradox is striking. You're in charge here and yet you feel victimised. I'll ask a straight question; if it's that bad why not stop modding the Brixton forum and become a poster like the rest of us? Find a straight outsider to referee. It would be a better environment for people to make their arguments - including you.


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## Nanker Phelge (May 26, 2016)

editor said:


> I think that depends on what topic they're discussing - some of the threads are all peace and love compared to here - but I'd say that because people can speak their minds here, it's a far a more compelling forum than most.



There's risk of being called a name or attacked in most areas of this forum....and that is part of the way things are here. It does make it compelling, but at times it also makes it really tiring and obvious. 

Urbs have a knack for turning the simplest subject matters in to a scrap.

Anyone who has ever asked me about U75 and joining it, I have advised to proceed with caution, because it's not an easy place to just join in and be a part of.


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## ViolentPanda (May 26, 2016)

Nanker Phelge said:


> I don't think anyone could deny that a thick skin is a requirement for anyone who wants to be part of the urban landscape.



Of course people need a thick skin. If you post your opinion, you leave that opinion open to critique.
Separate from that, however, is the fact that some people express an opinion, can't deal with critique by actually unpacking the argument against their position, take offence at their intellectual offspring being questioned, and decide to spend their time on Urban indulging in baiting and other such practices.


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## Nanker Phelge (May 26, 2016)

ViolentPanda said:


> Of course people need a thick skin. If you post your opinion, you leave that opinion open to critique.
> Separate from that, however, is the fact that some people express an opinion, can't deal with critique by actually unpacking the argument against their position, take offence at their intellectual offspring being questioned, and decide to spend their time on Urban indulging in baiting and other such practices.



None of that is new though is it? It's been like that for a long time. Go look at that thread about the personal trainer. That could have happened yesterday, but it happened 4 years ago.


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## editor (May 26, 2016)

hendo said:


> What I remember is my sense of her being a complete innocent in the Brixton Forum. This is a place you have to be very careful in. Just look at your anguished reaction to my criticism; somehow I'm posting 'bollocks' and embarking on a smear campaign.


It wasn't 'criticism' you posted up. You completely misrepresented what happened to paint a negative picture of me as a bullying poster who was so unpleasant to an innocent poster that I scared them off the boards forever. And none of that happened. You made the entire thing up. 

It took me a minute to look up that thread, so why didn't you bother checking your facts before using your deeply flawed memory as a basis of an unpleasant personal slur?


hendo said:


> You've got the power here remember, you can ban me with a click and erase my remarks. It's against this background I make these points and I have to think about that every time I post reply.


Except that never happens and you damn well know it. So why say it? 


hendo said:


> I'll ask a straight question; if it's that bad why not stop modding the Brixton forum and become a poster like the rest of us? Find a straight outsider to referee. It would be a better environment for people to make their arguments - including you.


You think I haven't tried to find a mod? I repeatedly asked the mods here if they'd take over the modding of this forum but you know what - no one wants to touch it because it's so fucking toxic.


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## ViolentPanda (May 26, 2016)

hendo said:


> I haven't looked back at that thread, so please accept my apology for not remembering your apology to that poster and her subsequent contributions. I took a step back at that point because I was so disappointed by what had happened.
> 
> What I remember is my sense of her being a complete innocent in the Brixton Forum. This is a place you have to be very careful in. Just look at your anguished reaction to my criticism; somehow I'm posting 'bollocks' and embarking on a smear campaign. No. It's a straight point based on my flawed recall of what happened; you've refuted it and I've accepted that. You've got the power here remember, you can ban me with a click and erase my remarks. It's against this background I make these points and I have to think about that every time I post reply.
> 
> The paradox is striking. You're in charge here and yet you feel victimised. I'll ask a straight question; if it's that bad why not stop modding the Brixton forum and become a poster like the rest of us? Find a straight outsider to referee. It would be a better environment for people to make their arguments - including you.



We both know exactly what would happen if he stood down - whoever took over would get exactly the same shit, regardless of whether their position followed editor's or not.

To paraphrase a quote from a well-known film: "some people, they want to watch the forum burn".


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## editor (May 26, 2016)

Nanker Phelge said:


> Anyone who has ever asked me about U75 and joining it, I have advised to proceed with caution, because it's not an easy place to just join in and be a part of.


But like a lot of things that are hard, it can be immensely rewarding once you get in


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## Nanker Phelge (May 26, 2016)

editor said:


> But like a lot of things that are hard, it can be immensely rewarding once you get in



Agreed. There's a lot good going on here.


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## ViolentPanda (May 26, 2016)

Nanker Phelge said:


> None of that is new though is it? It's been like that for a long time. Go look at that thread about the personal trainer. That could have happened yesterday, but it happened 4 years ago.



Sure, I'm not saying it's new. My point is that such people exist on here. We've got two choices - to be permitted to post or not permitted to post (banned). I'd much rather people weren't banned, except for utterly egregious shit like racism, which means that in my book, we should all rub along, arguments, insults and all.


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## editor (May 26, 2016)

Anyway, I created the Brixton Noticeboard where people can post up and ask about hearing zero hour cleaners/butlers/chauffeurs without comment, so that's one problem solved.


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## Nanker Phelge (May 26, 2016)

til we meet in real life. Then's it's clobbering time.


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## Rushy (May 26, 2016)

hendo said:


> I'll always remember a thread on U75 from years back. Someone was naive enough to come on here and ask if there was a personal trainer anyone could recommend. As I recall, she was promptly set on. She'd broken all the rules. She'd posted about an aspirational lifestyle on the Brixton boards. God help her.



Was she the same one who was told that it was her own fault that she had received a flaming because she had not openly declared in her first that she needed a personal trainer to help her deal with long-standing depression?


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## editor (May 26, 2016)

ViolentPanda said:


> Sure, I'm not saying it's new. My point is that such people exist on here. We've got two choices - to be permitted to post or not permitted to post (banned). I'd much rather people weren't banned, except for utterly egregious shit like racism, which means that in my book, we should all rub along, arguments, insults and all.


Truth is that barely any one gets banned from here. If I lived up to the criticism that I'm a despot that simply bans everyone I take a dislike to, there'd definitely be a few on my hit list -  but they're still here, posting the same shit.


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## Nanker Phelge (May 26, 2016)

Here we go...


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## ViolentPanda (May 26, 2016)

editor said:


> But like a lot of things that are hard, it can be immensely rewarding once you get in



At the risk of being accused yet again (by people for whom I have no respect) of sycophancy, I'd say it's not just rewarding for individuals and the Urban community, but for the wider community too, in a more diffuse sense.


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## ViolentPanda (May 26, 2016)

editor said:


> Truth is that barely any one gets banned from here. If I lived up to the criticism that I'm a despot that simply bans everyone I take a dislike to, there'd definitely be a few on my hit list -  but they're still here, posting the same shit.



Has it occurred to you that some of those posters *want* to be banned? That they revel in the "badge of honour" that a temp ban from Urban is for them?


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## ViolentPanda (May 26, 2016)

Nanker Phelge said:


> Here we go...



Football hoolie!!!


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## hendo (May 26, 2016)

Ive offered my apology in turn, so shall we move on? Your modding in that case was flawless. My memory was faulty, it happens at my age. My forensic grasp of the Urban Brixton forum is slipping. 

Seriously, I've a lot of respect for you as I've pointed up here and I'm happy to repeat that as many times as you like in any company you want. 

But as you admit the Brixton forum is scary toxic, what's the solution?


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## Pickman's model (May 26, 2016)

editor said:


> You think I haven't tried to find a mod? I repeatedly asked the mods here if they'd take over the modding of this forum but you know what - no one wants to touch it because it's so fucking toxic.


i would be happy to take on the role.


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## Nanker Phelge (May 26, 2016)

Pickman's model said:


> i would be happy to take on the role.



lord 'elp us


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## Nanker Phelge (May 26, 2016)

ViolentPanda said:


> Football hoolie!!!



Just a hoolie, fuck football


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## Pickman's model (May 26, 2016)

Nanker Phelge said:


> lord 'elp us


that's the sort of attitude i like to see.


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## Nanker Phelge (May 26, 2016)

Pickman's model said:


> that's the sort of attitude i like to see.


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## editor (May 26, 2016)

hendo said:


> But as you admit the Brixton forum is scary toxic, what's the solution?


The same as it's always been: people have to stop dragging discussions down into personal point-scoring bunfests. Just look how this thread got diverted. My choice of phone - or even me _talking _about a phone on a different forum - was seen as something that it was OK to bring up in a discussion about tourism in Brixton. That kind of shit has to stop.


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## Pickman's model (May 26, 2016)

Nanker Phelge said:


>


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## aka (May 26, 2016)

Dan U said:


> 20 pages.


I thought calling this at 20, was a bit OTT.

No so sure now.


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## Winot (May 26, 2016)

BigMoaner said:


> If brexit means 100s of k less people migrating to uk each year, I'm out. In the midst of a housing crisis, unsure of the logic of 100s of k each year tp add to the chase.



It won't. Almost half of net migration is from outside the EU. We let them in because we want/need them. If we leave the EU then we would still let a significant proportion of those people from the EU in.


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## Gramsci (May 26, 2016)

Went back to look at earlier posts. I think two links that editor put up in #21 have been overlooked.

Is Banning Tourists the Solution to Gentrification?

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/22/when-new-york-branded-its-way-out-of-crisis/?_r=0

The second one ( found a new link as the one in Eds post didn’t work) looks at the work of a sociologist Greenberg:



> I’m not saying that image makeovers are bad per se. I think it’s fine for cities to try to market themselves. But I would say the branding of New York City, insofar as it combined market-centered policies with that image-making, has had negative effects on the diversity and the affordability of the city; the dynamic mix of the economic base of the city; and the resilience of the city in response to crisis, because it’s so dependent now on finance, real estate and tourism.





> The main thrust of Dr. Greenberg’s argument is descriptive, but her book does not view the new branding with an uncritical eye. Indeed, she argues that the “rebound” New York City has experienced in the last 15 or so years has been “driven and enjoyed” mainly by “local business elites, out-of-towners and recent transplants,” and not by longtime, working-class residents or the poor. She writes:
> 
> A new and hegemonic vision of New York was being produced — one that seemed, finally, to eclipse the apocalyptic image of the city sinking into the sea that had emerged over the previous decade. It was a vision so convincing and enticing that it could be embraced by tourists, celebrated by the media, upheld as a symbol for the nation, and used to distract attention from the city’s still very real and unabating problems.



Fits in with the Qantas article. To me this this branding of New York is similar to what is done in the Qantas article in relation to Brixton. Its also the way the Nu Labour Council market Brixton. 

To qualify my past post that the article is not journalism I would say its unfortunately the way journalism has gone. I have met people like her who wrote this piece. They believe in what they do and they are bright. Its that journalism is now a mixture of advertising, PR and social comment. Its relentlessly upbeat and positive. As in New York the unabating problems are swept under the carpet.


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## Saul Goodman (May 27, 2016)

How hard can it be for some people to accept that this whole gentrification thing is fucking it up for anyone who isn't part of the the upper echelon?

Conversely, we scum should probably resign ourselves to the fact that there's fuck all we can do about it


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## leanderman (May 27, 2016)

Winot said:


> It won't. Almost half of net migration is from outside the EU. We let them in because we want/need them. If we leave the EU then we would still let a significant proportion of those people from the EU in.



It's worth noting that the population projections are based on annual net migration falling to 180,000 within five years. But this figure has just risen to 333,000.

So London seems likely to grow even faster than projected.


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## Gramsci (May 27, 2016)

Winot said:


> It won't. Almost half of net migration is from outside the EU. We let them in because we want/need them. If we leave the EU then we would still let a significant proportion of those people from the EU in.



Im all for people to move freely on principle. To defend BigMoaner the "we" needs qualifying. There are winners and losers within a (Thatcherite) Capitalist society as in the UK. The biggest defenders of migration is business. They want a pool of cheap labour. And those who think leaving EU will stop this are deluding themselves. (Its what I hear a lot).The issue is to make sure all - recent migrants and those born here - all have decent employment rights and pay.

Some business owners want out of EU. A revealing comment I heard from one is that he wanted out of EU because all the "red tape" and rights for workers was onerous on his business. He did , however, want free movement of labour to be kept. He was a large farm owner who used East Europeans as cheap labour.

I was listening to an economist talking about the refugees. He was asked why they do not stay in France and try to get here. From an economists point of view France has a regulated labour market. The pull factor is that the UK has a flexible labour market. In blunt language here its the race to the bottom in terms of pay and conditions. That , not yet, happens in France so its not so easy for them to get work in the economy. To add the French are busy burning police cars and stopping oil reaching petrol stations in opposition to the governments proposed reforms to labour market. Good old French.


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## Gramsci (May 27, 2016)

Saul Goodman said:


> How hard can it be for some people to accept that this whole gentrification thing is fucking it up for anyone who isn't part of the the upper echelon?



Very hard for some- on seeing some of the posts here.


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## Saul Goodman (May 27, 2016)

editor said:


> The lack of integration and the creation of a two-tier Brixton, firmly divided along money lines, is what depresses me most about the recent changes.



The two-tier problem won't last long. The lower paid people who are currently working in Brixton will soon be priced out of the rental market, then your burgers will be costing 25 quid a pop, and the eternal cunt-chain will widen, until peak-cunt is reached and breached, and people get wise to this bullshit.


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## Saul Goodman (May 27, 2016)

Gramsci said:


> Some business owners want out of EU. A revealing comment I heard from one is that he wanted out of EU because all the "red tape" and rights for workers was onerous on his business. He did , however, want free movement of labour to be kept. He was a large farm owner who used East Europeans as cheap labour.



I know a lot of people in various industries in England, and I hear the same bullshit dished out on a daily basis. They don't want to be part of the EU, because that entails providing decent working conditions and a minimum wage, yet they want free movement of goods within the EU, in order to maximise their profits. The same people outsource a lot of work to China, for obvious reasons, and they're always crying about how little money they have, yet they always seem to be living in detached houses in 'nice' areas, with a very nice car on the drive for every member of the household. These people should either be lined up and shot or sent to work in their beloved factories in China.


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## Ms T (May 27, 2016)

Gramsci said:


> I was listening to an economist talking about the refugees. He was asked why they do not stay in France and try to get here. From an economists point of view France has a regulated labour market. The pull factor is that the UK has a flexible labour market. In blunt language here its the race to the bottom in terms of pay and conditions. That , not yet, happens in France so its not so easy for them to get work in the economy. To add the French are busy burning police cars and stopping oil reaching petrol stations in opposition to the governments proposed reforms to labour market. Good old French.



Although there are winners and losers in the French labour market too. It's great if you're older with a job. But youth unemployment is relatively high, at nearly 25%, compared to around half that level in the UK. In fact it's fair to say that high levels of youth unemployment are partly what's driving migration from the EU. That's the reason many retail and catering staff in London are from Spain and Italy.


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## Winot (May 27, 2016)

Saul Goodman said:


> How hard can it be for some people to accept that this whole gentrification thing is fucking it up for anyone who isn't part of the the upper echelon?



I haven't seen anyone on this thread saying otherwise. In fact hendo explicitly recognised the problems that gentrification causes. 

The main argument (as ever) has been to do with whether the Qantas article is symptom or cause of gentrification.


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## beesonthewhatnow (May 27, 2016)

How about a radical solution - remove the Brixton forum from Urban completely and expand it as a standalone set of forums on Buzz?


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## leanderman (May 27, 2016)

Winot said:


> I haven't seen anyone on this thread saying otherwise. In fact hendo explicitly recognised the problems that gentrification causes.
> 
> The main argument (as ever) has been to do with whether the Qantas article is symptom or cause of gentrification.



Gentrification itself is a symptom. A symptom, for example, of taxation policies that encourage landlordery, driving up rents and pushing out the less well-off. Or a symptom of housing policies that have failed to build enough affordable homes.


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## Manter (May 27, 2016)

BigMoaner said:


> i've blathered on about this before, but i always think the local schools are interesting when it comes to gentrification. there are always a good few exceptions, but the schools in these gentrified areas still are massively working class. it's that sort of "edgy when it suits us, but it's too edgy for my kids thank you very much" that gets on my tits, that division, that inequality, that using an area as a symbol of status and "coolness" but fleeing it just when you could really be part of the community by, ya know, raising a child in the local schools and the area. when schools are truly reflective of the communities they find themselves in, my respect for these wealthy incommers will double. i know people leave an area for a variety of reasons when they have kids, but, trust me, a great deal of these yuppies wouldn't send their dog to the local school, let alone entertain it for their darling off spring.


You're missing the basic timing and economics though. If hip young things with plenty of disposable income move into an area and gentrify it, they are about ten years from having kids of school age.


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## BigMoaner (May 27, 2016)

Manter said:


> You're missing the basic timing and economics though. If hip young things with plenty of disposable income move into an area and gentrify it, they are about ten years from having kids of school age.


I base my knowledge on slightly further away in south London, where rich family home owners who I have met, bar a few exceptions, all have laughed at me at the idea of raising kids in the area, and have either gone private or moved. Just yesterday a incredibly middle class right on friend of my wife said they were going private "as they don't want their child a minority" and were "worried about the high level of FSM". We've been hearing them prattle on about how wonderful and diverse their neighbourhood is for years, though.


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## BigMoaner (May 27, 2016)

Anyway, who cares. I've just got a particular bee in my bonnet about this as had some very sniffy comments from particular people in my family who have moved.


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## Rushy (May 27, 2016)

Manter said:


> You're missing the basic timing and economics though. If hip young things with plenty of disposable income move into an area and gentrify it, they are about ten years from having kids of school age.


Yes. Was going to suggest this myself. Although would not have said "hip young things" for fear of sounding like a grandparent .


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## Winot (May 27, 2016)

Rushy said:


> Yes. Was going to suggest this myself. Although would not have said "hip young things" for fear of sounding like a grandparent .



You've still got it daddio.


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## hammerntongues (May 27, 2016)

There was an interesting BBC documentary on recently titled   " The last white man in East London " or some such title , if it had been on Channel 5 I probably wouldnt even have started to watch it but it did throw up some questions for me at least . It showed relatively quick emptying of Newham of white working class families who were generally moving out to the Essex suburbs , Romford , Upminster , Rainham and further afield Rayleigh , Bicnacre etc . It covered young families wanting to move out before their kids went to school and older folks whose families had gradually migrated and need family support as they got older . Apparently Newham now has the highest pecentage of non white residents in the UK , i think it was 73 % . It centred a lot on The East Ham working mens club which was held up to be the last bastion of whiteness , or old school , in the area . 3rd and 4th generation East Enders who were bemoaning the influx of outsiders , and lets be honest we are talking Muslims generally . It was reasonable balanced and tried to give a good impression , some of the older folks leaving were complimentary about their muslim neighbours  , others less so but watching it did make me think of this thread . I have no association with Brixton other than many years of visiting the Academy but are there similarities to be drawn ? An influx of " outsiders " in what is seen as a taking over and changing the area , OK one is based on Race and the other on social status/wealth but in principle it is similar , one would generally be seen by the majority as improving the area and the other as spoiling it .

but the statement 

" The lack of integration and the creation of a two-tier Brixton,( *NEWHAM* ?)  firmly divided along money ( *RACIAL* )lines, is what depresses me most about the recent changes "

Are the residents of Newham being racist or are they just resistant to change ?

I am not even sure what I think myself .

wrong thread maybe ?


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## Winot (May 27, 2016)

This thread's more like Muslims who've been here a while complaining about more recently arrived Muslims.


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## BigMoaner (May 27, 2016)

my family go back many hundreds of years in south london, and many moved out when their areas became run down. many used to blame this on migrants. they get confused though. imo, they see poverty, and wrongly link that with ethnicity. but cities will always have poor areas, coinciding with recent arrivals escaping poverty globally. so they see their areas become poor, and instead of blaming capitalism, they blame ethnicity.

still think london is becoming cramped, housing, traffic, services, HMOs, etc, etc and i wouldn't say no to a slowing down of numbers, and if tighter immigration controls is needed, then so be it. we can still take in the most vulnerable, and it doesn't have to be forever, just try slowing it down for a while.


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## BigMoaner (May 27, 2016)

Bermondsey is the only area in inner london i know that has (ever-dwindling) white, working class community. Many of hte estates around there have large groups of white cockney teenagers, speaking in a strong south london accent, which is a rare sight these days.


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## Manter (May 27, 2016)

Rushy said:


> Yes. Was going to suggest this myself. Although would not have said "hip young things" for fear of sounding like a grandparent .


I've just given up and accepted I am old.


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## hammerntongues (May 27, 2016)

Winot said:


> This thread's more like Muslims who've been here a while complaining about more recently arrived Muslims.




And this featured too , a second generation Muslim who considered himself a Cockney , was complaining that all his old white mates were leaving him on his own amongst the recent arrivals , " why didnt they stay and fight " figuratively .


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## Mr Retro (May 27, 2016)

leanderman said:


> Gentrification itself is a symptom. A symptom, for example, of taxation policies that encourage landlordery, driving up rents and pushing out the less well-off. Or a symptom of housing policies that have failed to build enough affordable homes.


And a pension system that people don't understand or trust encouraging people to take preparing for retirement into their own hands encouraging landlordery


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## editor (May 27, 2016)

Winot said:


> This thread's more like Muslims who've been here a while complaining about more recently arrived Muslims.


It's really not, you know.


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## leanderman (May 27, 2016)

BigMoaner said:


> my family go back many hundreds of years in south london, and many moved out when their areas became run down. many used to blame this on migrants. they get confused though. imo, they see poverty, and wrongly link that with ethnicity. but cities will always have poor areas, coinciding with recent arrivals escaping poverty globally. so they see their areas become poor, and instead of blaming capitalism, they blame ethnicity.
> 
> still think london is becoming cramped, housing, traffic, services, HMOs, etc, etc and i wouldn't say no to a slowing down of numbers, and if tighter immigration controls is needed, then so be it. we can still take in the most vulnerable, and it doesn't have to be forever, just try slowing it down for a while.



It will all pass. The bigger picture demands that you vote remain. As do I!


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## Rushy (May 27, 2016)

Manter said:


> I've just given up and accepted I am old.


Decided, more like . Are you even 40 yet?


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## Manter (May 27, 2016)

No. Not for aaaages.


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## Winot (May 27, 2016)

BigMoaner said:


> my family go back many hundreds of years in south london, and many moved out when their areas became run down. many used to blame this on migrants. they get confused though. imo, they see poverty, and wrongly link that with ethnicity. but cities will always have poor areas, coinciding with recent arrivals escaping poverty globally. so they see their areas become poor, and instead of blaming capitalism, they blame ethnicity.
> 
> still think london is becoming cramped, housing, traffic, services, HMOs, etc, etc and i wouldn't say no to a slowing down of numbers, and if tighter immigration controls is needed, then so be it. we can still take in the most vulnerable, and it doesn't have to be forever, just try slowing it down for a while.



This is spot on I think:



I wish the immigration debate could be refocused on the real culprit - lack of public spending.


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## Rushy (May 27, 2016)

Manter said:


> No. Not for aaaages.


Alright. Don't rub it in. 

Spare a thought for the rest of us sprites when you start speaking like an octanuptelian.


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## Manter (May 27, 2016)

Rushy said:


> Alright. Don't rub it in.
> 
> Spare a thought for the rest of us sprites when you start speaking like an octanuptelian.


I don't even know what one of those is. But still, I have years to learn


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## footballerslegs (May 27, 2016)

BigMoaner said:


> Just yesterday a incredibly middle class right on friend of my wife said they were going private "as they don't want their child a minority" and were "worried about the high level of FSM". We've been hearing them prattle on about how wonderful and diverse their neighbourhood is for years, though.



I've had friends - people I have known and considered like-minded (whatever that means) for years and years - say the same to me and Mr F about sending their kids to local Brixton schools, particularly the bit about being in the minority. My kids are mixed race. I can't find that face palm picture to illustrate my point - but the fact that they don't get how offensive this is (on lots of levels) is truly outstanding.


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## BigMoaner (May 27, 2016)

did they go private FL?


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## clandestino (May 27, 2016)

BigMoaner said:


> I base my knowledge on slightly further away in south London, where rich family home owners who I have met, bar a few exceptions, all have laughed at me at the idea of raising kids in the area, and have either gone private or moved. Just yesterday a incredibly middle class right on friend of my wife said they were going private "as they don't want their child a minority" and were "worried about the high level of FSM". We've been hearing them prattle on about how wonderful and diverse their neighbourhood is for years, though.



That's terrible. We've raised our kids in the area and - shock horror - it's been fine. 

What's FSM?


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## BigMoaner (May 27, 2016)

free school meals


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## Nanker Phelge (May 27, 2016)

clandestino said:


> That's terrible. We've raised our kids in the area and - shock horror - it's been fine.
> 
> What's FSM?



Same here.

My kid was raised and schooled in Brixton. Often the only white kid in his class. It's not done him any harm.

He has a diverse friendship group and got to experience lots of other cultures through going to b'day parties and religious celebrations with his pals.


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## Gramsci (May 28, 2016)

Winot said:


> I haven't seen anyone on this thread saying otherwise. In fact hendo explicitly recognised the problems that gentrification causes.
> .



To quote Hendos post #8




> I'm not going to argue that zero hour contracts are a good thing either - but neither can I pretend that the revitalisation of the area is _all_ bad and I don't think you can either editor. .. People are coming into Brixton, and they're spending money in businesses a great many of which started here and continue to be based here.



post #11



> It's great that Brixton is featuring on several pages of a leading airline's inflight magazine. It means tourists and their money will keep pouring in here, and that's a good thing for jobs and the local economy.



Given the articles posted above by me #337 which is critical of the role of tourism in local economies I would say Hendo does not recognise aspects of how gentrification works.

And I agree with isvicthere? #168



> A lot of the posts on here are redolent of "I'm not racist, but..."
> 
> "Whilst may be gentrification an issue..."
> 
> ...


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## clandestino (May 28, 2016)

Nanker Phelge said:


> He has a diverse friendship group and got to experience lots of other cultures through going to b'day parties and religious celebrations with his pals.



Yes, same here. I feel like our kids are lucky - I had no experience of other cultures growing up. Our kids don't bat an eyelid at other cultures/colours/creeds etc, because they've been friends from the very start and so they understand that there's no difference really, they're all into the same stuff, laugh at the same things, that's why they're friends. I think it's fantastic.


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## clandestino (May 28, 2016)

Also I'm *shocked* that FSM means free school meals, and that that is alarming for a parent. There were kids with meal tickets at my school when I was growing up and we didn't care, we just accepted that they were poorer and so deserved a free meal. For one term, I had free meal tickets and no one cared. And I went to a selective grammar school in Kent - it wasn't fee-paying but you had to pass the eleven plus to get in. These days, I imagine some parents would be quite smug about their kids going to a school like that, because it was a great school, but no one felt like that back in the day. It was simply a case of you passed the eleven plus this is where you went, end of story, and there was no class snobbery at our school.


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## Gramsci (May 28, 2016)

hammerntongues said:


> An influx of " outsiders " in what is seen as a taking over and changing the area , OK one is based on Race and the other on social status/wealth but in principle it is similar , one would generally be seen by the majority as improving the area and the other as spoiling it .
> 
> but the statement
> 
> ...



Its what people like me who are critical of gentrification can be accused of by those who support it here. (Or whilst being critical of it see the upsides. )

It has come up at Brixton Reclaim meetings. If one wants to talk about race then some of the Afro-Caribbean  community see Brixton as belonging to them, they fought for it , and its being taken away from them to be replaced by wealthy whites. I would say this is not a majority view. It is a view I can understand. The riot - or Uprising as Afro-Carribbean community say- in 81 led to the "inner city" problem being taken seriously.

My view is that Brixton is a diverse/ multicultural place due to immigration. That what underpins this is that it was affordable to live in and run a small business in.

My opposition to gentrification is that this affordability is going. This will eventually lead to a loss of the multicultural diversity of Brixton. My view is what needs "reclaiming" is the a City that can change but not exclude on monetary terms.

After all there have been different migrations to Brixton. The Afro-Caribbean one in the 1950s, the white squatters in 70s, the North Africans fleeing war in 80s, South Americans etc etc.

With the onward march of gentrification this will be lost.

Different people came to Brixton and mixed. People did not feel they were pushing others out. Not saying it was perfect but Brixton is a good example of how a diverse multicultural society can work- and its being destroyed by market forces.

So no I do not agree with comparing whats happening here to Newham.

The class issue here also crosses racial lines. I have heard Black and White Brixtonians - working class- complain of losing say Brixton Village for example.


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## xenon (May 28, 2016)

Land,  buildings as investment vehicles, be they homes or business.  London has always had population  churn with it's attendant   Benefits or problems.  Depending on your perspective.  But the price of putting a roof over your head in a rich industrial society, that is a new thing.  Not unique to London, or the UK of course.


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## xenon (May 28, 2016)

We nearly moved to Cambridgeshire when I was a kid growing up in Thornton Heath.  House prices and commuting to work made that not a thing. I could've been living in Peterborough
 

 I have now nicked a housing association flat of a Bristol resident.  That isn't really the problem though.  The natural moving of people.

 Admittedly a Bristol born person might beg to differ are if they have been on the waiting list. Hmm.


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## Gramsci (May 28, 2016)

clandestino said:


> Yes, same here. I feel like our kids are lucky - I had no experience of other cultures growing up. Our kids don't bat an eyelid at other cultures/colours/creeds etc, because they've been friends from the very start and so they understand that there's no difference really, they're all into the same stuff, laugh at the same things, that's why they're friends. I think it's fantastic.



I have heard a parent from around here saying they didn’t want there child to go to the local Brixton primary school as most of the children did not have English as a first language at the school.

What got me is that she was also a recent immigrant - US- married to a Brit.

She also seemed to be very liberal. Or so I thought. Behind her concern for her child was imo racist views. Having children really brings out the best in people sometimes.


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## BigMoaner (May 28, 2016)

The only time that can be a problem is if the vast majority of the kids first language is shared. 


Its one of the most ignorant excuses going and I've heard it so often. Do these parents think these bilingual kids sit in the class dumfounded?


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## Sherman Tank (May 28, 2016)

My sister who lives in Brixton specifically got a foreign nanny for her kids so that they could learn another language from an early age, and hear it spoken around the house. I should think going to a school where other languages are spoken would further enrich their development.


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## SpamMisery (May 28, 2016)

Growing up around foreign languages is great and should be encouraged, but their concerns are more about maths, science etc lessons being delivered at a slower rate due to comprehension issues. Probably not an issue at very junior levels and of course varies considerably on the level of language skills of the children; but an entirely normal concern for a parent. Certainly not racist.

ETA. Racist in general, as opposed to in that specific example. I've no idea what their drivers were.


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## Rushy (May 28, 2016)

Obviously the description of not having English as a first language does not really give much indication of the English speaking ability of those kids. They might be fluent or they might know very little. 

Between about 7 and 10 I went to a local Spanish school. I was the only non Spanish speaker (barely a word when I began). It was fantastic for me because I learnt Spanish quickly and eventually communicated better in Spanish than English for a while. But because there was only one of me I didn't dictate the pace of lessons. If I struggled I could be helped for a couple of minutes during or after a lesson. I was even dropped down a school year for about 12 months whilst my language improved and until I could manage better. But if half or more of the class had been English speaking, or a variety of non Spanish languages, I really don't see how the pace and content of lessons (in Spanish) would not adjust to the ability of the class without impacting on the education of the native speaking kids. For me the priority was learning the language, not the curriculum (a year of which I skipped). 

I think it's rash to dismiss as racist someone who is concerned about the effect of a high proportion of non fluent English speakers in a class, particularly whilst appearing to be liberal in all or most other senses.


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## Mr Retro (May 28, 2016)

Rushy said:


> Between about 7 and 10 I went to a local Spanish school. I was the only non Spanish speaker (barely a word when I began). It was fantastic for me because I learnt Spanish quickly and eventually communicated better in Spanish than English for a while.


What a brilliant opportunity, I went to a great school but I always resent I came away with only 2 languages, neither of which have benefited me greatly: Irish and Latin


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## SpamMisery (May 28, 2016)

My French is pretty good so long as I'm in conversations where I'm required to describe the location of cats, dogs and monkeys in relation to tables.


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## Mr Retro (May 28, 2016)

SpamMisery said:


> My French is pretty good so long as I'm in conversations where I'm required to describe the location of cats, dogs and monkeys in relation to tables.


I guess you'll probably be able to tell people what colour they are too, so don't sell yourself short.


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## Rushy (May 28, 2016)

Ou est le singe? Le singe est dans l'arbre.


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## happyshopper (May 28, 2016)

I'm surprised at the suggestion that there are schools in Brixton where "most of the children did not have English as a first language". Not that this need be a problem, although it does really require that such a school gets some extra resources.

My two children went to local state schools; they did just fine and, in particular, clearly benefited from the multi-cultural environment they provided.


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## Nanker Phelge (May 28, 2016)

happyshopper said:


> I'm surprised at the suggestion that there are schools in Brixton where "most of the children did not have English as a first language".



It certainly wasn't an issue 9ish years ago when I was looking at secondary schools. My son went to a lot of Spanish\Portuguese speakers, but many of them spoke very good English. I didn't experience any local schools which had high numbers of young people without good English.


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## editor (May 28, 2016)

Re: supporting the Ritzy. They've just hiked the price of one of their beers up by 60p pint in one deft swoop. Now *that's* capitalism!


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## CH1 (May 28, 2016)

editor said:


> Re: supporting the Ritzy. They've just hiked the price of one of their beers up by 60p pint in one deft swoop. Now *that's* capitalism!


I was thinking you'd say that as they've hiked ticket prices to £14 you get a free pint on the way out.


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## editor (May 29, 2016)

CH1 said:


> I was thinking you'd say that as they've hiked ticket prices to £14 you get a free pint on the way out.


Their returned person/student discount is a _massive_ £1 off, so a ticket still costs a hefty £12. Too kind!


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## Gramsci (May 29, 2016)

happyshopper said:


> I'm surprised at the suggestion that there are schools in Brixton where "most of the children did not have English as a first language". Not that this need be a problem, although it does really require that such a school gets some extra resources.
> 
> My two children went to local state schools; they did just fine and, in particular, clearly benefited from the multi-cultural environment they provided.



That's why I think racism is an issue. Being concerned that one's child may be held back as a school they visit is multicultural shows prejudice in my book. It's dressed up as concern that English may be second language.

I also think in the case I brought up its also class. Multicultural = poor people at the school. They saw their child as "sensitive 'and thus would not cope at a school here. They moved to" nicer'  bit of London to get there child into a "good' school.

Of course if you told them they were prejudiced they would be most offended. They were only concerned about the welfare of there child.


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## Nanker Phelge (May 29, 2016)

I think that criticising how people parent is a tricky path to take.

If you are not a parent, you really have no idea, and if you are a parent you will have made your fair share of good and bad choices on behalf of your kids.

I know I have.


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