Commercial Gentrification in London

The Society Guardian has an interesting story, "Market forces--It was a heartening tale of urban regeneration: a dying street transformed by a farmers' market and an influx of affluent residents. So how did a greasy spoon cafe become the front line of a war between locals and developers?," about a revitalization controversy in London.

The revitalization of the Hackney-Broadway Market area has been augured by a farmers market on Saturdays, which has led to an improvement in retail. But the municipal government has focused more on big projects, rather than ground up, more asset-based revitalization of the kind that comes out of the Main Street approach, and viable, independently-owned businesses have been wrecked as a result.

From the article:

Broadway Market...is one of London's oldest chartered markets, located on the ancient drovers' road from Essex to the slaughterhouses of Smithfield. After years of decline, which saw this part of Hackney slide into decrepitude, the little shopping street had become a ghost of its former bustling self. All the through-traffic had moved to the nearby main road. All the business had vanished. Though some remained optimistic (a locally famous piece of 80s graffiti read "Broadway Market is not a sinking ship - it's a submarine"), this was, not to put too fine a point on it, a place where you were more likely to get your phone nicked than find a bottle of single-estate extra-virgin olive oil.

Flickr photo by Aleyna.

However, in 21st-century London, one man's ghetto is another man's prime development opportunity. Broadway Market lies just north of that new heartland of the media-entertainment complex, Hoxton: the pulsating Day-Glo zone of the ironic haircut, the ironic cocktail, the ironic back-to-the-90s warehouse rave and the ironic White Cube gallery. So this is officially part of the New East End, a place where, for the past decade or two, young gentrifiers who don't mind stepping over the odd crackhead have been carving out a cut-price paradise of canal-side walks, hole-in-the wall pubs and fresh galangal root. Thus it was no surprise when Broadway Market found lifestyle. Last year, under the slogan "Quality, speciality, variety", the local traders and residents association launched a "farmers'-style market". And it was very popular. As in, it totally kicked off. As in, every Saturday the place is now chock-full of people pushing whatever the pram equivalent is of a Mitsubishi Shogun, stocking up on chanterelles, wooden toys and the interesting cheeses of the Haut-Pyrenées, before heading back home to spread something organic on a bit of artisanal toast and sack out in front of the telly.

At this point I have to hold my hands up. I'm not even going to start playing the authenticity game because I'm the least authentic person I know...

Index Keywords: public-markets, urban-revitalization, growth-machine