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Brixton Tate Plane Tree from Windrush Square (Ellie)

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Joanne.. Cyanotype tests, Cressingham Gardens map

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Joanne.. Cyanotype tests, Cressingham Gardens map

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Slow-mo wash

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Gold embroidery over sun print. By Ellie

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Thinking about homes as units sold off plan and left empty. From Ellie

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A few ideas by Grace

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This is something I would miss if it were taken from me - I look out of here a lot and take a photo quite often. The trees are a helpful reminder of what season it is... I've left part of the paper guide over the top, maybe this could be retained in some way. The bright orange is meant to be the wall of the house opposite but looks like a path! Perhaps I could use embroidery to hint at bricks and windows?

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Jonathan

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Elllie
Displacement/ Fracture/ Expensive/ Foxtons/ Evictions/ Exploitation/ Exodus and Influx/ Rent Rises/ Vultures/ Social Cleansing/ Gentrification/ Separate

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Elisha

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(Andrea

Price hikes
Face lifts
Exodus
Outpriced
Social cleansing
Vegan/expensiveOrganics
Lifeless

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1st 15 words associated with gentrification

White people/racial divide

Yah di dahs

Fashion

Money/wealth

Dehumanisation

Clean up

Cashless society

On the grid

Mental health

Brutality

Violence

Less cocaine/more cocaine/change in distribution of cocaine

Less magic carpet shops

High rise

Big rent & business rates

Cyclical

Brixton was historically heavily gentrified pre 1900s

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(Jonathon)

* Unaffordable housing

* Barbershop(s)

* Coffee shop(s)

* Organic food shops

* Starbucks

* Pret A Manger

* Unaffordable trendy bars

* Yuppies (or whatever they are called nowadays 🙃)

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Your project kit includes:

5 packs Merino wool tops

5x Felting needles

1x Sponge block

Off white A2 linen mix fabric

Black A4 cotton fabric

A4 Iron on fabric transfer sheet x 1 (for use with inkjet printer)

A4 Printable Cotton sheet x 1 (for use with inkjet printer)

Plastic letters 1 pack

A4 Black card x 2

5 skeins Embroidery threads

2 large eye needles

As you progress through the sessions you can add other fabrics, paper, photographs, words that help tell your observations and personal stories about the effects of gentrification in Brixton

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Plastic letters

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some letters which will be in your kits for phrases and short sentences

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some letters which will be in your kits for phrases and short sentences

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(from jessica)

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Roll the dice and take a card
Being Human Festival (2018) Emily O'Mara

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Map of Brixton forms the board for the gentrification game, roll the dice and select either a 'pop' '?' Or green star card....
Pop ups
Pot luck
Coffee shops
(Emily)

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Artwork for game pieces
Being Human Festival (2018) Emily O'Mara

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An example of some of our previous work in felt. Raw merino tops, beads, embroidery thread/needle, wet felted tops and embellished hand felted building icon - scanned to form collage image
image by Emily O'Mara
posted by Emily

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Free tutorial how to transfer images onto fabric using citra-solv.

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Bring a family focus to generic white table linen with this quick image-transfer project, which uses black-and-white photocopies, a natural cleaning product called Citra Solv, and an old teaspoon. Have a rummage through the archives and pick out full-length photos of people, then line them up on a fancy table runner to create new scenes. Celebrate a life by selecting pictures of a loved one from babyhood to old age, or use individual photos on a napkins as a novel way to set places at a dinner.

* Photos of people, preferably full length, or copies
* Plain white office paper
* Paper glue or repositionable spray adhesive
* Dry toner laser photocopies of your photos in black and white
* Plain white (or pale) cotton table runner, or other natural, flat-weave fabric
* Citra Solv concentrate (available on Amazon )
* Scissors
* Sticky tape
* Sheet of glass (or other flat, smooth, hard surface)
* Small pot
* Brush
* Bone folder or old teaspoon
* Iron
* Old towel
Method

1 Cut around the edges of the people in your photographs-full-length photos (from head to toe) work best. Use copies if you don't want to cut up original photos or they need resizing.

2 Using glue, stick the people down on plain white office paper, lining them up in rows with a space between each one. At a copy shop that uses a dry toner laser copier, photocopy each sheet of paper in reverse/mirror image in black and white. For best results, use high-contrast copies. If the copies are light, ask the copy shop to darken them one or two stops on their machine.

3 Lay the fabric out flat. Cut the paper to separate each person or group of people and decide where to place each one on the fabric.
(Lining up the feet to just above the bottom edge creates a neat effect).

4 Once you are happy with the layout, turn the papers over so that they're image side down and stick a piece of sticky tape over the top edge of the paper to hold them in position.

5 Place the glass on a clean work surface, then lay the fabric flat over the top, paper side up, with the left-hand image centered over the glass. Pour a small amount of Citra Solv into a pot. Dip the brush in, then lightly brush over the back of the paper, starting in the middle. The paper will become semi-transparent and you only need to "paint" where your image is.

6 Holding the paper flat to the fabric with one hand, burnish over image with the rounded end of a bone folder or the back a teaspoon. Work quickly to avoid the Citra Solv evaporating. For larger images, apply the solution to small areas and burnish before moving on to the next area.

Checking your progress.
You can lift the paper to see the results, but if you need to burnish more be sure to lay it back down in exactly the same position to avoid blurring the image.

7 Once the first image has been transferred, remove the sticky tape and used paper from the fabric. Move fabric along to the left and align next taped paper over the glass base. Working from left to right, repeat the process until all the images have been transferred . Leave to dry.

8 Press the fabric (on medium heat with no steam) in a well-ventilated area to fix the print. Protect the ironing board with an old towel. It can now be washed as normal.

FURTHER IDEAS
* Use photographs from different times in one person's life to create a personalized potted history. Or create family trees-just remember to leave room for new additions!
* This technique also works with color images (as long as they're toner-based laser copies-inkjets won't work).
* Instead of people, experiment with images of flowers, buildings, cars, or even more abstract imagery such as wrought-iron gates or other architectural decoration.

Find many more things to do with photos old and new in 'Photo Art' by Ellie Laycock.

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How to transfer photographs onto fabric. Make your own family table runner.

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This project shows you how to transfer photographs onto fabric and create your own family table runner. Bring a family focus to generic white table linen with this quick image-transfer project, which uses black-and-white photocopies, a natural cleaning product called Citra Solv, and an old teaspoon.

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you can cut up and rearrange policies in the same way people make these quilts to create new patterns (jessica)

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Learn How Easy It Is to Make String Quilts

It's a cinch to make string quilts. These easy quilts are assembled using a simple type of foundation piecing. You'll also hear the method referred to as string piecing and string quilting.

String piecing is a free-form quilt making method, so you do not need to mark a pattern onto foundations. Instead, you'll simply position strips, sew a seam, flip the strip right side up, and then add another. It's rather simple, but there are so many ways to string piece that the results are never boring.

String quilts are named for the strips of fabric that are used to make a quilt: the strings. The strings are sewn to a permanent foundation, such as muslin. You can use another fabric for the foundation if you like, or a thinner material, and even prints, but choose something that won't show through the strings after the blocks are assembled.

Tip: If you sew strings to a printed fabric, flip it over and sew on the reverse side, which is usually more subtle and less likely to be visible in the finished quilt.

String quilts likely originated as a make-do technique created by budget-conscious quilters because the method is a perfect way to use leftover scraps of fabric. The technique is still a great way to use quilting scraps, but today's quilters often purchase fabrics just so they can cut them into strings.

String Quilting Tips

Strings needn't be straight strips of fabric; cut some with angled edges to create variety.

Don't worry about fabric grain placement, because the strings are permanently stabilized by the foundation.

Forget about trying to match fabrics. String quilts are charming when assembled from a wide assortment of colors and fabric styles.

Choose quilting fabrics in many color values.

Strings can be any width, and for the most interesting results, their widths should differ. Try cutting strips that are 1 1/4" to 2 1/2" wide for 8" or larger blocks. Cut narrower widths for smaller blocks and miniatures.

Examples of String Quilts

Make a String Quilt Block

Use muslin as a foundation or any pre-washed cotton fabric you have on hand. Some quilters save worn-out sheets to make their foundations. You can also use interfacing or another similar material that will remain in the quilt.

Medium gray or beige cotton thread blends well with nearly any fabric. Give one of those colors a try when you make a string quilt.

Cut Oversized Foundations

Choose a finished size and add 1" to its length and width-that's 1/2" more than we use for a traditional quilting seam allowance. String quilt blocks often become distorted a bit as you add strips of fabric, so using a larger than necessary foundation allows you to square the blocks up to the perfect size after assembly.

Try a Practice String Block

1. Cut a 9" x 9" fabric square.

2. Choose a string that's long enough to cover the foundation when positioned diagonally, from one corner to another. Place it slightly off-center along the diagonal, right side up.

3. Secure the string with straight pins or simply hold it in place. Place another string on top of it, right side down, aligning one of its edges with either edge of the first string. The ends of the second string must stretch past the edges of your block because, when it's sewn and flipped right side up, it will lose a bit of length on each end. Sew the strings together along the aligned edge.

4. Press to set the seam-a step that's easy when you are chain piecing many quilt blocks.

5. Flip string 2 right side up and press. Turn the block over and trim long tails close to the foundation. You can wait to trim, but trimming now helps you see where the foundation ends.

You have a little extra block size to play with, so don't panic if the second string is slightly short of the edge when flipped into place.

Finish Sewing Your String Quilt Block

1. Add another string to the block, aligning its edge right side down along the unsewn edge of the first string. Sew with a 1/4" seam allowance, but don't stress if the allowance is a bit wider.

2. Flip the second string right side up and press. Turn the block over and trim long tails back a bit, leaving a little fabric extending past the edge of the foundation.

3. Continue adding strings to the block.

If you aren't chain piecing, do consider sewing two strings to the foundation before getting up to press and trim, working from the center outwards as explained. You might find it helpful to set up a small, portable pressing area next to your sewing machine.

If you don't like the bulk of a large iron, try a mini iron instead.

Create Angles When You Sew the Strings

It's okay if your strips are all straight and you don't want to take ​the time to trim them into wedges. The photo illustrates strings that are nearing one corner of the quilt block.

You can position a string at an angle when you sew it to the block. Trim the seam allowance slightly before flipping the new string right side up, and then move on to the next string.

How to Square up a String Quilt Block

Turn your completed string block over so that the foundation is visible. Use a square ruler to trim it back to 8 1/2" x 8 1/2". Create an 8 1/2" template and trace around it if you do not use rotary cutting tools.

You might find that your next starter foundation does not have to be a full 1" taller and wider than your finished block size. If that's true, cut your next foundation slightly smaller.

String Quilting Patterns and Ideas

The block assembled is one simple string-pieced variation, but there are endless ways to make string quilts. Try a few other methods:

Sew strings horizontally onto the foundation instead of at an angle.

String piece onto long strips of fabric, and then use those strips to cut squares, rectangles, diamonds or any other shapes you need for your quilts.

String piece large blocks and cut them into smaller squares or triangles to replace plain fabric shapes in any quilt.

Make a free-form, log cabin block from random strings. These blocks are a little wonky but absolutely charming.

Cut String Quilt Blocks Apart to Create New Designs

To make a diamond string-pieced design, cut the original string-pieced block into four equal squares. Rearrange the squares in a different configuration and sew them together. Choose another orientation for the small squares for a completely different look.

If you use this technique, be sure to allow for the extra seam allowances in the smaller squares.

Your trimmed parent square should be 1" taller and wider than the finished size of the reassembled block. For instance, to make a diamond block finish at 8" square, string piece on 9 1/2" muslin squares, then trim back to 9". Cut four 4 1/2" squares from the parent.

This block is created from one string-pieced square, so the fabrics are repeated in the smaller blocks. For a very scrappy string quilt, make lots of different blocks, cut them apart and sew the small units together, scattering blocks with like fabrics across the surface of the quilt.

Batting and Backing

String quilts are often made without quilt batting. If you choose to sandwich batting between your quilt top and backing, choose a low loft (thin) version.

You'll find it's difficult to hand quilt through all the layers of a string quilt, so plan to machine quilt or tie your finished project.

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It's a cinch to make string quilts. These easy quilts are assembled using a simple type of foundation piecing. You'll also hear the method referred to as string piecing and string quilting. String piecing is a free-form quilt making method, so you do not need to mark a pattern onto foundations.

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Examples of Andrea's embroidered and collaged felt work . -Some uses of text and collage . 

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Examples of Andrea's embroidered and collaged felt work . -Some uses of text and collage . 

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Andrea M.
These pieces were made by needle felting directly onto loose woven fabrics like cotton, or onto sheets of wool felt.I used cotton threads  to embroider  complementary colours onto the wool.
In some I used a paper printouts as a guide to needlefelt through.  The paper eventually disintegrates and I was left with the image. In the portrat image below I chose to keep my drawing  and embroider on that.
For Text I used chain stitch embroidery, and in the piece entiltled 'FeedomBound'I used a macreme weaving technique to create a rope for spelling out the words.

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Photographic montage/collage made from original felted artwork of Andrea Morreau.
Photograph collage used in 'End of Social Housing' poster art Being Human Festival, 2018
Posted by Emily

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Fabric

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If you do any kind of quilting, whether with a standard sewing machine or spend hours sitting at a fun Q'nique quilting machine, you surely need to know about fat quarters.

Fat quarters are a widely-available quilting staple and make projects sewn on a machine like the Grace Q'nique 19 so much fun because they promote creativity.

That said, did you ever wonder where the name fat quarter came from and why it's even a part of quilting?

Here's some quilting trivia for you, a little history about the fat quarter and how it became such a favorite choice in the quilting hobby!

What Is A Fat Quarter?

A fat quarter is a pre-cut piece of fabric you can purchase at most sewing and craft stores that is already measured and ready to take home to use in all the projects you sew on your Grace quilting machine.

Fat quarters measure 18" x 22" or exactly a quarter of a yard of fabric.

It's a convenient and affordable way to purchase smaller cuts of many different fabrics to include in your projects - the selection available is endless!

Why Is It Fat and Not Just A Quarter?

Probably the most common question asked about these unique fabric cuts is why they are called fat in the first place.

Well, fat quarters are called that because of the way in which they are cut.

Since a yard of fabric off a standard bolt is usually 45 inches wide and 36 inches long, a standard quarter yard normally measures in inches 9 x 44.

A fat quarter is cut by first cutting a half yard of the length of the fabric which would leave a piece of 18 x 44 fabric, then folding that in half widthwise and cutting would yield a piece that is 18 x 22 inches.

It's still a quarter yard of fabric; however, because of the way it is cut it yields a fatter cut that is actually a lot more useful.

When Did Fat Quarters First Appear?

Fat quarters were essentially invented in the mid-1980s, the term first appearing in the book Country Needlework, by Margaret Boyle.

Ever since then, the fat quarter has been an important part of quilting because these fatter cuts of fabric are a lot more useful than the skinnier 9 inch quarters.

Why Was A Fat Quarter Needed?

What was Boyle's purpose for coming up with the fat quarter anyway?

She found it to be an efficient way to cut fabric to reduce wastage while maintaining dimensions large enough that the piece could be cut into a variety of useful smaller versions, especially when making patchwork quilts.

Because of their shape of not too wide but not too narrow, fat quarters can be easily cut into a large variety of shapes for use in quilting projects.

They are the perfect width to cut into quilt charms, binding strips, and other shapes in a variety of sizes, usually without any wasted fabric left over.

Additionally, these smaller pieces are so affordable, they allow you to buy an entire set of fabrics from a fabric collection to use in a project at a reduced cost - and no leftovers!

If that doesn't sound like a win-win for creative quilters, then nothing does!

Have Fun with Quilting Fabric Cut in Fat Quarters

With all that variety, and usage convenience, it's no wonder that quilters love fat quarters to make quilts as beautiful and creative as they can be.

These fun fabric cuts make assembling a quilt top faster and easier so you can get behind your Q'nique quilting machine faster and get the project done!

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Fat Quarters - When Did They First Appear and Why?

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If you do any kind of quilting, whether with a standard sewing machine or spend hours sitting at a fun Q'nique quilting machine, you surely need to know about fat quarters. Fat quarters are a widely-available quilting staple and make projects sewn on a machine like the Grace Q'nique 19 so much fun because they promote creativity.

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Artist Tschabalala Self on supporting “the black and femme imagination”

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Artist Tschabalala Self on supporting “the black and femme imagination”

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Using quilting to explore the intersection of race and gentrification in Harlem

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Californian artist from 1960s/70s An example of how you can use text and textile together posted by Andrea

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Who's Afraid of Aunt Jemima Quilt Book

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Quilting is a effective use of layering textiles Street Story Quilt

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Quilting is a effective use of layering textiles Street Story Quilt

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Stories of gentrification. Harlem New York. Faith Ringgold. This is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.  This work is a triptych consisting of three canvases sewed onto quilts.

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Example of using collage and overlay to combine the personal with the architectural .

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Graphic use of collage, drawing  pattern and layers 

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Graphic use of collage, drawing  pattern and layers 

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Collage Advertisementv 1969  from Architectural forum Magazine (US edition ) March 1969

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Bete Marques (1975, Brazil) Exposição: This is not a White Cube part of an exhibition 'Intersections with the Global South' 

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Bete Marques (1975, Brazil) Exposição: This is not a White Cube part of an exhibition 'Intersections with the Global South' 

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https://www.artsy.net/show/this-is-not-a-white-cube-intersections-within-the-global-south
(sourced by Jessica) posted by Emily

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News paper cuttings and felt collage Experiments

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News paper cuttings and felt collage Experiments

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by Emily O'Mara

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Let's not forget the animals! From a series by ceramic artist (and Cressingham resident) Helen Carr, technique borrowed from Lambeth Delftware

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Illustration of connection to city . As alien space .Hans- George Rauch Hans-George Rauch , from  a series called The Individualist this is entitled "Lithopian #12, "published by Local One, Amalgamated Lithographers of America New York .Source :The Architectural Forum (US edition) -March 1969

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Hans-George Rauch , from  a series called The Individualist this is entitled "Lithopian #12, "published by Local One, Amalgamated Lithographers of America New York .Source :The Architectural Forum (US edition) -March 1969

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Lockdown Murals July 2020 Tod Hanson The image reworks a section of the (Victorian)  Booth poverty map, showing the immediate area, with Lincolns Inn Fields at the top and the Thames at the bottom 

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Lockdown Murals July 2020 Tod Hanson The image reworks a section of the (Victorian)  Booth poverty map, showing the immediate area, with Lincolns Inn Fields at the top and the Thames at the bottom 

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this is a great idea for a mural/collage (Jessica) 3 D effect of a historic map made into a 3d image painted onto a building

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Happy, after months of rain and then lockdown, my mural is finally completed! A big thanks to the LSE and The Contemporary Art Society, with painting by MDM props. The image reworks a section of the...

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-Grace

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Digital housing visions of the future. Ellie

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Brixton gentrification photos by Ellie

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1500 Days Of Gentrification - ellielaycock

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1500 Days Of Gentrification - Pairs of images taken in exactly the same location but 1500 days apart show the speed and scale of the 'hyper-gentrification' occurring in Brixton, London.

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Article shows the two different sides of Gentrification. understating the up's and down
-Grace

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In his book Building and Dwelling: Ethics for the City, the urban planner and sociologist Richard Sennett describes two sides to the modern city. What he calls the "ville" is the designed, built, physical city; the actual buildings we live and work in, bridges and pavements we walk upon, the parks and squares in which we eat lunch with friends or walk our dogs in solitary peace. The"cité," on the other hand, is the lived experience of the city; the way people socialise, generate income, make decisions and navigate their lives.

One of Sennett's main aims in elucidating his concepts of the "ville" and the "cité" is to observe examples from around the world in which the two interact in a way that is ethical. How should a city be physically designed and lived-in so that the most socially just and equal urban experience can be shared by its people?

The walk I take to Marcus Lipton Community Centre in Brixton, South London, where I have volunteered for three years, takes me through a part of the capital that is in flux. Gleaming new blocks of flats, interwoven with pristine, rigidly-cut public walkways back onto greying, faded, litter-strewn structures of social housing. Hipster professionals sit on their balconies eating dinner in the summer, overlooking excitable groups of hooded teenagers riding on bicycles below. Here the strands of the ville and the cité are intertwined and identifiable.

Yet Brixton's character also divides along a different line: one of personal identity. In other words, how you experience the city physically and socially depends on whether you are young or old; a newcomer or a veteran; rich or poor; black, white or neither.

The idea that people from different walks of life participate in the urban environment in different ways is not new. But like other historically impoverished pockets of London over the decades-such as Dalston in the north-east, or Notting Hill in the west-gentrification in Brixton has been occurring at an exceptionally fast, and visible, pace.

The process has accelerated since I moved here and became a youth worker. I have thus come to experience Brixton through the erratic courtship of its ville and cité-the symbiosis of its modernising physical infrastructure, and the patchwork of lives within in-whilst also straddling the existential inequalities of identity politics.

***

I live in a new-build flat complex, but I work with teenagers who live in social housing estates. I am a newly-arrived middle-class graduate, as are most of my social group, but I spend my professional and volunteering time with members of a strictly working-class community.

I am Anglo-Indian and thus do not identify myself as white, but to the boys I deliver youth-work to, who are mostly black, I intuitively represent an authoritative otherness. In sum, I am at once a gentrifier, and a servant of the gentrified.

By possessing a suburban grammar school accent and enough visible caucasian features to pass, I can slip comfortably-if reluctantly-into spaces that are becoming undeniably more exclusive on the basis of class and race, leaving to visit friends across the city. I essentially enjoy the cushioned privilege of safety, of being in control, of feeling interwoven in the social fabric of my shifting environment.

Many of the local boys I mentor enjoy no such privilege. For them, as has long been the case for their older relatives, Brixton and other comparable parts of London like Walworth and Peckham are traps of gang-beefs, trauma hotspots and police sirens. The airy metaphysics of comfortable inner-city life for the professional adult is turned on its head and driven unapologetically into the ground for the impoverished black boy who lives in a single-parent household on a dilapidated housing estate.

As if trapped by an imaginary forcefield, tiny segments of land-a few slabs of pavement and a convenience shop-become measly safe-zones, outside of which some young people are unprepared to step for fear of an attack by a rival group. If they do dare to cross the boundaries of their "ends" into others, hoods go up, eyes tighten into a tough mask, skunk spliffs are rolled to relax the perpetual edge of nerves, and knives are pocketed.

Brixton and places like it are not just renewed landscapes of open, colourful opportunity and pop-up fun. For many, they are dark caves of claustrophobia, worn concrete and survivalism.

***

The first time I walked through the front-door of Marcus Lipton Community Centre in the summer of 2015, bunches of fresh flowers, which remain to this day, now battered and drained of colour, had recently been tied to the fence across the road in memory of a teenager killed the month before. That day an article had been published in the Evening Standard about life on the nearby Angell Town housing estate. It was poorly received by some members of the local community. The atmosphere in the building was tense.

"I told them not to appear in a photograph!" managing director Ira Campbell, now a mentor and friend of mine, ranted angrily before throwing his folded newspaper in the bin. He was referring to the article's cover image, in which a group of boys who frequent the centre appear sat on railings with their hoods-up and backs turned.

It is not unreasonable to believe that the article had, that evening, been consumed by thousands of professionals commuting home from work to Brixton, providing their only local reference point for life outside of the town's gentrifying bubble.

Last November, I walked across the busy regenerated roundabout in Elephant & Castle at rush-hour and yelled to stop a knife-fight unfolding between two young men.

A week later I was sat on a bench overlooking the city skyline, my eyes streaming with tears, after hearing that the older brother of a boy I mentor had been stabbed to death.

On the following Thursday evening, en route to the community centre in an attempt to find me, that same mentee was robbed at knife-point for his phone. Deciding they didn't want to keep it, his robbers then threw the phone onto a nearby roof. He had stepped fifty metres too far onto the "opp-block," crossing the imaginary code of the roads. Still confused, still mourning his older brother, he had been punished. This summer he is expected to sit his GCSEs.

***

On the face of it, Brixton-much like other places in London and the world that are experiencing the forces of hyper-capitalist urban regeneration-is changing in a way that invites an upbeat, pop-art, celebratory ethos. The ville is edging towards the purified sheen of new-build architecture; the cité, and its obsession with private need and time is responding.

Local young people from families who are locked out of the change are being left behind; the public services and spaces they rely upon have been strangled beyond viability. Local rappers refer to the new structures as " them pretty new blocks" but I'd question whether the prettiness extends further than visible aesthetic into genuine social cohesion or neighbourly care. The Thatcherite idea that we exist as individuals and not as a society has crystallised. Is this not a rejection of Sennett's ethical consciousness?

The cycle of gentrification, driven by capital, profit and comfortable privilege, is bulldozing any chance we have of paying attention to the most vulnerable. We need to peel back the gloss and see that the closed disparities of personal experience are blinding us from realising what life is like for an entire generation of young people trying to cope in austerity Britain.

Only by protecting public space and life, and therefore thinking about the ville and cité in a way that serves everyone, not just the most visible or powerful, will we avoid tunnel vision.

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In his book Building and Dwelling: Ethics for the City, the urban planner and sociologist Richard Sennett describes two sides to the modern city. What he calls the "ville" is the designed, built, physical city; the actual buildings we live and work in, bridges and pavements we walk upon, the parks and squares in which we eat lunch with friends or walk our dogs in solitary peace.

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2018 projection for one night onto Bovril wall Brixton.

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On the evening of 23rd February 2018, Inminds human rights group commemorated the 53rd anniversary of Malcolm X's death in Windrush Square outside the Black Cultural Archives in Brixton.

Fifty three quotations from Malcolm X, one for each year of his anniversary, were projected on to Brixton's famous 'Bovril' wall. Hot drinks and food was served to the audience during the two hour projection.

The projection was visible from Brixton's main thoroughfare. Despite the bitter cold, many people came over to discuss Malcolm X, over a hot coffee and samosa.

Songs and eulogies dedicated to Malcolm X, and parts of his speeches, along with songs from the struggle to free Palestine were played during the event.

Inminds chair Abbas Ali said "Malcolm X is the champion of all oppressed people. His words inspire their struggles to remove the shackles of imperialism, colonialism, occupation, apartheid and racism.

As human rights activists for a free Palestine we are privileged and humbled to be able to honour Malcolm X in the heart of London's black community."

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In photos: Malcolm X Anniversary commemorated with projections in Brixton's Windrush Square on 23rd February

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On the evening of 23rd February 2018, Inminds human rights group commemorated the 53rd anniversary of Malcolm X's death in Windrush Square outside the Black Cultural Archives in Brixton. Fifty three quotations from Malcolm X, one for each year of his anniversary, were projected on to Brixton's famous 'Bovril' wall.

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data on how gentrification has had an effect on rents, ethnic diversity of the community and economic activity
(Emily) posted 22.07.20

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Brixton's identity has changed enormously over time. In the 1920s it was south London's shopping capital. In the 1950s it became home to immigrants from the West Indies. In the 1980s it was made notorious by riots. But today it faces a very different challenge: it is becoming one of London's trendiest places to live. Some describe the area's renaissance as regeneration, others say it is simply gentrification, forcing poorer residents out. So who's right? And how has the area really changed?

Has it become unaffordable?

In short, yes, although this is the story across London. But Jimmy Carr, sales manager in Kinleigh Folkard & Hayward 's Clapham and Brixton office, says that Brixton has seen some of the biggest growth in house prices in London, particularly in the past few years.

"There's been an influx of people who want to live in this area because it's seen as cool - it's the Shoreditch effect," he explains. "Some people are selling flats off at nearly double the price they bought it for four years ago."

There's been around 30% growth in Lambeth in the past few years, and he suspects that number would be a lot higher in parts of Brixton.

Renting is similarly costly, with the average rent for a one-bed house in the area about £1,744 per month. This is just below that of neighbouring Clapham where, according to Zoopla, it will cost you £1,789 per month - although this varies depending on the size of the property.

Brixton v Clapham, rents compared

Over the past 10 years, according to Zoopla, property purchase prices in Brixton have risen by an average of 76%; to put this in perspective over the same period prices in Shoreditch rose by 62% and by 67% in Lewisham. As with many parts of London, the larger than average shift has made housing unaffordable for many in Brixton.

Has Brixton lost its diversity?

The most extreme voices against gentrification say it is tantamount to racial and social cleansing, but it's hard to know how much the ethnic mix of the area has changed in the past decade, simply because there's not enough data. The main information comes from the 2001 and 2011 censuses, which show a slight rise in the area's total "white British" population, bucking the trend of a London-wide fall, but a decline in the percentage of "white British" residents.

Ethnic breakdown of Brixton: 2001 and 2011

This doesn't mean that the area has kept its cultural diversity, however. What it could suggest is that most of these changes have happened in the past five years (which anecdotally seems to be the case).

A similar problem presents itself in terms of social change. Data from between 2001 and 2011 suggests no massive alterations in the socio-economic standing of residents. But since the last census the council has raised £55.65m by selling off its "short-life" housing stock across the borough. This has resulted in evictions, although the council says the majority were offered alternative council accommodation and most were rehoused within Lambeth.

Economic inactivity in Brixton, 2001 and 2011

Are local businesses being forced out?

Everyone has a story about a local business that's been forced out of the area. A common example is the recent closure of Kaff bar, which reportedly shut its doors after the landlord tripled the rent. What's more, 13,000 campaigners recently signed a petition against plans to redevelop the railway arches, with traders worrying that they have no guarantee about whether they will be able to move back in afterwards.

Another Brixton estate agent notes a rise in commercial rents. "A small retail unit measuring in the region of 500 sq ft can now be acquired in a good secondary location - such as Electric Avenue - for close to £20,000 per annum compared to £5,000-£7,500 some 10 years ago."

He adds that there is now a waiting list to occupy the trendy indoor Brixton Village sites, with some larger premises coming to the market for closer to £40,000 a year. Brixton Road is also incredibly sought after, with the high street awash with retailers ranging from Marks & Spencer to Brixton's own department store, Morleys.

But, although there has been a noticeable change on the streets, a recent Lambeth report on local businesses suggests it's not as bleak as it seems. Brixton has some of the most long-standing shops in Lambeth with 53% of businesses in the area having been trading for more than 10 years (this can be compared to 40% in Waterloo). What's more, 85% of businesses surveyed expected to be trading in Lambeth in three years time, with businesses in Brixton and Clapham the most confident.

This is a hopeful sign, and local campaigns show that people want to keep the area's small independent businesses alive. But with quite substantial rent rises - especially in areas like Brixton Village - work will need to be done to keep the make-up of the high street as diverse and fascinating as it currently is.
This is just a start. There are many more areas - such as health and crime statistics - to look into. If you have data, pictures or information that can help shed light on how Brixton is changing, please get in touch via sarah.marsh@theguardian.com Topics

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How has Brixton really changed? The data behind the story

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Brixton's identity has changed enormously over time. In the 1920s it was south London's shopping capital. In the 1950s it became home to immigrants from the West Indies. In the 1980s it was made notorious by riots. But today it faces a very different challenge: it is becoming one of London's trendiest places to live.

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quote from linked article written in May 2019

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quote from linked article written in May 2019

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One trader from the arches Mr A said “I have to return to my native country after having my business here for over 25 years and it is devastating” Further quote by a traders said “The arches, once community backbone for small businesses has been moved by Network Rail and the Council, hence evicting our community.
(Emily) posted 22.07.20

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My idea of Gentrification is when areas like Brixton that has been left neglected for decades, classed as no go area, high crime rate, high unemployment and lack of housing, yet it has a close nit community where people can actually afford to shop, rent properties, open small businesses and youngster grow up being able to stay within the area if they chose to do so, yet suddenly the area is being renovated, advertised as the best place to live and everything is geared toward a certain influx of people who are seen as more affluent and rich residents who then begins to out price and out sourced the area. Ethical/ racial balance also begins to show changes. Household with lower budget feel neglected and betrayed through the vast development of unaffordable and very expensive properties being erected all over the area, with businesses closing down due to high rent so cannot afford to stay after having their businesses for many, many years.

The area is given more publicity to attract and generate more people from middle class and elite with higher incomes, who then begin to spill over into the communities and set the property values, renting very expensive and keeps rising dramatically over a period of time.

You will also see bigger investors coming into the community and new developments taken part all over the area that mainly leads to communities being displaced, thereby seeing migration from the area of those on lower income who cannot afford to stay. Many other areas just like Brixton were previously, classified as very dangerous, crime ridden and unlivable and not good enough for the middle class and elite to live, we now see the same people, now suddenly finding the area to be desirable through only one way that is gentrification that leads to urbanization.
Why has Brixton become the target of Gentrification
Brixton back in 1880 was agriculture land until 1860 and 1880 when the railroad and trams arrived, it was gentrified in order to attract the rich and wealthy middle class big posh housing was then built along the major road in order to bring the rich people to Brixton as it was linked via the Chatham rail main line and in 1888 the first electric lights were built in Brixton in the now know Electric Avenue surrounded by large expensive houses along main road. There was also a class divided into class as the middle class and high earner were put in houses around the major roads and the lower income families were put to live behind railroad and commercial street areas.

Brixton started another change in 1925 when the working class started to replace the middle class and a lot of the big houses were turned into lower rent boarding houses and flats. Brixton was now attracting more and more new residents with it cinema, market, theatre, pubs and had become the new shopping capital of South London, with the their large department stores which are Morley etc and other stores and major retailers.

Brixton came under fire from the bombing in World War 11 which led to a crucial housing crisis and decay. The council decided to do a slum clearance and started to build council housing in 1940's and the 1950's which saw many immigrants from Ireland and the West Indies moved into Brixton, many from the Windrush generation.

I recall Brixton back in the 80,s after the riots in 1981. It was still a place that everyone came to do their shopping, to buy their music from places such as Red Records, to go to Woolworth and most of all to go to the markets, hang out eating patties and drinking rum punch as the sound of music especially reggae filled the air. It was still the place to feel at home as you watch the flock of people doing their shopping and avoiding old ladies pulling trolleys over your foot. The main scenery in Brixton during the 80's was that of stalls selling Caribbean food such as yam, green bananas and many other foods from the Caribbean. Mass of hair shops selling wigs etc. and many hairdressers, barbers, Caribbean takeaways was the main culture that was showing until the Council Materplan of Brixton in 2009 came into place and Tesco moved from Pope Road to Arce Lane in July 2009, was the first sign of changes on the way, and become realistic in 2019, are seeing overpriced properties, family run businesses going under due to quadrupled rent and being replaced by new chain stores.

Link to Future Brixton Masterplan 2009..

Many who previously left Brixton is now finding it hard to return to live or even set up a business due to the expensiveness the area has become. Also many of the young generation who have grown up and lived in Brixton all their lives, feels dissolute at the prospect of not being able to stay in their own community, as they feel unwelcome, and eventually priced out.
Quote from a young woman. "This is not the Brixton, I know, grown up in all my life. It feels like I am being forcibly removed, with my culture that was created completely vanishing." Another quoted from a young man. "People are being forced out by high rent and unaffordable house prices along with universal credit which is probably a part of their plan to move people out to the countryside such as Stoke on Trent and Peterborough and burdening those Council's with people from Lambeth & London problems, it sucks".
Brixton coming into the last 5 years has seen many changes such as the Voice Newspaper, disappeared, replaced by luxury apartments and trendy cafés/restaurants that's only seem to be focusing on catering to certain clientele. Just opposite Brixton Village that leads unto Sommerleyton Road is a £100million development to the old Peabody housing estate, with very little affordable houses amongst some social houses. To further establish the area the Oval House Theatre will also be moving from the Oval into the area opposite the Brixton Village.

Brixton is now known as the trendiest place to live with its vibrant mix of socializing, music, bars, events, and it multicultural ethnicity, mixture of different nationalities that when around the tube station, it sounds like you have stepped out of Heathrow International Airport due to the vast languages that is spoken around that area but yet local communities cannot afford to socialize especially on a weekend as its overcrowded with credit card wheeling middle class ravers who can afford to pay the high charges as gentrification steps in. House prices has rocketed with people paying outrageous prices as properties are being sold for double the price, showing a staggering 76% rise since the Brixton Masterplan 2009 and businesses push to the limit of no coming back. Brixton being the main strategic and cultural centre in Lambeth, is generating an increase in population yet even with gentrification on the door step the high rate of unemployment and increase in homelessness still prevails.
This is a link to an interview with Solomon Smith of Brixton Soup Kitchen, on Gentrification of Brixton.
The main market known as Brixton Village, creates the ambiance in the heart of Brixton but has seen the biggest sign of gentrification as many businesses has closed making way for influx of trendy café, bars, restaurants who are willing to pay the asking price of £40,000 per year for lease.

Brixton still remains highly protected with listed buildings that gives it that authentic and historical look , even regeneration and gentrification cannot demolished such as the Lambeth Town Hall in Acre Lane, which has now been given an upgrade costing an estimated £104 million, along with the new Civic Centre, that were part of the Councils Master Plan to urbanized the area. This also means removing the prominent and iconic building Olive Morris House, likely to turn into luxury flats, (also erasing the memory of the Olive Morris who Lambeth, honoured in 1986 by naming the building after her) no doubt be unaffordable to the local community.

Further down behind Brixton Academy you have Stockwell Park Estate and the Skate Park (once called notorious and no go area) now seeing luxury apartments which is changing the area.

Why this sudden change of Brixton? Is it the easy proximity to West End, the City, St Pancras International Station for Euro Star, fast Victoria Line and overhead train links and Vauxhall regeneration of high rise luxury apartments, the American Embassy that this image is offering a certain attraction to middle and high purchasing power that is leading to the fatal blow to the communities of Brixton and pushing out the working class out the neighbourhood.

One aspect that created controversy on gentrification is the arches in Brixton owned by Network Rail and housed many small businesses. Network Rail new venture to renovate with an £8million upgrade has seen many traders still being evicted even after a petition of 30,000 people supported them. Many are unable to return on completion due to the higher rent that they say are unaffordable putting many out of business and had to take compensation in 2016 and leave. Some moved somewhere else with very few returning to join the elite purchasing power that has outweighed the lower earners who feels displaced and abandon as they are pushed farther away where rent are more affordable.
One trader from the arches Mr A said "I have to return to my native country after having my business here for over 25 years and it is devastating" Further quote by a traders said "The arches, once community backbone for small businesses has been moved by Network Rail and the Council, hence evicting our community.
Other business around Brixton has closed down due to Landlord wanting properties back such as the long standing over 30 years, 414 Night Club in Coldharbour Lane, now a prime spot for a new venture. One former worker quoted "they don't want any black businesses in the area anymore, so they are taking it all away little by little".

Further business that looks to go to gentrification is SW9 Bar in Dorrell Place after investor Miraj bought the Superdrug site in front for a staggering £76million with monies borrowed from Lloyds Bank, to build luxury 96 room hotel. Owner Alan Culterhouse of SW9 Bar told Brixton Blog in February 2017 when he was first approached by lawyers from the developers. "They told me there was no point even consulting a lawyer of my own," he says. They said they had the money, resources and experience behind them to make pointless any resistance to their plan to terminate his lease with compensation that falls many tens of thousands short of his own view of what would be appropriate". Another 250 room hotel is set to be also built along Brixton Road in the old DHSS office with the front entry where the shop Barnados now lives. The original businesses such as Marks & Spencer, Morley Store, Boots and Superdrug has now being joined by new additions like TK Maxx, Pret Manger, Costa, The Department Store, Premier Inn Hotel.

Link from Brixton Blog article.

On the other hand can gentrification really help an area such a Brixton to progress in the future.

A link from Telegraph's writer Zoe Strimpel in November 2016

Another link from Brixton Blog Linda Quinn in January 2018 article and documentary on Film Maker Shaun Duncan

A quote from Shane Duncan on gentrification "I realised the place I called home was changing fast and I wanted to make a film that reflected that - I wanted the people that were blind to the fact, to now be able to see."

And a response by Beatrice Gorman about the article in the comment sectionI don't see many Jamaican posters on here who bought property for two grand in the 60s in Brixton and then sold them for 850k to white professionals moaning much do you? Black people didn't just live in social housing - in fact, those arrivals in the 50s bought properties. My street was nearly all black in the 70s and the last black family moved out and sold for 900k last year. Nice payback, and not the fault of white people".

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Will Communities In Brixton Be Displaced Through Gentrification

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The Idea of Gentrification and does it help areas such a Brixton My idea of Gentrification is when areas like Brixton that has been left neglected for decades, classed as no go area, high crime rate, high unemployment and lack of housing, yet it has a close nit community where people can actually afford to...

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an blog post that looks at older brixtons that are no longer here - what about future streets? (jessica)

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Now lost beneath the Moorlands Estate development of the 1970s, Geneva Road once ran south from Coldharbour Lane, and consisted of an unbroken terrace of solid three-storey Victorian buildings with basements.

The former junction with Coldharbour Lane is now buried under Southwyck House (aka the Barrier Block), and while no trace of the original road remains, the name lives on in the nearby Geneva Drive.

Built around the 1870s, Geneva Road fell into a slow decline after the war, and by the fifties were housing a large West Indian community.

A contemporary report from March 1955 observed life in the area:

About 3,000 West Indians are living in the Borough of Lambeth, in South London. Most have taken homes in Brixton, packing themselves into Geneva Road and Somerleyton Road, where the houses are large and high and dowdy.

To judge from the number of windows which at night are lit up, with the shadow of a dressing-table mirror thrown onto faded, pinned curtains, a lot of the houses have been divided into flats and bed-sitting rooms. 'For Sale-8 Lots Without Reserve' reads a notice outside one dusty looking residence. Is this, one wonders, the work of some rogue landlord

On a wall in one these roads someone has whitewashed the slogan 'Keep Brixton White' The whitewash has been partly covered by brown paint and the weather has taken off some of the remainder.

But the cool, menacing words are still just discernible and it is faintly sickening to read them in the lamplight. Yet from the evidence of a number of visits to Brixton, one would say that on the whole the Jamaicans are quite unobjectionable; as sober and as responsible in their behaviour and as modest in their bearing as anyone could wish.

Here's an 1870 Ordnance Survey map of the area, showing large parts of Brixton still undeveloped.

Read more about Geneva Road and see more photos and maps here.

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Lost streets of Brixton: Geneva Road, SW9

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Now lost beneath the Moorlands Estate development of the 1970s, Geneva Road once ran south from Coldharbour Lane, and consisted of an unbroken terrace of solid three-storey Victorian buildings with basements. The former junction with Coldharbour Lane is now buried under Southwyck House (aka the Barrier Block), and while no trace of the original road remains, the name lives on in the nearby Geneva Drive.

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Brixton Housing Cooperative hand drawn map from their offices in Railton Road
Posted by Emily

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Who is in control? What is ownership? Council, pop ups and gentrification

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Who is in control? What is ownership? Council, pop ups and gentrification

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This article from Oct 2019 tells the story of how Pop Brixton came to be....
(Emily) posted 22.07.20

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Mak Gilchrist and Will Sandy were in Fish, Wings and Tings in Brixton Village, south London when they got the email from Lambeth Council. Grow: Brixton, their pitch to turn a run-down area behind the tube station into a community garden and space for local businesses, had been approved.

"I just remember thinking, 'Oh, wow. Now we need to make this work'," Gilchrist says. "I felt our lives were never going to be the same."

Sadly for Gilchrist, Sandy and many other Brixton locals, Grow: Brixton would never come to be. Instead the public land that Lambeth Council leased out for free as part of a regeneration project became POP Brixton, a commercial food market owned by luxury co-living company The Collective.

So, what happened to Grow: Brixton, and how did it become POP Brixton, a venture somewhat emblematic of London's growing social divides? The answer is a story of brutal cuts to council funding and the 'lifeline' that commercial developments can offer to local authorities on the brink of going bust - one that shows how easily the borders between inclusive regeneration projects and profit-driven gentrification can blur.

I meet Gilchrist at International House, a council office building that towers over Brixton. From the sixth floor, you can see the Shard and the 'Walkie Talkie' building, as well as the looming developments of Elephant and Castle. Down the road in the other direction is POP Brixton.

Made up of around 55 converted shipping containers with a seating area and events space, POP Brixton sits on a plot of land that used to be an ice rink. The containers are let out to businesses - mostly food and drink vendors - on short-term leases. There's a New Zealand wine bar and a vegan burger joint on one side, plus a fried chicken spot and Caribbean food from Mama's Jerk. Since opening in 2015, POP has also housed Zoe's Ghana Kitchen, whose founder Zoe Adjonyoh went on to release a popular cookbook. In addition to food, the complex is home to several offices, Reprezent Radio and the Impact Hub, a partly council-funded workspace for social enterprises.

POP Brixton's story starts in early 2014, when Lambeth Council opened a bid to develop the space. Gilchrist and Sandy, co-founders of community gardening company The Edible Bus Stop, were one of the many organisations to enter. According to Lambeth Council's brief, it would lease the land for a temporary period with negligible rent (£1). The winner of the bid would pay for the development themselves and when their project broke even, give 50 percent of the profit back to the council. The opportunity was part of the 2009 Future Brixton Masterplan, a strategy to regenerate an area of south London with a proud Afro-Carribean heritage, and the scene of social tensions in the early 1980s.

The council's brief focused on the community, and was shared with local groups and businesses. "Programming and use of the space should involve local people, organisations and businesses," it read, stipulating that "whatever is provided on the site should not compete with local businesses, including the surrounding street markets." Ultimately, any bids put forward needed to "seek to ensure that income generated supports the local economy, users of the site and the community."

Gilchrist jokes that one of her early, less serious ideas was to use the space to save local food vendor Eileen, whose unlicensed roti stand was struggling to stay open. But she and Sandy knew they had to think big, and in order to pitch an impactful community project, would need another partner. That was when Sandy suggested Carl Turner.

Turner - of Carl Turner Architects, now Turner Works - had previously worked with The Edible Bus Stop on a riverside gardening project. He joined Gilchrist and Sandy as the architect partner, and the trio put their vision for Grow: Brixton to the council. It included shipping containers housing local businesses, as well as a large community garden space. Turner would sell his home in order to pay for the development work.

When they won the bid in April 2014, Grow: Brixton was incorporated as a company, and Gilchrist, Sandy and Turner all named as directors.

However, the good news wouldn't last for long. Lambeth Council had not completed planning permission for the project when they opened for bids, so the team had to wait months before any building work could take place. They were given an office in Brixton, but it was here that the friction between the two companies began to show. An email Gilchrist sent to a friend in August 2014, seen by VICE, outlines the difficulties she had working alongside Turner's team. In the end, she decided not to work in the office.

"I remember at the time saying: 'something's not right here'," Gilchrist tells me. "My gut is telling me something's not right here."

Despite the tensions, in September 2014 Grow: Brixton was granted planning permission for the site, meaning that the team could begin building. However, when Turner announced the news from his company's Twitter account rather than Grow: Brixton's, Gilchrist's suspicions appeared to be confirmed.

"We got back the next day," Gilchrist says. "We had a meeting on Brixton Station Road, and he just handed over this typed piece of paper, which laid out how he was taking full control, and we would be paid X amount a year as contractors." Emails seen by VICE from October 2014 show that Turner wanted to take full control of Grow: Brixton, stating in one that it was "not a proposal, rather a statement."

After unsuccessful mediation sessions, Lambeth Council decided to hand control of the project to Turner, citing his financial contribution as the justification.

"I suspect that [Turner] never planned to move forward with us as equal partners. We provided the Grow: Brixton bid a crucial part of its integrity and USP, and I think Turner needed that to get it through planning," reflects Gilchrist. "I think, maybe, we were set up for the fall from the beginning."

Jack Hopkins, the Lambeth Labour councillor who worked on the council's regeneration team in 2014, says that it understood Turner to be the main force behind Grow: Brixton. "I don't think [Gilchrist and Sandy] had the resource and the business plan to make it work, and [Turner] did," he tells me. "He was always the lead person and he was putting all the cash forward. My memory is that he was kind of the driver for it, and had the concept. Will and Mak were involved more because they were local."

Grow: Brixton was no more. Soon after the fallout in November 2014, Turner registered POP Brixton as a company, and the construction began. In May 2015, shortly after a protest by anti-gentrification group Reclaim: Brixton, POP Brixton opened its doors. Gilchrist and Sandy were not paid for their work on Grow: Brixton, despite many of the ideas in their original pitch now being used at POP. A year after its opening, the pair spoke to local news website Brixton Buzz, who reported extensively on the story.

Turner acted as the project's architect and and along with The Collective CEO Reza Merchant, registered a new company - Make Shift - to work as the delivery team. Turner resigned from both POP Brixton and Make Shift in 2017, and is no longer involved in the venture. Make Shift still manages the space.

VICE made numerous attempts to contact Turner. He declined to speak with me for this piece.

POP Brixton is still owned by The Collective, a property company with flat complexes in the Isle of Dogs and west London, with a combined property portfolio of £2.7 billion. A redacted name on the lease agreement for POP Brixton is registered "c/o The Collective" as the guarantor, viewed as part of a Freedom of Information Act request made by VICE. The Collective also has a seat on Make Shift's board of directors, and provides guidance and support for the running of POP Brixton.

A commercial food market owned by a multi-billion pound property company? It's a long way from the original Grow: Brixton bid.

On a sunny August afternoon outside the Ritzy Cinema, I speak to members of the Brixton Neighbourhood Forum. They have mixed feelings about POP Brixton. One tells me that her children - both local, and in their late twenties and early thirties - don't consider it a place for them. Rather, it's somewhere that people who travel into Brixton go to party.

For Ken Floyd, who chairs Brixton Neighbourhood Forum, POP Brixton is "for young, white people." However he doesn't necessarily object to its existence, even if the prices are steep. "Don't forget the gentrification of Brixton has changed the demographic of Brixton. So when you think local people might be Black, that's not necessarily so anymore," he says.

Although sold as a community-focused venture that would reflect the diversity of Brixton, POP Brixton's businesses are majority white-owned. According to the results of an internal survey conducted by Make Shift between April and July 2019, the business owners in POP Brixton are 55.6 percent white and 44.4 percent BAME. No breakdown of ethnic groups was provided within this data. Lambeth Council told me that it has not collected demographic information on POP Brixton vendors in the four years it has been running because the venture has demonstrated an ability to host "events that attract and support a diverse range of local people."

It would be unfair to ignore POP Brixton's success stories. Award-winning Indian restaurant Kricket opened its first site there in 2015, and now has outposts in Soho and White City. Reprezent Radio were given a new studio space after being evicted from their Peckham building by private landlords. But for many locals, POP Brixton does not seem to have been designed with them in mind. "When POP Brixton opened, I remember going there and not even feeling welcome, even though I'd lived [in Brixton] my whole life," local baker Rose Whyte told me when I spoke to her earlier this year.

Although council-backed regeneration projects are hard to get right, they aren't impossible. Peckham Palms, a hair and beauty space that opened with support from Southwark Council in 2018, is run by and caters specifically to the Black community of Peckham, while appearing to be commercially viable.

In 2018, a 102-page report on POP Brixton, commissioned by Make Shift and Lambeth Council, seemed to distance itself from the project's initial community focus. It states that "while Lambeth Council looked to engage the local community in POP Brixton from an early stage [...] this ultimately raised expectations regarding the ongoing role of the community. While POP had community objectives at its heart, first and foremost, it needed to deliver financially and commercially."

For councillor Hopkins, however, community was and is at the forefront of the regeneration project. "I've got a lot of love and a lot of scars," he tells me of his time working with POP Brixton. "We had long conversations about how to make sure [POP Brixton] was Black and minority ethnic, [and that] it wasn't all white people and it was local."

POP Brixton today may not reflect the community-focused goals of the council's original brief, but has it been financially successful? According to Make Shift, POP Brixton was predicted to make a profit after just over three years of operation in summer 2018. When it became clear that this would not be achievable, the date was amended to 2020. After four and a half years of running, it has still not made a profit.

However, from 2018 to 2019, Lambeth Council received £53,750, a "pre-profit share", which is equivalent to around £12,000 a year for its plot of land. This was agreed as part of a 2017 lease extension and given in the form of a base rent. However, in 2019, when the project continued to lose money, these payments stopped. If and when POP Brixton does make a profit, it won't just be the council who receives money - The Collective will profit from this use of public land, too.

It's hard to understand why a global property company would bother investing in a shipping container complex that makes comparatively little money. However, a source close to The Collective tells me that ventures like POP Brixton can offer their own benefits. Make Shift's work on POP Brixton would likely have helped it secure the bid for Peckham Levels, a similar commercial space built in a disused car park owned by Southwark Council. Both these projects are temporary, and once finished, will leave the space open for other developments - including residential buildings. For the car park in Peckham, this potential redevelopment may be a long way in the future but POP Brixton's lease is set to end in 2020. While Lambeth Council hopes to extend the lease until 2024, when POP does close, it wants the space to become a "mixed-use development with retail, commercial, community, leisure, residential and town centre car and cycle parking," as outlined in its 2015 local plan. Hopkins tells me that a decision on POP Brixton's future will be made after its accounts are released later this month.

VICE reached out to The Collective but the company declined to comment.

Four in five councils are now investing in commercial developments to supplement slashed budgets, as funding for local authorities looks unlikely to increase under a Conservative government. Even when working-class communities - who rely on public services - are seemingly marginalised by ventures like POP Brixton, they're also most in need of the money these developments make.

"In hindsight, whoever took that over was going to be shot in the foot at some point. It's a poisoned chalice," Gilchrist tells me towards the end of our meeting, looking out at POP Brixton where customers mill around small as ants. "There's a really fine line between regeneration and gentrification. And I guess [the council] wanted someone else to straddle it for them."
@RubyJLL / @wunmio UPDATE 08/10/19: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that POP Brixton is made up of around 25 converted shipping containers and that its lease ends in 2024. Both have now been corrected.
UPDATE 09/10/29: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that POP Brixton had made a profit in 2019, based on misleading information shared by Lambeth Council. This has now been corrected.

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Cash-Strapped Councils and Gentrification: The Problem with POP Brixton

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Mak Gilchrist and Will Sandy were in Fish, Wings and Tings in Brixton Village, south London when they got the email from Lambeth Council. Grow: Brixton, their pitch to turn a run-down area behind the tube station into a community garden and space for local businesses, had been approved.

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Capitalising on the idea of collective living. These are the people behind the bid for pop up Brixton

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In a boutique hotel lobby in London's former docklands, Ziggy Marley's earnest cover of "Blowing in the Wind" plays softly over the public address system, and a man in early middle-age enters through the sliding doors. He walks past the hotel luggage trolleys, and collects his ironed shirts from behind the reception desk. A whale-sized lump of abstract sculpture hangs above said desk.

Copies of Time Out sit on the coffee tables, and a multicoloured chalkboard outlines this week's activities on offer: circuit training in the gym, a 'summer screams' film night, a relaxation session, a running club, and then Sunday is 'Tarantino time!', with a screening of Django Unchained. Three-quarters of the hotel is gleaming new, and the golf simulator, spa and mindfulness zone, like the swimming pool on the 20th floor and its adjoining bar, are all nearing completion. Except...

... This is not a hotel. Nor is it an ultra-luxe student halls of residence or a block of luxury flats. This is The Collective Canary Wharf, the world's largest co-living space, standing at 21 storeys high, containing 705 'micro-apartments', and a whole lot more besides. It looks like student halls and a campus, rolled into one building - but for wealthy, mostly young-ish professionals. "Co-living" in this sense means you get tiny apartments and large shared spaces, with everything laid on in-house.

Located in the Isle of Dogs, but described as Canary Wharf, because that more eloquently screams 'luxury', this is the latest of The Collective's numerous planned co-living blocks so far, in the UK, US and Germany. The company, founded in 2010, now has a property portfolio with a combined value of £2.7 billion.

Of course, this type of living has been around for a while. A Failed Architecture piece detailed that co-living spaces like The Collective are "not a new way of living, [but] an old one, commodified", tracing the history of 1930s modernist pioneers who saw the possibility of housing that allowed for shared spaces beyond the nuclear family. There's also the model of 1960s Scandinavian 'cohousing' communities for pensioners. But the difference is that co-living spaces like these seem engineered to maximise profits during an apparently unending housing crisis, which disproportionately affects young people.

In an age where UK housing is a shit show - i.e: the London Mayor is unable to introduce rent controls, as the current Government's shared ownership plan gets people into more debt - The Collective's breed of co-living can seem attractive. If only their rooms weren't so expensive. The Cosy apartments, for example, are about the size of a single bedroom, with an ensuite bathroom and a two-hob 'kitchen' squeezed beside a queen-sized bed. These come in at £1,863pcm if you're staying three months (£1,430pcm, for a year) - either way, this works out substantially more than half the average UK salary. The bigger apartments on offer sail north of £2,000pcm, and they're still studio flats; still only one room.

The Collective aren't alone in boujee co-living either. If you've travelled on a London underground train, you've likely seen the ubiquitous adverts for Tipi London, calling on young Londoners to "join the rental rebellion" - via familiar red-and-black Soviet constructivist-style propaganda posters, but delivered by 21st-century rentier super-landlords. Here, renters paying £1,900pcm for a one-bed flat are "rebels who have joined the cause". Yet when you get down to it, what is 'revolutionary' about the approach largely amounts to no letting fees or deposit, with bills included in the extortionate monthly fees.

The emphasis in these places is largely on the shared facilities. In The Collective, that's not just the gym and the cafe and the pool, but the cleaner, the library, the 'breakout spaces', the big shared kitchen, the cinema and TV rooms, the 'play room' with toy swords and ping-pong, adorned with handwritten notes on the pastel-coloured walls, as if the team behind Innocent Smoothies' twee packaging had been signed up to do the decor. As if the co-living spaces are part of a trend in adults regressing back to their youth, spending their evenings at Ballie Ballerson.

The age of those leading the co-living boom seems relevant to this. The Collective's CEO, Reza Merchant, is just 30. He is a regular at Burning Man, and once guested in an episode of Made in Chelsea (he was up for bids at a 'man auction'). The average tenant in their existing UK block in Old Oak, north-west London is 28. Tenants can pay their rent in bitcoin, and the Canary Wharf branch launched recently with a party hosted by Erol Alkan.

Last year, Merchant told they had 4,500 co-living 'apartments' planned across the UK, US and Germany, and was bidding on sites that would allow for another 5,000 on top of that. It is, they say, "a global living movement" - and sure enough, sections of the web are abuzz with listicles about co-living spaces from Morocco to Switzerland. Sadly, if co-living is a bubble, it's not one that's about to burst just yet.
This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

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What Are Co-Living Spaces and How Much Do They Charge?

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In a boutique hotel lobby in London's former docklands, Ziggy Marley's earnest cover of "Blowing in the Wind" plays softly over the public address system, and a man in early middle-age enters through the sliding doors. He walks past the hotel luggage trolleys, and collects his ironed shirts from behind the reception desk.

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Council of Europe is trying to adopt an 'intercultural perspective, focus lies on the key principles of equality, diversity advantage, and interaction.'

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Gentrification is a process through which lower income residents are displaced from the neighbourhood due to an influx of new residents, resulting in a change of character of the neighbourhood. Therefore, gentrification has two key features: displacement, both physical and symbolic and change in social and urban character.

From an intercultural perspective, focus lies on the key principles of equality, diversity advantage, and interaction. In the intercultural city this is reflected through policies aiming to create equal access to all to the neighbourhoods by offering for example affordable housing. Diversity is strengthened through policies for social mixing and supporting the cultural, economic and social fabric of neighbourhoods by promoting a pluralistic and inclusive identity. This also underlines positive interactions, aiming to create positive neighbourhoods with spaces to interact and live in.

The ICC study on gentrification focuses on six main areas (+ Policy brief):

Policy and Regulation

Diverse Housing

Stakeholder Partnership

Inclusive Public Space

Nurturing Local Business

Holistic Community

Photo: Ivana D'Alessandro

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Gentrification is a process through which lower income residents are displaced from the neighbourhood due to an influx of new residents, resulting in a change of character of the neighbourhood. Therefore, gentrification has two key features: displacement, both physical and symbolic and change in social and urban character.

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More than three years after Lambeth council told us our estate had been put into a regeneration programme because the council couldn't afford to repair it, my neighbours and I - the little people in this clash - have defied the odds and won.

On 24 November, the high court found Lambeth council had acted unlawfully when it removed three options from a public consultation over plans to redevelop the Cressingham Gardens estate in Lambeth, south London.

Since 2012, Lambeth has been trying to demolish 300 homes for redevelopment. Last November, the council started a consultation process with tenants on how to regenerate the estate. But four months later, the refurbishment options were taken out of the consultation, leaving options involving just full or part demolition of our homes. One of the residents, Eva Bokrosova, who has lived on the estate since 2009, then brought the action against the council.
The residents forced to pay up to £14,000 before their homes are torn down
Most residents of Cressingham Gardens love it here. We can afford our modest but well-designed homes in this coveted parkside setting, while all around us and in neighbouring Brixton, property prices rocket. Most residents probably won't be able to find the money to stay on the proposed new development, and this unique architecture and supportive community would be lost forever.

The councillors and officers said from the beginning that Cressingham had structural problems; the estate was expensive to maintain; repairs weren't working and there might not be enough cash to do them to the desired level, so this was an opportunity to have new homes built to modern standards.

We asked for evidence of all those claims, but even basic facts proved hard to come by. Others bearing the brunt of regeneration schemes, particularly those in London, such as the Heygate estate in Elephant and Castle, have had a similar experience. So we started using the Freedom of Information Act to get evidence and have to date submitted more than 100 requests.

This gave us crucial financial information. For instance, we found that the estate's annual income from council rents was £1.2m, but the council budgeted only £200,000 for repairs, a relatively low sum compared with other estates not being put into "regeneration".

We found one survey that showed the main problem with the buildings was not structural, but down to poor maintenance. We also found information on how politicians and other borough officials collaborated to try to swing opinion in favour of redevelopment.

The key to the high court win ended up being Lambeth's lack of proof that the refurbishment was unaffordable as claimed, along with a failure to properly assess affordability of the options as agreed with residents.

We are over the moon at the result that the council must re-consult on the refurbishment and redevelopment options. One elderly neighbour excitedly told me the win had made her "feel like a young girl again".

The war is far from over. The council is simply running the consultation on all options again. But this inspiring result proves the effort was definitely worth making. It is significant, not just for our residents, but also for those living on the borough's five other "regeneration estates", such as Central Hill near Crystal Palace.

People across the country, frustrated at their own experience of local authority consultation and feeling powerless to stop the wrecking ball of council estate privatisation, have been reaching out with their congratulations and asking advice on how to do the same.

It felt instinctively wrong for Lambeth to pull the plug on our consultation. Some fantastic legal minds were keen to help us and we feel immense joy that there are legal ways to put this right.
Joanne Parkes is a resident of Cressingham Gardens estate Sign up for your free Guardian Housing network newsletter with news and analysis sent direct to you every Friday. Follow us: @GuardianHousing
Topics

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Lambeth wanted to demolish our homes. We said that was illegal - and we were right

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More than three years after Lambeth council told us our estate had been put into a regeneration programme because the council couldn't afford to repair it, my neighbours and I - the little people in this clash - have defied the odds and won.

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The Managed Decline of Inner City Social Housing

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The phrase was first coined by the German born sociologist Ruth Glass in 1964. Looking at places like Notting Hill and Islington she wrote that “One by one, many of the working class quarters of London have been invaded by the middle classes – upper and lower. Once this process of ‘gentrification’ starts in a district it goes on rapidly until all or most of the original working class occupiers are displaced and the whole social character of the district is changed.” (Jessica) Glass noted that gentrification is a process that once started, is hard to stop.

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Not Brixton (Elephant and Castle) but a place of huge regeneration, the Heygate estate. The 'Artworks Elephant' pop up, now gone, played a role in the areas journey from 11,00 homes of council estate to prime private real-estate

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Not Brixton (Elephant and Castle) but a place of huge regeneration, the Heygate estate. The 'Artworks Elephant' pop up, now gone, played a role in the areas journey from 11,00 homes of council estate to prime private real-estate

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https://southwarknotes.wordpress.com/heygate-estate/
(Emily) posted 22.07.20

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Maps can be a really useful way of understanding how housing development affects an area. This Article on gentrification in Canada - discusses  using Google Street View

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Maps can be a really useful way of understanding how housing development affects an area. This Article on gentrification in Canada - discusses  using Google Street View

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their methods of mapping using streetview might be useful (posted by Jessica)

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Gentrification Word Association/ mood board 

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Gentrification Word Association/ mood board 

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looking at old & new photos of Brixton layering words that express Gentrification. by Grace

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Policy and Gentrification (posted by Jessica)

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Policy and Gentrification (posted by Jessica)

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The study investigates the role of public policy in areas subject to the conditions generally associated with gentrification.

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First published:

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Abstract

ABSTRACT: This paper presents the results of a comparative study of neighborhood change. It was performed to test the proposition that political structures mediate political outcomes. The efficacy of different political structures in formulating and executing policies and the variety of those responses to similar conditions are the subject of this report. The study investigates the role of public policy in areas subject to the conditions generally associated with gentrification. Four neighborhoods were chosen, two in New York and two in London. In each community, faced with rapid change, efforts were made to influence demographic trends through housing policy, although the sources and mechanisms of such policy often were dissimilar. The research analyzed the policies adopted in each community in terms of their own goals and evaluated the extent to which population was stabilized and housing conditions were improved.

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A TALE OF TWO CITIES: Housing Policy and Gentrification in London and New York

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First published: Get access to the full version of this article. View access options below. Log in with Open Athens, Shibboleth, or your institutional credentials. If you have previously obtained access with your personal account, Please log in. ABSTRACT: This paper presents the results of a comparative study of neighborhood change.