Gentrification In Hackney
In an attempt to work through the (precarious) stack of ‘fun’ books that I had neglected in favour of the more ominous stack of books-for-my-degree, I finally started the one that had been on the top of the pile for at least eight months: Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams.
A funny yet heart-breaking novel, Queenie follows its eponymous heroine as she navigates life, love and her own declining mental health as a young Black-British woman. However, it is as much a story about Queenie herself as it is about her relationship, as a second-generation Jamaican immigrant, with London – a relationship that is haunted by the shadow of the city’s ongoing gentrification.
Defined as the process ‘whereby the character of a poor urban area is changed by wealthier people moving in, improving housing, and attracting new businesses, often displacing current inhabitants in the process’, gentrification has become something of a buzzword in modern social discourse. A key point of contention for citizens of many of the UK’s major cities (and none more so than its capital), it is particularly pertinent in Carty-Williams’ novel as Queenie’s experiences of a gentrified London speak to something much larger: the active erasure of the cultural and physical presence of London’s immigrant communities.
In many scenes, Queenie (who often struggles with reconciling her identity as a Londoner with that of being a second-generation Jamaican immigrant) has to navigate a city that is rapidly erasing her community’s spaces.
Following an emotional moment in her disintegrating relationship with boyfriend Tom, Queenie travels to Brixton to seek out an old Caribbean bakery where she used to go with her grandma to buy some ‘Jamaican bun’ – her favourite comfort food. However, on turning up to the spot where the bakery used to be, she is instead met by ‘a trendy burger bar full of young couples’.
All of a sudden, she comes to the frightening realisation that this space that was once dedicated to giving the Caribbean community of Brixton a taste of home has now been eradicated, replaced by a probably unremarkable, dime-a-dozen burger restaurant.
For many readers, this will be a familiar tale, and indeed, as a lifelong resident of the notorious North London borough of Hackney, it is a story I know all too well. Much like it’s South London sister, Hackney is well known for its historically diverse population. It is (and has long been) the home of several different communities, including Caribbean, Turkish, Kurdish, Vietnamese and the largest Charedi Orthodox Jewish population outside Europe. All of which actively contribute to Hackney’s vibrant social, economic and cultural life.
It was, and in some cases very much still is, a place in which these very different communities have managed to make themselves a home away from home. Each community is physically and culturally represented by the many Turkish, Caribbean and Vietnamese restaurants and Jewish bakeries that populate the borough.
However, in recent years, Hackney (like Brixton) has also undergone the specific kind of gentrification that Carty-Williams writes about: one that panders to and attracts only the young(ish), white, middle-class frequent, whilst actively erasing the contribution, existence and needs of its many other significant communities.
Despite being historically regarded as a slum and classified as London’s most deprived borough as recently as 2010, Hackney as I know it now is a hot weekend destination for the wealthy and (predominantly) white borough-hoppers all over the city. A world away from the no-go zone it once was when my mum moved here in the 1980s. Even from the pretty dodgy place it was during my childhood in the early 2000s, on the weekend visitors to Hackney swarm places like Broadway Market and Stoke Newington Church Street in their droves, hunting for brunch and £500 vintage furniture and rarely being disappointed.
You can always spot the Hackney tourist. In my experience, they are always the ones willingly queueing at The Good Egg, happy to pay £10 for what is essentially expensive organic eggs, maybe avocado and bread – a meal you could make for a respectable £4 if you got the ingredients from Ridley Road market.
These laughable effects of the East London gentrification are everywhere. Take, for example, the particularly memorable scene from the Channel 4/Netflix series Top Boy (set in and around Hackney) in which Ashley Walters’ character Dushane returns to the borough after an absence in Jamaica and walks into a coffee shop.
The guy serving him is what I take to be a satirical interpretation of the Hackney’ hipster’ (a long-haired, neck-tattooed man with a beard) who replies with an extremely drawn-out description of the blend, takes about ten minutes to make it and promptly charges him £3.50. As writer Chimene Suleyman tweeted, the scene ‘as a commentary on gentrification in East London … is a masterpiece’, which shows how places like Hackney are now virtually unrecognisable to people like Dushane, who once called it home.
Of course, the influx of new visitors and residents has not necessarily been all bad. The process of gentrification that is now bringing new people to Hackney is, in some ways, an important indicator of its journey away from being a place where you wouldn’t want to spend the night to one where you can actively enjoy your time.
The redevelopment of Clissold Park, for example, resulted in a larger and safer play area for local children, as well as improved basketball, football, tennis and skate areas, where many of us sweated out our youth. For the (albeit few) independent businesses on my local high street that have been there my entire life, the growing number of customers with large disposable incomes has meant a (pre-pandemic) boom in business that has allowed them to stay afloat amidst the constant turnover of new pop-up companies.
Additionally, the introduction of many more small cafés, salons and shops has created a lot of jobs for many of Stoke Newington’s young people. I don’t think I have one friend from home that hasn’t worked, at least for a short time, in one of the many pubs, bars, restaurants, clothing or card shops that litter our high street.
Although the gentrification of Hackney can sometimes be a good thing, which makes it no longer the place where seems like ‘somebody’s been playing Jumanji’ (as local rapper Professor Green sing in his 2010 song Jungle), we cannot and should not ignore that making Hackney’ nicer’ also means ‘whiter’.
Rather than an influx of new businesses that cater to Hackney’s historically diverse population – such as, say, a Caribbean bakery or an Asian-food specialist market as large as the new M&S next to Dalston Kingsland – gentrification has brought in much of the stereotypical same. French bistros or wine bars, overpriced Mediterranean style-breakfast cafés, Scandinavian-inspired homeware and clothing stores (that had the cheek to sell literal twigs for £12 – don’t worry, that one didn’t last long).
That nice always equals white is perhaps the biggest issue with gentrification in my eyes - even more so than its tendency to raise house prices and living expenses, resulting in poorer (and usually non-white) residents being priced out of areas they have occupied for generations.
As Justin Davidson writes in a 2019 article for New York Magazine, a number of studies show that this does not happen on as drastic a scale as we might think. However, what happens on a large scale is that, as an area experiences an influx of predominantly wealthy white residents and businesses as part of the gentrification process, smaller immigrant communities begin to experience a reduced feeling of belonging in the places that they have historically called home.
An excellent example of this is Hackney Council’s current plans to re-develop the indoor shopping centre component of Dalston’s famous Ridley Road Market. An East London institution since the late 1880s and at the forefront of Hackney’s rich history of cultural diversity, the former ‘best market in London’ has been in decline for several years as a result of Dalston’s slow-but-steady gentrification, and in 2019 the covered section of the market was even served with an eviction notice.
Although swiftly averted after a gruelling and frenzied campaign by Hackney locals, the council have still not given up on trying to destroy what is both an important cultural heritage site and an essential source of livelihood to its many traders. Now, the plan is to re-develop the market’s indoor shopping village, resulting in massive rent hikes and evictions for shop owners on the ground floor and outdoor traders who rely on the indoor storage space.
This will result in a considerable decrease in income for many of Ridley Road Market’s traders, people who made Dalston the cultural hotspot it is known. The redevelopment plan will push out people who have lived and worked in and around the market for decades to make room for what I can only assume will be exclusively white, wealthy families in luxury penthouse flats.
This is not the version Hackney I want to live in. I have to admit that, despite being a born-and-raised Hackney girl, my ethnic and economic background means that I belong to the very same group of white, middle-class young ‘professionals’ that I have been bashing this entire article.
However I do not want to live in an area that actively privileges people like me (who, according to the 2011 census, were actually the minority ethnic group in the borough) over those who have made Hackney the endlessly fascinating borough it is today.
I want to live in a place that actively supports and celebrates cultural diversity, where nice is not just a high street filled with quaint brunch cafés but also one that has a market that sells goat, yam, cassava and plantain. A neighbourhood that works for and not against the communities that have made it what it is. I hope that the gentrification of Hackney is not too far gone to prevent this disruption, although judging by the rate at which Hackney seems to be churning out its slew of steel and glass luxury penthouses, I don’t think I’ll be holding my breath.
If you would like to learn more about the impacts of the gentrification of Hackney and, in particular, the planned redevelopment of the Ridley Road Indoor Shopping Village (and also potentially lend a hand), please check out the #SAVERIDLEYROAD campaign which you can find at: https://www.saveridleyroad.com/.
Written by Ellie Rowe
Ellie Rowe is a recent English Literature graduate from the University of Bristol. Although she hopes to pursue a career doing something vaguely related to her degree, she is currently working as a salon assistant in her local hairdressers in Hackney. In her spare time, she likes to drink with friends and fantasize about living in a small Italian village with a dog and some lemon trees.