Hackney, like many inner city London boroughs, is undergoing great change in the wake of the 2012 Olympics. Renowned for its high number of residents from the creative industries, and for the vibrant Peace Mural, there are concerns about the impact of the current gentrification process. Hackney resident Andrea Enisuoh tackles the pros and cons.
There is a ‘Peace Mural’ in Hackney. A colourful if rather battered evocation of a Hackney past. Painted in 1985 by Ray Walker, it takes pride of place in a little enclave on Dalston Lane and depicts a time of anti-nuclear demonstrations, anti-racist campaigns and trade unionism coming together in a multicultural borough with a carnival-like atmosphere. Most people that have ever passed through Dalston on a number 38 bus will have seen it. It’s part of local history.
Today that same mural is used to sum up Hackney in so many ways by so many different people. For some it’s a nod to the Hackney of old; one they remember well and in some ways hanker for. For others – mainly the tourists and the ‘newbies’ – it’s a colourful retro backdrop. One that that graces drum n bass four-piece Rudimental’s album cover and trendy marketing campaigns. A backdrop that has somehow (for now at least) managed to survive the onslaught of the ‘new’ Hackney, post the 2012 Olympics, with its multi-million pound developments, expensive cafés and farm shops.
Regeneration/gentrification, depending on which side of the debate you stand, is a major issue in Hackney. In one corner are those who believe it represents a new healthy economy, bringing with it modern housing, a thriving arts scene and a much needed injection of, well, ‘newness’. A very different landscape to one a friend of mine once described as “all pound-shops and betting shops”.
In the other corner are those who are worried about this new Hackney. Not necessarily because they want to, as some claim, “Keep Hackney Crap,” but because they don’t want Hackney, and the people who live there, to lose the sense of the area’s history, its sense of place and its sense of community.
Those in any doubt that this sense of place or community is under threat need look no further than the recent Hackney Council consultation on the pedestrianisation and development of the Narrow Way, a historic thoroughfare in central Hackney. Publicity for the consultation depicted almost everyone in the artwork as white and/or youthful. The impression is more of an outdated village scene than that of an evolving urban area (see image, top right). It was only when the local Black and Minority Arts Network (BEMA) encouraged its members to make their feelings known that the image was quickly withdrawn and replaced.
Gentrification is not just a Hackney issue. It’s an issue everywhere. It is also a race, class and cultural issue. A point alluded to by novelist Alex Wheatle MBE in a recent video he made about the emerging Brixton. Once an area where many an outsider feared to tread, it is now, he claims, an area “where young professionals are flocking for an £8 burrito”.
Make no mistake. Gentrification/regeneration is happening everywhere. There are those who don’t want change. For me it’s not about change, which I love. I also love the fact that I have the acclaimed Arcola Theatre on my doorstep and that I had the chance to visit the amazing installation that is Dalston House by internationally renowned artist Leandro Erlich on my way home from work.
What concerns me is that many people who live in Hackney can’t afford to buy a cup of coffee in the new Dalston C.L.R. James Library cafe. It also concerns me that while many locals accept they will never be able to afford to buy a place of their own in the borough they grew up in, they are also being priced out of the private rented sector.
Every day I walk past the Hackney Peace Mural. And every day I wonder what Hackney will look like in a few years and whether I will still be here and even if the mural will be. I truly hope so.
Andrea Enisuoh is Words of Colour Productions creative programmes manager (literature and the third sector).