There is a strong feeling that Dalston is being consumed, both in a literal and metaphorical sense. The rate and scale of the building works during 2015 make it feel like Dalston is being built up. There is a constant awareness of cranes in the background, filling up the sky, and a rollercoaster of new buildings coming in an overshadowing the old. New sites are greedily sought after and being turned into new cafes or shops which are unaffordable to many longer term residents.
Not only does the scale feel out of control, but people don’t feel that there is anything they can do about it—it feels like it is happening to them. OPEN Dalston have consistently fought council plans for unaffordable and unsustainable developments and tried to save historic buildings such as the old theatre and Four Aces jazz club at Dalston Square. While there have been successes, many petitions have fallen on deaf ears.
There is little empirical evidence of displacement, but everyone either seems to know someone who has been forced to leave the area through high rents; or feels it might be happening to them. Wilkie’s interviews with Dalston residents heard of estate agents persistently posting offers to sell up through the door. For some people, the chance of a bigger property elsewhere is a positive opportunity they could not turn down.
The type of new building is seen as purely capitalist. The prices are out of reach for both middle class gentrifers and longer-term residents. Gone are the nods to affordable housing; the newer developments are branded as luxury. The form of the housing is designed to maximize profit; small boxy apartments with little communal space for human interaction, and in one case a pub with diverse clientele (an actual mixing place) has been converted into expensive flats.
Not only will these places attract a different kind of person but the buildings themselves provide them with little opportunity for newcomers to mix with local people.
1 Wilkie, O. (2015), Long-term residents experience of regeneration: A case study of Dalston, London, LSE
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