Gentrification II

Middle-class Upwards are very keen on indigenous culture, and a sense of community, and a village feel, and preserving old ways of life. But they are colonising Newington Green bit by bit, and they and the original inhabitants live side by side, their lives interleaved with each other. People who live in Hathersage or Besant Court, or on the Milton Gardens estate, shop at Costcutter and have a cup of tea and a burger at Jesshops, the Flamingo or the Gate. Turkish people go to the Turkish Social Club and the Basak Patisserie. Upwards go to the Trattoria, the Acoustic, the Cellars Pub (or is it the Edinburgh?). They don't go to the Weavers, but perhaps everyone meets at the Alma, which has Sunday roasts and sport on big screens.

I've filtered pictures of the Green into Set A and Set B.

More about gentrification here. And here.

Classy Quotes Part Ten

She bought the home at a discount because the exterior was covered in pebbledash, unlike any other properties on the street. Now that it has been returned to the brick exterior the neighbourhood has breathed a collective sigh of relief. Times May 11, 2012

More than half of the current generation of young women, for instance, will choose a husband from their own social strata, according to figures last month from the Institute of Public Policy Research think-tank. Mail May 4, 2012

Throughout most of the movie the two leads go sight-seeing on the beach, at a rock quarry and other exciting locations. In between these adventures they talk endlessly about the environment, vegetarianism, fossil collecting, the duty of a proper citizen and proper diet, all things I want to see in a comedy. They bore anyone who will listen to them. imdb commenter on Nuts in May (1976) Ray and Candace-Marie are obviously Upwards.

We’ve kept the gym, the beauty salons, the bowling alley and the cinema. But we’ve only used the cinema once and I’ve never been in the pool. Petra Ecclestone, 23, Times April 2012

The 1950s were the end of the golden age of motoring. Suddenly the middle classes turned against cars… round about the time working class people could afford to drive. There’s a surprise. Simon Hoggart Guardian April 28 12

Chavs: the sort of people who live in two million pound houses with tar macadam'd drives, have neighbours and street lighting - just like the council house tenants they look down on upon. Commenter on Middle Class Handbook

Debrett’s latest guide to neighbourly etiquette draws a delicate but precise line when it suggests that neighbours should be invited only to “big parties” and “al fresco events”. In other words, you mustn’t allow them indoors by themselves and you shouldn’t know anyone who wouldn’t call a barbecue an al fresco event. Guardian March 2012

People from deprived areas visited both other deprived areas and prosperous areas … residents of better-off communities… tended to only visit other privileged neighbourhoods. New Scientist April 2012



Classy Quotes Part Nine.

Part Eight here.

More here, here, here, here and here. And here. And here.