In the rush to gentrify so much can be lost. It takes imagination to improve a cityThe new series of Tina Fey’s Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt landed on Netflix this week,and with it landlady Lillian’s dirty-nailed war against gentrification. When an abandoned building is turned into a performance space, and she realises that the graffiti she’d welcomed is not a gang’s tag but instead marks to show where new fibre-optic internet is to be laid, or she resolves to fight. “Theyre gonna produce this neighbourhood nicer over my dead body,” she says, her voice that of a boy approaching bar mitzvah age. “Or at least a body that certain looks a lot like me but is burned beyond recognition.”For a long time I secretly yearned for gentrification, and leaning out of the window of my flat and seeing the skyline spike into a chart of skyscrapers and Leons while my road remained stubbornly paved with human shit and one lone chicken shop. Then,a three-minute walk absent, the cereal café opened, and with it a kickback against everything it stood for. Locals eyed the queues with admiring bemusement as they zipped into Pret a Manger for a takeaway porridge. I kept my gentrification fantasies still. But from the distance of some tube zones,hearing how black and white the arguments sound – they can be filed as either Lillian’s rage, or the “Calm down dear”s of a cold-eyed estate agent – I’m keen to hear the third voice.
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Source: theguardian.com