CONTEXT 182 : DECEMBER 2024 13 Letter The urban mix From John Fidler, Marina Del Rey, California, and Stockport I cannot disagree with most of Colin Thom’s sentiments (‘Gentrification in London’, Context 181, September 2024), especially regarding the ridiculous security guard wastelands in inner west London. But I want to point him, and others interested in the subject of avoiding the worst of ‘gentrification’, to the achievements in postwar Islington in north London. Here, after valiant efforts of lobbying and persuasion by early conservation advocates, the council invested wholeheartedly in a process of urban regeneration by compulsory purchasing decaying terraces and converting mostly plain but interesting Regency and Victorian townhouses into variously sized council-rented apartments. They were later joined in this by the early housing associations. The borough bought bombdamaged sites and built some of the finest 1960s–70s local authority low-rise housing on the gap sites to complement the mass of Victorian terraced accommodation. I used to live on one side of Barnsbury Street there, in longlease and freehold private-sector flats and single-family dwellings, while neighbours opposite in identical accommodation enjoyed low-rent council curatorship. The mixed social experience worked remarkably well until Thatcher’s dismantling of the welfare estate under right-to-buy legislation drove low-income renters out. In east London in the late 1970s and 1980s, Jonathan Balkind and others in the Greater London Council’s historic buildings division attempted to save the Spitalfields area in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. Massive heritage grants, corporate and private donations, and grand fee-paying events helped to stave off decay at Hawksmoor’s great Christchurch. A few of the early 18th-century Huguenot weaver townhouses were saved, becoming elegant middleclass homes for architectural historian Dan Cruickshank and his pioneering colleagues. But the rest of the historic terraced housing stock remained a dilapidated mess, part derelict, and abandoned as banana warehouses for the local veg market. To foster a good social mix and to help save these (as yet) unlisted terraces, we recommended that Tower Hamlets use its compulsory purchase powers under housing legislation to acquire the premises and follow Islington’s example by converting the buildings into multi-occupation as council house dwellings, the finer Huguenot residences remaining as single dwellings for families of larger size. Alas, Tower Hamlets refused to act, with the result that the ‘gentry’ moved in. One final point: mixed social use of decayed and part-abandoned town and city centres will be vital to restoring small-scale retail operations and social welfare facilities (including clinics and schools) in and around abandoned high streets. Low-income groups alone will not muster the money or political clout to demand better urban facilities. Many hands and all sizes of wallet and purse will be required. John Fidler relationship between heritage and potentially anti-democratic forces was also explored by Claudia Marx of Dresden in her paper on sites commemorating Bismarck. A third session dealt with heritage structures and law. Bori Oluwole-Ojo from Birmingham described a comparative study of heritage administration in England and Kenya. He concluded that Kenya had a more bottom-up system, encouraging greater popular participation. Each German state has its own system of heritage protection and management. In the last formal paper, Lisa Mari Selitz from Münster outlined the development of the system of heritage protection in North Rhine Westphalia. When fully working, this has some aspects in common with the British system. Earlier Johanna Blocker from Cottbus had spoken about the ‘heritageisation’ of democracy in Germany: the promotion of sites related to the development of a democratic country as a source of positive memory with the goal of promoting democracy as a way of life. Heritage has stories to tell and these can be integrated into wider narratives. Many speakers were worried about the use of heritage to promote possibly anti-democratic movements. But the final conclusion in Coventry, after a lively panel discussion, was an optimistic one. Sabine Coady Schäbitz closed the event by emphasising the positive role that heritage and its protection could play: a move from heritage and democracy to heritage for democracy. Michael Taylor, editorial co-ordinator for Context
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