Gentrification and hip culture

I once preferred to pass through Preston rather than stop there for any reason.

A working-class suburb in Melbourne’s north that matured after World War II, by the 1990s its High Street had a tired and beaten feel, its life sucked out by the growth of shopping centres and the movement of many of the original families to newer areas.

As a reporter on a local newspaper north of Preston, I would use High Street as a through-way, driving to wherever I was going to cover a story. Garages, brick churches, milk bars and shoe shops flashed past; fruit shops and bakeries that seemed perpetually empty, migrant community clubs with heavy locked doors.

Last week I had lunch with a friend in Preston, the first time I had been there in years. I’d heard about the spread of gentrification to this patch about 8 kilometres north of the city, but the change nevertheless surprised me. Cafes are not just the sign of all that is hip and trendy, but also all that is real and dynamic. In the 21st entury, without a cafe a neighbourhood seemingly has no right to exist. The people who matter don’t produce anything material any more – when not in an office or at home they are in a cafe. And there the coffee springs were: scattered among the old working-class shops in High Street like bright, young heads in a cabbage field. 

I’m ambivalent about the development. There is no question that the area has new life, and new people have moved in thanks to the rapid construction of apartment buildings. I’m also drawn to the hip culture of cafes, funky boutiques, micro-breweries, pop-up design markets and the like, certainly in preference to blandness or chain-store commercialisation. But, in the admirable quest for quality and creativity that seems embedded in this gentrified culture, there are some issues.

The first, as I see it, is that of conformity. Quality needs diversity if it is not to atrophy and die over time – there is a certain look, certain group habits and trends that solidify once a culture is established. The people in that culture start to look the same, think the same, eat the same ... and indeed High St, Preston, is beginning to resemble a number of other places in inner Melbourne, its residents eating organic food, sporting tattoos on their arms, riding certain types of bicycle with certain styles of helmet etc.  It’s true that groups are groups and develop habits – humans are at one level herd animals – but quality and creativity demand the spark of individuality be kept alive, not extinguished by a sinking into the mass. I think there is still much to be understood in the differences and common ground between individual and mass consciousness (and unconsciousness) and what influences both. The test will be if we can create communities where people of diverse ages, nationalities, interests and occupations thrive under a unifying umbrella of acceptance and oneness.

The second issue relates to money. Whatever the claims to cutting-edge style, creativity or environmental sustainability, gentrification is driven by wealth and exclusivity. When the cafe culture comes to town, the existing (poorer) tenants move out – this has largely been the pattern so far. It is capitalism at work, colonising where it can to “add value” to what is there. This process is entirely arbitrary and not intrinsically linked to any moral values; it appears wherever money can be created. It is then no surprise that class politics is absent in the gentrified culture – those who benefit from it are unlikely to question its foundations. Yet capitalism is a hard taskmaster, and even the relatively privileged are increasingly forced to work harder and longer hours to maintain standards of living. The challenge, in my opinion, is to create spaces and forms where the emphasis is on real, living values like community, ecology and solidarity and where monetary wealth, business and profits are not central.

Indeed there is a pureness to the spirit of quality and creativity, as it inspires individuals and groups, which is aligned with generosity and mutuality, as opposed to grasping and serving private ends. Over time this spirit can soften and transform a culture dominated by acquisitiveness and the market. While recognising the demands upon us of society as it is, we need to turn to this spirit, be moved by it, and reach out and remake the world.