By Adela Suliman
LONDON, Nov 29 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Glassy skyscrapers and luxury apartment towers cast a shadow over an east London high street dotted with greasy-spoon cafes and launderettes, a “last bastion” against gentrification, according to a new film released in Britain on Friday.
London’s growing financial district and a traditionally working-class neighbourhood sit awkwardly alongside each other in “The Street“, a movie by documentary filmmaker Zed Nelson, who grew up in the area.
“Everything was being sold off to the highest bidder, that’s what really inspired me to make the film,” Nelson, 53, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in an interview.
“You end up with this increasing sense of inequality and I think lots of cities, not just in the UK but internationally, have experienced those kind of changes.”
The film hones in on a community holding out against creeping gentrification and rising property prices. Traditional retailers, including a carpet shop and century-old bakery, close to make way for digital media start-ups and luxury apartments.
A lack of affordable social housing, the sale of land to property developers and a changing demography “put enormous pressures on communities” said Nelson, so that “long term residents feel increasingly alienated.”
An average property price in the London borough of Hackney, where the film’s Hoxton Street is located, is about 683,000 pounds ($876,000) according to real estate agent Foxtons, with some properties worth 2 million pounds ($2.6 million).
