London is home. I was born here and, for the most part, I grew up here. I’ve travelled to and lived in cities all around the world but I’ve always loved coming back to London. I vouch for this city, except for west London (obviously) and my whole life, I’ve encouraged people to come to my city and find something here to love, just like I do, just like my mum did as an immigrant in the eighties.

Now, though, it feels like London doesn’t love me back.

This week, I went to see a band in Islington. Islington is my favourite borough; my dad was born there and when I was a kid, we split our time between Islington and north-west London, where we lived. Islington has my heart. If this city is my home, Islington is the hearth. At least, it was.

Waiting for the band to come on, my friend and I were the only POC in the pub. I watched the traffic outside, both on the road and on the pavement, and still I saw a steady stream of white faces. On the edge of Caledonian Road - one of my childhood Islington haunts, and the neighbourhood I moved back to when I moved out of my parents’ flat - it’s pretty normal to see white folk. For most of my life, and my dad’s, the area has been working class. That means black, brown, white faces, lots of joggers and cigs, a trolley full of Foster’s being carted up the way for a house party.

And we were right next to Angel. At a party back in January or February, someone told me Angel is popular with lawyers. It’s also been heavily gentrified so of course, I expect white, middle-class people at every turn.

Nonetheless, sitting in the pub, I felt alienated. My emotions were probably compounded by the fact that I’m currently looking for a new place to live. I want a space that I can call home, a space that feels like my own. I haven’t been able to live in Caledonian Road for a while now; it’s too expensive for me, it’s priced me out. But I’ve been trying to find somewhere in north London, where I have roots, where I have history, where I could make my own stories again for a while. In that pub, in a sea of middle-class strangers, I felt helpless in the face of reality. I felt pushed out by my own home.

London has a capitalism problem - where the fuck doesn’t? London has been ravaged by gentrification, appropriation, and homogenisation, its various boroughs and neighbourhoods cleansed of character and community in the name of capital. My city demands, in an increasingly loud voice, that you must be able to afford the admission price to any given area. You can live anywhere you please, if you’ve got the cash. As for the rest, well… your worth is based on your wealth.

Capitalism ain’t new, which means that none of this is new. But what I’ve always loved about London, why I’ve always been happy to call it home, is its multiculturalism. Not just token diversity but true integration and respect for different cultures, backgrounds, and experiences. That’s not to say London isn’t bigoted - it is, and there’s plenty of that bigotry in working- and middle-class neighbourhoods alike. But in general, the atmosphere and the attitudes here have been welcoming to and celebratory of weirdoes, immigrants, outsiders.

These days, I get defensive. Every time I go back to one of my old hangouts, there’s a new Starbucks or Whole Foods. Bland tower blocks loom overhead; looking at them, you feel like you could be in Stockholm or Toronto or just about anywhere else in the west. I see people and businesses that have been established for years getting pushed out by a whitewashed ideal of a “good neighbourhood”.

It’s this inconsideration and self-absorption that gets me. White, middle-class people have been moving into poor or “culturally-interesting” (read: BAME) areas to study or work until they’re ready to have a family. They then promptly up sticks to the suburbs (or Clapham, I guess) leaving a trail of chain stores and hipster hangouts in their wake. They bump up business, rent, and retail prices, pushing out poorer locals along with any parts of the “culture” they dislike. Cops get called on late-night parties (whilst white privilege and ego ignore or forget the consequences of this for BAME folk), graffiti and hoodies become criminal, and families - especially those with single parents - are demonised for struggling to survive.

These negative effects of middle-class migration are due to a sense of entitlement we can see throughout a society designed to benefit the rich and the privileged and the powerful above everyone else. The same people who reap relative rewards expect everyone around them to assimilate to their lifestyles and beliefs, or you can suffer somewhere else. It’s this lack of personal and social responsibility that enables gentrification and elitism in the first place. It’s a hallmark of capitalism: look out for yourself above all else, exert power over others wherever you can, and never look back. Or around you. Or beneath you.

Throughout my life, I’ve met people who want to live in any given area within London for the status, or because it sounds good, or because it’s an easier commute. I’ve also met people who move here for job opportunities, or because it’s where their friends live, or because of a diasporic community here, or because they’re from a marginalised community and here there is at least some chance to escape Britain’s violent bigotry.

I believe that there are a ton of good reasons why London has offered a beacon for so many for so long. I also believe in the importance of asking questions - in all areas of our lives, honestly, but in this case, why London? Why that neighbourhood? How will you change your behaviour and expectations to care for the community you are entering?

I think it’s important to consider our impact on the spaces we enter, whether it’s as insular as someone’s home or as broad as your neighbourhood, your city, or your planet. We don’t live in isolation, though London can be a very lonely city. Our choices affect the people around us, even if we don’t know those people. And for people with relative power - like white and middle-class people - it’s absolutely vital to realise how big your impact truly is, even in a world that can make anyone feel small.

Because it’s white and middle-class people who are defining what London will look like in five years’ time, and it’s a London that is less welcoming, less inclusive, and less communal than ever before. It’s a London that no longer feels like home to me, a city I can’t imagine myself living in. And this is not just my story. So many Londoners - locals and immigrants alike - are being stripped of our communities, our sense of place, our stability. And all to comfort and placate middle-class white people, proud to call themselves progressive and liberal, in one of the most open-minded cities in the world - and who also do nothing to help the vulnerable and marginalised folk who also call this city home.

At the moment, I feel certain that my time in London has an expiry date. I don’t believe any of this is a problem that will be solved any time soon, not by my actions alone and certainly not while, in the name of capitalism, we prioritise money, status, and consumerism over social responsibility and community. Today, it hurts. This has been an ache in my heart for months now. I’ve only recently felt a concrete sense of history in my city and already it’s slipping away from me. Already I’m asked to see my history here as just that: history, not roots.

So, I’m moving forward knowing that one day soon I’ll have to say my goodbyes. Maybe it’ll be a forever thing. Maybe I’ll come back; who knows, maybe my city will get its shit together and I’ll find something resembling a home once again. Maybe I’ll find home somewhere else instead, somewhere that shares my values more closely than London can - and maybe I’ll lose that too. After all, I’ve always been a transient person and London’s always been a transient city. We’ve been perfect for each other for so long, but I ain’t got the money, honey, and London ain’t got the heart.

Heavy Machinery is written by Zainabb Hull and powered by N7 and respecting your goddamn community.
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