Brixton Gentrification Struggles 1993-2021
A Timeline
This timeline charts sixty events, campaigns and places in the Brixton gentrification struggles in chronological order. It starts with the 1993 Brixton City Challenge to the merciless implementation of Lambeth's Future Brixton Masterplan in the 2010s, along with the enforcement of austerity measures following the 2008 financial crisis. It ends with the enforced gentrification of the Pope's Road area in 2021, which is now marketed as Brixton Rec Quarter. All entries link to articles, images, videos and some books/theses which document activist perspectives as comprehensively as possible. Online magazine Brixton Buzz, Past Tense and Urban75 deserve special mention as extensive and reliable sources.
The entries are organised in four categories, which run in the calendar underneath the slides:
Campaigns
are organised efforts of residents, local traders and the wider community for the right to social infrastructure in the neighbourhood, such as housing estates, local shops, markets, and the commons more generally. They run for longer periods of time and often work with established community groups like various friends groups, and with lawyers, artists, designers, writers, musicians, bands and activists.
Actions & Events
are activities which support the Right to the City, performed as a one-off or as part of a campaign. In addition to street protests, the timeline includes artistic interventions in places of power and urban space.
Places
are material places which are shaping the urban fabric, such as pubs, cafes and clubs, shops, markets, communal buildings, squats and social centres. They are important for social coherence and conviviality in a mixed neighbourhood, and often get bulldozed as part of gentrification in the process of capital-led urban renewal.
Council & Companies
often team up to push gentrification. They work hand-in-glove to device urban planning policies and share an interest in the bottom line more often than not for the purpose of personal gain.
Reference: Jordi Blanchar and Marion Hamm (2022): Brixton Gentrification Struggles: A timeline.
Design by Activist Media Project. MayDay Rooms, London.
Online Publicaton: https://brixton-timeline.maydayrooms.org/
