Kensington Market (Toronto) and the Community Land Trust.

Oxford Fruit in Kensington Market - now no more….

Kensington Market: not London, Toronto. This great video below by YouTubers About Here is about one of my favourite places I've ever been, and a really interesting exemplar for the Community Land Trust movement which also has a growing foothold in the UK. At the moment, I’m working with law centres on their advocacy and case work around planning and development in urban communities. These are the kind of models which seem more and more valuable.

And note: these are a chance to bring together various types of stakeholders - not just developers, not just activists (who are only in some cases or ‘nimbys’) and not just local and national government: a properly representative range on an equal footing. So often the inequity of power, and the inability of different groups to communicate with each other (driven partly by a system which can only work adversarially) leads to outcomes where nobody is happy. This kind of approach could take us further.

As the drive to take the stabilisers off on planing and development becomes a cross-party issue, I hope this is something on the radar. There is a real danger that communities lose control of, and connection to, their lived environment in the drive for a bonfire of the planning regulations (which now appears to have cross-party support).

Finally, on gentrification: I’ve tended to find that people are not particularly upset by a new cupcake shop or moustachioed young people setting up a nice coffee place, even if it’s expensive. Unless there is no social housing, rents are rising, green spaces are gone, and they can see that there is no longer any room for them. Gentrification isn’t purely cultural, or a matter of reaction to foreign lifestyles, as people often like to present it - that’s putting the cart before the horse. The proble, of course, is that cultural trappings are not just a totem for, but rather, a sign of, forthcoming economic displacement.