Nostalgia and gentrification in London

Not only in London but in plenty of other places, too, like Barcelona, for example.

TheEditor has a deep, thoughtful, congenial, and awfully obvious observation for you.

The grit, the beggars, the non-tourists and non-bankers have been all but banned from the famous parts of Western Europe's big cities. We will have to check if that's still true for La Barca because the last time we were there was pre-fuckup but we are sure about London, UK, and Frankfurt, Germany.

Take the north London borough of Camden, the area around King's Cross and St. Pancras -- the latter called St. Pancreas a couple of times by our slightly dyslexic but nonetheless bright and brave K-landers.

The one time hangout of those with no other place to go has been cleaned up, as they call it. The run-down hostels with handwritten signs are being transformed into Best Westerns or Comfort Inns charging ten times the money.

Camden Town with its world famous markets has gone from fringe to tourist trap. Sure, the food is still varied and inexpensive but the chaotic little stalls and vintage shops are now organized into neat little huts with often identical, modern mass produced ware. Steampunk garb made somewhere in Asia is everywhere, next to mugs and LED flashy stuff.

Banksy art style t-shirts alternate with shoe shops.

And nobody in these markets sells socks.

Nobody.

It appears to us that we are seeing country-level gentrification at least in some places in Europe. A gentrification we still only talk about with regard to individual districts, like Berlin's Prenzlauer Berg, or Barcelona's Barrio Chino.
And in the big inner cities, the next step, global gentrification is already being expressed in steel and glass high-rises.

Nostalgia is not easily avoided, and in London, you can't help but wonder what a Victorian person dropped in the middle of the city would feel and say. But it is telling if you, as a tourist, stop for a long chat with the only homeless person left at the Underground Station.

If you have not lost yourself in the frenzy of modern life where two people yards away from each other "talk" via text messages, you'll have to admit that you felt it wouldn't last. That the barrio and the fringe would lose the grit that attracted you to it.  And if you are that young foreigner who played 'donde esta el rey' with the ripoff artists, you will not miss the grin of the immigration officer when you showed up, leaving the country with the clothes on your back, your passport, and a bottle of water in your hand.

That native reservation stateside where people just recently, once again, refused the installation of running water and TV cable lines, you think about it too much.
The first time you went there, the tree branch ten feet away snapped and then the sound of the shot echoed through the hills.

You should not think about this when you look at the price list for the viewing platform of The Shard.

Do you really prefer being shot at to the amenities of London, even if have to pay in "pounds"?  Incidentally, the one pound coin is so heavy that you are 100% certain the designers manifested a dose of British humor in the coin.

One day, we will accept that our kind is not so different from the bumblebee, our habitat is shrinking but at least the bees should become a protected species.