Mapping Hacks

There’s a lot of talk, in this part of London, of various regeneration projects which will drastically alter the area. In the shorter term, they propose to have an “Olympic Park” which will replace a fairly run-down, light industrial part of Hackney Wick and Tower Hamlets.

I found this article, on how local businesses are being forced out of ‘regenerated’ areas, fascinating and pertinent reading.

Local merchants “are being priced out by the very inner city renaissance
they are helping to create“, it claims. In our area of Limehouse, local
business has never really hada chance to rgenerate; vast estates of exciting
modern wharf developments are bereft of even corner shops, even tesco metro; a
residential ghetto punctuated by packs of joggers.

From New York, a correspondant writes of “New York’s own Olympic Bid (and
it sounds like on the upper west side
and in queens it will be as devastating for the local working class
population as in Hackney)“. This is not so much a question of
regeneration, as replacement.

The Masterplans
for the replacement of this area promise a glittering future. We’re planning a
GPS and hoto annotate walk around the are soon, and try and build a better
picture of the present reality…

Posted in london |

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.