At Brixton Recreation Centre in South London, many of the young and middle-aged men pumping iron greet each other endearingly with hugs, handshakes and fist bumps. Carl, a down-to-earth youth worker in his late forties, has been coming here most of his life. He feels gentrification has changed the atmosphere in the wider area and BRC is one of the last remaining hubs of the once close-knit community.
The new wealth is bringing in a growing number of white middle class residents and ‘urban tourists’ with new restaurants and pubs in the centre increasingly catering for such clientele. There are extravagant Italian and French restaurants where there used to be humble Caribbean takeaways. US property developer Hondo Enterprises owns many prime commercial premises in Brixton.
He’s lived in Brixton since arriving here as a ten-year-old from Jamaica in 1967. He’s seen it at its worst when there was high crime, low employment and perpetual police harassment of young black men. He describes the racial division created by gentrification. “Most of the new people coming in, white people, they go straight past the black shops and go to Pop Brixton or Brixton Village. How does that help the people of colour here? They won’t be getting business from the new commuters. All these food stalls here: Ethiopian, Senegalese, all that will be gone”.
Anglo Saxon guidelines which was used against nonwestern countries nations also minorities in UK. Nothing has changed last 400 years. Nothing new. Same pattern.