Can you make something good for a community without contributing to gentrification?

Thinking through a thorny topic

When I talk about the hypothetical cinema, one of the things I always mention is avoiding contributing to gentrification. It is well established at this point that culture and artists, as much as they can add to a local economy and to liveability for existing locals, can also be an avant garde of the arrival of a Foxtons, a Starbucks, a Pret and house prices that make it impossible for those who grew up in the area to aspire to own.

How can a venue add to a community rather than extract from it, respond to a community’s needs rather than dictate them? How can a new venue feel like a natural consequences of what the community has asked for, rather than a landing party for something undreamt of? These are questions I am (hyper-earnestly) turning over. It’s fair to say anything that makes a community more liveable inevitably has an effect on gentrification, but independent cinema’s core demographic is white and middle class, so it inherently has more of an effect of hastening gentrification than other businesses.

I had cause to focus my recently as a result of this Instagram response from the founder of The Dusty Knuckle following some graffiti they were the subject of (GENTRIFRYERS-EW-SHIT BREAD was daubed on their Haringey branch, which is charmingly in the COCK PISS PARTRIDGE school of protest). It inspired me to idealistically grapple with these issues, before I begin the work of pitting these values against cold hard reality. Hopefully, starting with some sense of values and then seeing what is practical might mean that some of it survives. What I do know is that forging ahead with no sense of values means that the hard-worn channels of unconscious bias and neoliberalism decide the course for you. 

None of what I’m advocating for below necessarily changes the tide of gentrification. There are policies and politics that exist beyond any one organisation’s abilities to shape the landscape. But on the other hand, a community-focused organisation has an influential hand – to hold space and present alternatives – and we shouldn’t underestimate the power of this. 

It’s worth saying too that businesses moving in (or being pushed out) of an area are very visible sign of something more vaporous and insidious, the tip of an iceberg. It makes sense that they bear the brunt of the resentment though: you can’t graffiti a housing policy. But on the other hand, it’s wrongheaded to balance a mass shift on whether or not you can get a good flat white locally. I’ve also spoken to new business owners in Waltham Forest who have been thanked by existing members of the local community (from all sections of society, not just the ones you’d expect to frequent the business) for showing care and contributing something.

Stripping back these superficial controversies, where gentrification seems to me a genuinely violent process is around economic displacement that leads to a monoculture. This is where we should centre the issue. These two factors seem to be deeply interrelated to me, though the former is one where an individual business has more levers to pull.

Monoculture is the end result of displacement, which is why brands’ arrival on the average high street is a certain kind of death knell. I had a long argument with a local resident recently who was baffled by all of the hatred towards a Gail’s opening up. ‘If people want it, people buy it. I like the bread and it’s better than anywhere else locally, so what’s the issue?’ I can see the logic. Arguably I’d be delighted if I managed to make a business successful enough that I could expand into other locations.

Where the issue lies is the unequal market conditions that underpin brands dominance. Landlords are much more likely to rent to a national chain, since there’s an aggregate of risk, lowering their anxieties about when they will need to rent again. Where the issue lies is brands’ resilience is not built on simple profit and loss – ‘if the people want it we will come’ – but a steroidal injection of venture capital (capital that is also funding the war machine). This creates an artificial bubble around rent prices, where brands can create an environment where they are the only choice (rather than the one people choose because they prefer it).

A mix of independent businesses (and national chains) is one way to combat that. The fact of Dusty Knuckle’s existence doesn’t deprive someone of the chance to buy a loaf of bread for £1.40 at Aldi or Sainsbury’s (which are about 90 seconds’ walk from their doors in Dalston). Where there is an issue is if the majority of businesses speak to one type of customer. This is an experience that can make people feel squeezed out by culture, even if they are firmly entrenched in their homes by ownership.

So in thinking about this, I’ve tried to put together a list of tendencies and core decisions that underpin the approach. In writing this, I’m conscious that commercial businesses hold little space for declaring their values in any concrete way. This is probably very lofty for someone who is both as green to business ownership as I am and who currently doesn’t operate a business. But stating some intentions has two functions: focusing one’s own mind (what would it mean to practice these values?; what can we do to pull them into reality?) and also holding some space for critique from the community. People who come to a venue – however conscious they are of it – know what the vibe is. So rather than hoping people intuit it, I felt it was worth declaring them. I would be very grateful for any feedback, either to tell me why these things are hard, if not unworkable, or to show me examples of where it is happening elsewhere. Or to tell me other ways to create space that aren’t in this philosophy.

• Not replacing but adding: This feels like ground zero of displacement to me. In selecting a venue, I am trying to look for something that has been disused, neglected or served no function for local people and turning it into something that makes the area more liveable, makes an economic contribution and joyful. If your space has seen a constant churn of businesses that are fighting to keep up with the rent; or if you are taking over a space where the landlords have booted out a long-standing business in hopes of jacking the price up from a newcomer, that seems unjust to me.
  
  London has a phenomenal amount of standing property (looking at residential, 1 in 44 houses in the city are unused according to charity Action on Empty Homes) and Waltham Forest has seen a lot of industrial use turned into commercial use. The challenge is finding a space that is not far off the beaten track while doing that. A brewery that has a secondary use as a tap room can afford to make people walk a bit further. When a businesses’ primary use is footfall as it is with cinema, that’s a different story. 
  
  One piece of guidance from an architect friend was to use layering rather than overwriting as a principle. How do you acknowledge what the area has traditionally been in authentic way, rather than the superficial ‘giving the suburb the name of the tree you chopped down to build it’ route?

• Pricing according to what existing locals can afford: this seems fundamental to me and a big difference from baking where the price is linked to the quality (as quality of ingredients and speed of production inflate the baseline costs). A luxury cinema chain is relying on a very limited number of locals spending a lot of money. I would like the cinema to be well used by a wider group of society, to take a high frequency rather than a high spend per head model. That’s not just a community mindset, it’s also a business rational decision. If you’re already setting an economic barrier, then you’re immediately limiting the pool of people who then might include or exclude based on your programming. This is also an area where cinema is wildly different from a bakery. You can see the luxury chains struggling between the tent pole releases, because audience development is harder for them. Something that is not mass marketed (and therefore feels riskier) is harder to justify at £18+ a ticket (I wrote about this more extensively here). I’d want to look closely at local demography, price accordingly and encourage people to support where they can or feel welcome where they can’t. That’s how you maintain a lively venue that is used by a variety of people.
  
  I also think you can send a message about who your venue is advocating for via your concession policy, which should be down to local demographics rather than standardised groups. An example: I work with a venue who are repeatedly asked by their older clientele (a very significant chunk of their audience) if they will introduce a concession for 65+. While it happens elsewhere, the truth is that fewer old people are living in poverty than young people by a very significant margin in their borough. As a result, we have retained very cheap youth tickets and avoided bringing in an older people’s concession (which amounts to cutting out a significant chunk of value each year that would not be replaced by frequency of attendance). One price fits all doesn’t work, but you need to also be really clear about pricing. I did some fuller thinking about this issue here.

• Refusing a ‘terra nullius’ mindset to the community you’re entering into: While there is a deficit of cinemas in Waltham Forest, there is not a deficit of culture. There is culture almost everywhere, if you understand how broad ‘culture’ is. Moreover Waltham Forest has a phenomenal amount of both traditional ‘culture’ (museums, art, etc) and wider facets like community hubs, places to eat, street art etc. Artillery Projects celebrated twenty years of its E17 Art Map last year, with dozens of stops highlighted. My question is how can you fold in what is already there without being extractive, sharing your resource? Rather than thinking I’m inventing the wheel, I want to be open to collaborating and lifting each other up, learning from who is already there (in all facets). How you do that while also ‘warming up’ areas where there is less regular cultural activity (rather than adding more to Walthamstow) is another question.

• Hiring locally, nurturing staff, creating fair jobs: Again, this is basic stuff, but it’s hard to get right. It’s a much easier if you hire people who have done the job before, and that is easier if you are looking beyond your immediate area. A harder road to take is offering people who wouldn’t get the opportunity otherwise the chance to learn some skills, increase their employability, and take the time to give them a broader sense of the business than their immediate job. What Dusty Knuckle do here is fairly impressive for outcomes. Good signs of this in a cinema are when staff contribute to the programming and events; that there is healthy movement up the organisation; and limited churn of staff (though having the same people in post in perpetuity can also be a sign of toxicity). Any individual cinema inevitably has a cap on progress (since it can only employ so many people), so how do you encourage people to contribute to your business while also setting their sights beyond it? Stagnation and suffocation thrive in these environments.
  
  

Furthermore, I would try to hire people who reflect the local community. If you see someone who looks like you on the other side of the till, you are more likely to feel comfortable and regularly engage. Moreover, if the key decision makers have a lived experience of what this community is, then it becomes easier to seek something that is sympathetic to the local communities needs. I’ve lived in London my entire adult life, but wouldn’t pretend I know what Leyton or Chingford needs. Some of that can be solved by earnest enquiry. Having members of staff who intuitively know what locals want is a big help, so then day-to-day decisions can encompass community buy in. Local staff are also invaluable connectors to that community, which makes the whole process of becoming a community venue pushing at an open door.  

• Buying locally: As well as hiring locally, you can also buy locally and invest in the local economy. I love the example of the collaboration between the Ultimate Picture Palace and Missing Bean. They produced a half caff roast that is ideal for late night cinema viewing and won’t keep you up in the evening. Produced for a specific use, it’s now one of the bestsellers for both businesses. I also see how much The Garden Cinema make use of local partnerships to activate their programme. Besides the warm glow, each business has their own platform of relevant people who you’re exposing yourself to. This is just one part of a wider sense of holding each other up, to offering an alternative to nationalised monoculture. Waltham Forest has an incredibly vibrant brewery scene and I’d be delighted to offer regular tastings and have them on tap, to take just one example.

• Responsiveness and engaging in local issues: Before the venue is open, adopting a co-design mentality and process to forming how the space is conceived hopefully avoids some major structural issues that will mean certain segments will never attend. Then there’s the bigger question of the venue as it is runs. This is a tough thing to get right, probably creates more headaches than it solves, but in terms of general venue hygiene, I think it has an important role to play. How can we create space for the community to speak back? Some venues have a community board as well as a wider board. Does this work, or are you adding a new layer of gatekeepers and people expected to represent a wider group? How about a quarterly meeting that solicits responses (in person and via private submission) that are then available for public discussion? 
  
  One thing I would like to see more of is cinemas connecting with local charities and community groups. On the most basic level, if you have café-bar or function space, you can offer for it to be used by these groups. On a higher level, there should be a coalition on really boring local issues, especially ones that affect the cinema? Cinemas tend to only care about these things when it’s going to affect them personally (e.g. noise abatement or poxy landlords), but how can a cinema get involved and give a strong voice for things it does and doesn’t agree with locally? I can see that getting involved in local issues can be polarising. I can see the resource drain of having to defend yourself, as well as alienating audience segments (the ‘Republicans buy sneakers too’ argument). But being for nothing also has its costs, especially when you need community support. Publicly offering space to groups for free or for a limited cost (and those who can pay accepting that their money subsidises those choices) is a great start.   

What do you think? Is this pie in the sky? Or not nearly enough? I’m most interested to hear from people (publicly or privately) who have been on a journey themselves with these issues. And if you have any touchpoints of reading about co-design, built environment etc, this is all very new to me, so I’d be excited to read!