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eaglesnick · 1 year

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Is Capitalism Working? Landowners (3)

After the aristocracy and large corporations the third biggest landowners in the UK are oligarchs and city bankers.

A headline in the New Yorker (17/03/22) had this headline:

“How Putin’s Oligarchs Bought London: From banking to boarding schools, the British establishment has long been at their service, discretion guaranteed.”

Many would say that the greed of British banks and financial services knows no bounds but that would be wrong. In February last year the BBC had this headline:

“UK fast-tracks law to tackle Russian 'dirty money' The UK is fast-tracking legislation to target money-laundering by foreign oligarchs. The government's move follows Russia's decision to invade Ukraine. As part of the measures, foreign property owners will have to declare their identities rather than using companies as a façade.” (BBC: 28/02/22)

Until the invasion of Ukraine, Russian oligarchs had been actively (but secretly) encouraged to use British banks and financial services to launder their dirty money.

In 2020, the BBC disclosed that an associate of Putin had used Barlays Bank to “launder millions” of pounds, thereby escaping US sanction imposed on him since 2014. And the Financial Times reported that over the last 20 years London has become one of:

“...the preferred investment locations — if not the favoured destination — for Russian oligarchs, as well a key financial centre for Russian companies, all encouraged by British governments of different political stripes.” (Financial Times: 04/03/22)

Much of these ”investments” went into the London property market.

“Over the past two decades, London’s high-end property market was overrun by the global superrich led by Russian oligarchs who did so many big, brash deals that locals called the city Londongrad.” (Wall Street Journal: 09/03/22)

The laundering of Russian criminal money by the City of London, be it the spoils of cyber crime, illicit arms deals or other mercenary activities, has been known about for years. Russian money entering the property market has pushed up prices. Successive British governments have turned a blind eye to this because they welcomed the increase in foreign money because it helped Britain with its balance of trade deficit.

Apart from the morally corrupt impact this has on our body politic, government complicity in this sordid chapter of our history has a cost for all of us.

When the super-rich oligarchs buy top end properties, the slightly less wealthy:

“…start to look into marginally less expensive districts, where the most successful professionals might be pushed further afield, and so on, until first-time buyers in outer boroughs find their studio flats are a notch more pricey." (Rowan Moore, quoted in The Week: 09/03/22))

This domino effect has helped push up property prices for all of us, and as property prices rise, so do rents.

But it is not only land buying oligarchs who have pushed up the price of British housing and rents.

“A ‘Great Reset’ of the British property market is currently underway, with big banks buying up houses across the country and edging out first-time homebuyers.” (Breitbart: 30/08/21)

It would seem banks are partnering up with housing developers to purchase new homes with the intent of renting them out, a buy-to-let scheme on an industrial scale. Lloyds Bank, for example, bailed out by the British taxpayer in 2009, has plans to become the country’s largest landlord by 2030.

Houses are no longer viewed by banks as places for people to live, but as profitable assets. Banks have at their disposal an almost unlimited supply of money. The entry of the banks into the housing market not only pushes up the price of residential properties to the detriment of all of us but it also has negative consequences for the housing rented sector.

“If this level of investment in residential stock ‘built to rent’ continues, the letting market in the UK will undergo a seismic change – with small independent landlords being squeezed out to the periphery.” (Guardian: 19/08/21)

Once the independent landlords have been squeezed out of the market the banks will hold a monopoly, and be more interested in maximising profits for their shareholders, rather than providing decent affordable homes for their tenants.

#Capitalism #uk politics #property #land ownership #banks #oligarchs #russians #Londongrad #money laundering

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mostlysignssomeportents · 3 years

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The free market and rents

When you hear the phrase "free market," you probably think of "a market that is free from regulation" but that's the opposite of the phrase's original meaning!

Adam Smith used the term to describe a market that was free from "economic rents" - money earned by owning things, rather than doing things. Smith recognized that markets attract parasites - "rentiers" - who seek to drain wealth by "investing" rather than building and doing.

Which meant that, in the absence of muscular state intervention, markets would become less and less free - more and more dependent on the whims of rentiers who used money to breed money by creating toll-barriers between parts of the productive economy.

For Smith, markets were only free if they were regulated. But that's the opposite of the way that we talk about free markets today. Today, a free market is a market where you are free to collect rents - passive income from owning things, at the expense of people doing things.

This is true in so many metaphorical ways, but it's especially true when we're talking about actual rent - actual homes that people need to survive and produce, whose primary role today is to serve as an asset class to be maximized, not a basic human right.

London is ground zero for the conversion of housing from a human right to a speculative asset, a city at war with itself, filled up with empty safe-deposit boxes in the sky, while productive workers - the "essential workers" of the pandemic - triple-up in substandard housing.

The conversion of London from a city to an asset was hugely profitable, primarily for offshore "investors," especially criminals who were attracted by London's veneer of respectability, which allowed them to convert their loot to legitimate earnings through property sales.

The overslosh of these tremendous cash flows has hopelessly corrupted London's planning authorities, who are absolutely helpless and hopeless at holding developers to their own promises - new builds get extra storeys and shed public concessions without penalty.

And just as the tax-authorities who despair of enforcing against the real cheats turn their efforts to everyday people who can't afford to fight investigations, London's planners spend their days making life miserable for homeowners trying to make minor improvements.

I spent two years fighting Hackney for the right to build a small, windowed greenhouse on my flat's balcony, finally giving up on growing my own veggies. Meanwhile, the for-profit "student residence" across the street replaced hundreds of small offices, overbuilt and busted.

Today, it's a failed Wework, while the four-storey "boutique hotel" across the street has been transformed into eight+ storeys, with multiple storeys of office space, all without any planning enforcement.

The conversion of London into a tradeable asset was a deliberate project. It started with the destruction of public council housing through Thatcher's Right to Buy program, which left low-income people at the mercy of concessions made by private landlords and developers.

Even before Thatcher, Tory local councils like Wandsworth's engaged in ethnic cleansing by purging their public housing in favor of for-profit schemes, with the explicit goal of replacing Labour-voting working people with Tory landed gentry.

Decades later, London's property markets are purely unfree, dominated by rentiers who have massively oversupplied the luxury property market, then engaged in fraud - relisting the same property every couple days - to make it seem like the market was thriving.

Planners give builders permission to make more of these empty, unneeded super-luxe "homes" on the condition that they supply affordable housing in the same development.

Builders like those behind the Battersea Power Plant conversion renege without consequence: they pledged to make 15% of the new units affordable, then slashed it to 9%, claiming "technical difficulties."

When they do make good on their promises, they do so in the most meanspirited, disgusting ways. Remember when the almshouse that Dickens based Oliver Twist's setting on was converted to luxury flats on condition that the builder supply affordable homes?

The builder produced "segregated housing" - homes around a greenspace where rich kids played, but which poor kids literally couldn't access. The poor wing of the development had no gates that accessed the playground.

https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/jul/19/london-officials-ban-segregated-play-areas-in-future-housing-developments

A commonplace in these developments is the "poor door." The developer builds a high-rise with a fancy marble lobby and a doorman, then literally puts a shitty little door around the back next to the garbage bins for the low-income occupants.

The poor door - and its companion, the poor elevator, so the rich people don't ever have to see poor neighbors - inspired me to write UNAUTHORIZED BREAD, which explores all kinds of rentierism, from your toaster to your fridge.

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/01/unauthorized-bread-a-near-future-tale-of-refugees-and-sinister-iot-appliances/

Dystopian sf is a warning, not a suggestion, but London's luxe real-estate barons keep getting that wrong. In a wonderful, infuriating longread, The Guardian's Oliver Wainwright explores the literal structural inequality of London's Nine Elms.

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2021/feb/02/penthouses-poor-doors-nine-elms-battersea-london-luxury-housing-development

The low-income residents at Nine Elms enjoy a uniquely cursed arrangement with the building. They "own" (that is, pay a mortgage on) 25% of their homes, while the remaining 75% is "rented." They have all the disadvantages of ownership and none of its advantages.

The building's management forces them into poor-doors, and denies them access to the pool, the gym and other amenities ("to keep service charges down"). Their neighbors - hereditary Emirati princelings - leave their flats empty most of the time.

But when they do show up, they import their performance sports-cars, which they park in the fire-lane and race up and down the street in the middle of the night.

Building management skimps on maintenance and sells poor tenants out to monopoly energy providers who practice merciless price-gouging on the people who can least afford it.

Tellingly, when Wainwright questioned local Tory councillor Ravi Govindia about the scams, cruelty, and meanness of his poor constituents, Govindia shrugged it off, calling it the free market in action and saying that "it's up to people to make their choices."

Govindia is more right than he knows. When we converted Smith's free markets - free from rentierism - into Thatcher's - free *for* rentierism - we made this kind of neo-Victorian class division inevitable.

Converting housing into property, human rights into assets, guaranteed millions of people would be coerced into abusive commercial arrangements just to survive - and that the profits from their exploitation would be laundered to elect Tories who'd accelerate the process.

A market that is "free" from anti-rentier regulation is a market where all the freedom is gathered into the hands of a few parasitic toll-collectors who get to exact ever-higher tolls from the productive sector.

#pluralistic

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crownhousing-blog · 7 years

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Guaranteed Rent | CrownHousing Estate Agents

#Guaranteed Rent #guaranteed rental agreement #council guaranteed rent scheme #London Guaranteed Rent

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homes2letguaranteedrent · 3 years

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homes2let | Guaranteed Rent

Across London boroughs, our private rented property is providing much-needed safe, quality housing for families in need. The homes2let guaranteed rent scheme makes it possible for London and Croydon based letting agents and landlords to let their properties easily, with complete cashflow certainty.

Address: Interchange Building, 1st Floor, 81-85 Station Road, Croydon CR0 2RD, United Kingdom Phone: +44 20 8444 5555 Website: https://homes-2let.com

#Guaranteed Rent #Guaranteed Rent Companies

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mohammadyousef2 · 4 years

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Things You Must Know Before Renting a Apartment

Are you looking for apartments for rent. near you? Well, before you rent a property, there are a few things you must know.

Letting agents

For some individuals, giving agents a chance to will be the primary port of call when searching for a place to rent. Giving agents a chance to will publicize rental properties, orchestrate viewings and help arrange the tenancy understanding. Sometimes they even deal with the property in the interest of the landlord - so it's beneficial examining exactly how included your giving agent a chance to will be, apartments for rent.

Letting agent charges

The Consumer Rights Act 2015 made it a lawful prerequisite that giving agents access England and Wales should plainly show every one of their charges at their business premises and on their site. The rundown must be comprehensive of VAT and ought to incorporate a depiction of each charge or expense, regardless of whether it applies to every property or each tenant and what it covers. Be that as it may, private renters will never again need to pay letting agent charges as the Tenant Fees Act becomes effective from 1 June 2019. Landlords and agents in Wales will be restricted for charging additional expenses from September 2019. Letting office charges have been prohibited in Scotland since 2012.

Change schemes

An advantage of managing letting agents is that they should be a piece of an affirmed change scheme that can intercede in questions among landlords and tenants. The letting agent should plainly state which scheme they are individuals from. The three government-sponsored schemes are:

● The Property Ombudsman (TPO)

● Ombudsman Services Property

● The Property Redress Scheme

A nearby board can issue a repaired punishment fine of £5,000 to a part of a letting office that neglects to go along with one of the schemes, apartments for rent near me.

Holding deposits

A letting agent may request that you pay a holding deposit, particularly on the off chance that you are looking in enormous urban areas, for example, London. A holding deposit is paid when you plan to rent a property and need the letting agent to put a hang on the property being appeared to other planned tenants, while you experience the referencing procedure before you consent to a tenancy arrangement.

In the event that you pay a holding deposit to the letting agent, it implies that you're focused on renting the property and that the landlord is focused on renting the property to you, giving checks are effective. Right now, holding deposits don't need to be secured in a deposit insurance scheme, so you may experience issues recovering the majority of your holding deposit in the event that you choose you never again need to rent the property. Get familiar with holding deposits and steps you can take to defend your cash by perusing our holding deposit direct.

The tenancy understanding

The tenancy understanding is a contract between you and your landlord. Most tenancy understandings are a guaranteed shorthold tenancy understanding for a fixed term - typically six to a year. Past that there are two principal kinds of tenancy contract that your landlord may offer: A joint tenancy understanding This considers the entire gathering in charge of the property and aggregate rent installments.

An individual contract: This contract is between each tenant and the landlord. In the event that you have the decision, request this kind of understanding as this implies on the off chance that one individual goes out in any way, shape or form or pays rent late, different tenants won't be obligated.

The tenancy understanding is a type of buyer contract and all things considered it must be in plain language which is clear and straightforward. It must not contain any terms which could be 'unreasonable'. An unreasonable term isn't substantial in law and can't be upheld, property for rent.

#apartment #real estate #volgopoint #apartment for rent

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spursproperty-blog · 4 years

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Address: Suite 85, 63-66 Hatton Garden, Holborn London, EC1N 8LE, United Kingdom Phone: +442080503632 WhatsApp: +447775333523 Business email: [email protected] Website URL: https://www.spursproperty.co.uk/

About US:

We buy houses fast! All situations and conditions are considered, including negative equity. Best Offer Guaranteed. No fees, No agents. We also provide alternative paths to homeownership for ordinary people with real needs. No fees, No agents. Contact us today to learn more. Services: Homeowner & Tenants Upsize or get on the property ladder with ease. You can start your journey with as little as 3% deposit even with poor credit or no credit history. No fees, No agents. Landlord Services Sell your property in any condition directly to us and make more money: Facing repossession? Relocating? Divorce? Negative equity? Unable to sell? No problem, we are here to help! Offer guaranteed. Contact us today to learn more. No fees, No agents. We are here to help: Rent to buy, rent to buy scheme, need to upsize, relocation, refused by mortgage lenders, quick sale, eviction stopped, financial difficulties, mortgage arrears, divorce, bereavement, confidential service. We solve property problems. Your smile is our inspiration. Get in touch

Social Media Links: https://www.instagram.com/spursproperty/ https://twitter.com/spursproperty

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denhanuk · 2 months

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Denhan

Denhan, as a firm of letting specialists, understands the frustration landlords often face. Loss of rental income can prove very costly to landlords, and we’ve made it our mission to eliminate this risk by minimising the void period and maximising your rental income. We are here to ensure your rent is paid on time and every time. Our team has in-depth knowledge of property management and is ready to assist, whether you are a first-time landlord or a portfolio landlord.

#Guaranteed Rent Scheme Lambeth #Letting Agent Croydon #Letting Agent Lewisham #Letting Agents Lewisham #Letting Agents In Lewisham Area #Guaranteed Rent Schemes In London #Lettings Agent Company Wandsworth #Guaranteed Rent Scheme London #London Landlord Guaranteed Rent #Guaranteed Rent For Landlords London

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easymoveeauk · 1 year

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#Guaranteed Rent London

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allthecanadianpolitics · 6 years

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Not to tell you your business but - can we have some positive news stories about the NDP to reblog as well as the negative ones about the PCs? Someting to vote for instead of against? I know that you've posted TONS of those in the past, but today's the big day and all!

Alright here’s my masterpost of good Ontario NDP stories:

The Ontario NDP has scored top marks from the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations, which represents 17,000 university faculty and academic librarians across Ontario.

Ontario NDP scores high marks in report on poverty-related health issues

Horwath announces plan to help seniors stay in their homes

Durham highway tolls will be removed if elected, say NDP candidates

Ontario Steelworkers Endorse Andrea Horwath and the NDP

Horwath to fund 30-day wait max for youth mental health services

Andrea Horwath promises rent registry to combat ‘renovictions’

Horwath announces three weeks of paid vacation for full-time workers

In addition to gender parity (56% of candidates are women), the Ontario NDP has also achieved proportional rates for racialized and indigenous candidates

Horwath to put life-saving devices in more public places

Ontario NDP Election Promises on the Arts

Horwath will hire 4,500 nurses in first year in office

Opinion | NDP has the best plan to deal with rent affordability

An NDP government would not use back-to-work legislation to end strikes, party leader Andrea Horwath says

Horwath will convert student loans to grants, forgive interest on student loans

NDP only Ontario party opposed to siting nuclear waste bunker near Lake Huron

Horwath’s NDP would ‘adjust’ Ontario cap and trade to fight climate-warming pollution

Andrea Horwath is the only political leader in Canada that has committed to ending police carding AND destroying the data collected by police.

The Ontario NDP is running 5 LGBTQ candidates in the Ontario election.

The Ontario NDP have the most Black candidates in the Ontario Election

Ontario NDP guarantees clean water for First Nations, ‘will send the bill to Ottawa’

NDP will block gas-price gouging on long weekends, Horwath says

An open letter to the working people of Ontario: change that works for Ontario means voting for Andrea Horwath and the Ontario NDP. - The Ontario Federation of Labour

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath says Toronto’s downtown relief line will be a priority

Ontario NDP promises more money for victims of Grassy Narrows’ mercury poisoning

Horwath promises Brampton another hospital, expanded health-care services

More than half of NDP candidates are women, a first for Ontario political parties

An NDP government would make hydro public again, end off-peak pricing, Horwath says in Sudbury

Horwath hydro means 30% lower hydro bills, Ford/Wynne hydro scheme means 70% hike

President of The Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario, Sam Hammond announces that the ETFO will be endorsing the Ontario NDP and Andrea Horwath in the Ontario election.

Ontario’s largest education union opts to endorse NDP over Liberals

Take-home cancer drugs will be covered under OHIP if New Democrats win the June 7 election: Andrea Horwath

NDP Leader Horwath pledges debt-free future for Ontario students during London stop

Ontario NDP makes principled promise to give First Nations all mining tax revenue

The Ontario NDP is promising to end the EQAO standardized tests in schools.

Ontario NDP’s environment/climate change policies

The Ontario NDP’s Fiscal platform

The Ontario NDP’s Reconciliation platform

The Ontario NDP’s Government/Democracy platform

The Ontario NDP’s Economy platform

The Ontario NDP’s Social Justice platform

The Ontario NDP’s Affordability platform

The Ontario NDP’s Education platform

The Ontario NDP’s ‘Healthier Communities’ platform

The Ontario NDP’s long term care platform

The Ontario NDP’s Healthcare platform

The Ontario NDP’s New Social Services Platform

The Ontario NDP’s Mental Health Platform

Ontario NDP promises $12-a-day child care and lower deficits if elected

If the Ontario NDP are elected, the government will fully cover the cost of transition drugs and improve access to gender-confirming surgery for transgender people.

NDP in Ottawa-Vanier nominate Ontario’s first transgender candidate for MPP

OFL applauds Ontario NDP plan to bring universal dental care to Ontario - The Ontario Federation of Labour

Andrea Horwath’s Dental Care for Everyone plan

NDP promises to give Ontario full dental coverage, repay student loans

#smilodonmeow #Ontario NDP #Ontario

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peckhampeculiar · 5 years

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Turn up for the books

WORDS: GARTH CARTWRIGHT; PHOTO: LIMA CHARLIE

Down a cobbled alleyway next to Peckham Rye Station’s railway bridge huddles Books Peckham. This tiny shop is a discreet gem hidden away from the hustle and bustle of the main street. A small, portable sign at the corner of 125 Rye Lane and the alleyway notifies passersby of “secondhand books”, but for those who venture down here, past Asian Takeaway and a juice and ice cream vendor, there exists a treasure trove of books and zines.

“I’ve been a zine distributor since 2004,” says Books Peckham’s proprietor Peter Willis. “I’m from Cambridge originally and I was making zines and selling them at local gigs – punk gigs, stuff not covered by the mainstream media.

“I’d do zine fairs and review other zines, stuff from the USA. In 2007 I moved to Camberwell to study illustration at the art college and I’ve been here ever since.

“The stuff I was doing was initially illustration-based, but I was involved with the punk scene and then I got involved with the London Zine Symposium – we did it for seven years. That was the big one. There were four of us and it cost about a grand to put on.

“When the couple involved broke up we lost the funds for venue and table hire. Since then I’ve been involved with the South East London Zine Fair. We’ve held two at the Amersham Arms and one at the Montague Arms.”

The zines Peter stocks at Books Peckham range from Maximum Rocknroll – the foremost American punk publication that is more than three decades old and is still going strong in inky black and white – through to tiny publications devoted to specific subjects. There’s a glossy third wave feminist zine that mixes fashion shoots with polemics and a £15 book zine of “found” photographs. It’s a fascinating and eclectic collection.

“I like the direct interaction with people,” says Peter of the zine community. “I write and trade zines with people – I’d send 10 copies of my zine to someone doing a zine and vice versa and, that way, we got to spread the zines around.

“When I’m doing a zine I will only print up 50 on average. Two hundred is the biggest print run I’ve done. I like to keep my zine print runs small – sell out of one then move on to another. That said, if I run out of copies and someone orders a copy, I can run off other copies – five or 10 – and that means I have stock again for fairs.”

We talk about the iconic punk zine Sniffin’ Glue, edited by Mark Perry, which started out in Deptford in 1976. “I like the fact that I’m operating not too far away from the historic base of punk zines,” Peter says.

In addition to zines, Books Peckham sells – obviously – books. For a small shop it has a vast selection that, when the weather is good, spills onto tables outside the shop. Titles range from art monographs to works by famous authors, pulp fiction and eccentric bohemian musings – and everything is very reasonably priced.

Before he opened in Peckham, Peter had a stall at the Camberwell Sunday Market. “I did every Sunday I wasn’t working and it just took off,” he says. “At the first market I did, I sold two thirds of my stock.

“The first day I met a guy who lived on the Peabody Estate nearby. He bought two books and he said, ‘Do you want to buy 3,000 books?’ I thought he was joking but it turned out he was a former book dealer and had all this stock.

“I was happy doing the market but then they finished it in September last year. I did a couple of fairs – at DIY Space and other alternative spaces – so I was keeping my eyes open.

“I heard of this place but by the time I got a day off work to look at it, it was gone. A florist took it, but only briefly. Then I saw a sign in the nail salon at the corner of Rye Lane and the alleyway saying ‘shop for rent’.

“I got the key on Christmas Eve, went to Cyprus until January 10 and I’ve been here since. This was the cheapest place I could find and Ali, the landlord, is really cool – he didn’t ask for a deposit and it’s weekly, so I have the option of walking away if I can’t sell enough stuff. It allows me to enjoy it and everything I do feeds into Books Peckham and beyond.”

Peter doesn’t earn a living from Books Peckham at the moment. He makes enough from book and zine sales to cover the rent, but beyond that his shop is a labour of love. To cover living expenses he works for Camden Arts Centre and shares an illustration studio in the Bussey Building.

“Our studio is called Studio Operative – it’s me and Alice Lindsay – and we publish an illustration journal called Limner,” he says. “We’ve done four issues of that as well as artist monographs. We’ve just done one with Chris Harnan, he’s an artist who lives around here.”

Peter has enjoyed his first year as a bookshop owner. “It’s been great,” he says. “Straightaway it was better than I thought it would be. There’s not been a week when I’ve not covered the rent. People find me from Instagram or from the street. I’ve met poets and artists and book collectors and all kinds of local people. I enjoy chatting with everyone who comes through. If things get quiet, well, that gives me time to read.”

As we chat, a constant flow of people drop by to buy and sell books. Books Peckham is only open three days a week, and there’s no guarantee which three – so stumbling upon an antiquarian treasure or pulp gem is a matter of chance.

“Because I’m on shift work I’m unsure which days [I can open],” Peter says. “I put up on Instagram the days I’m open each week.

“I’m sorry I can’t be open more days, but most people understand that this isn’t work as such. It’s not a grand scheme. I definitely need to be wary of not burning out because I’m essentially working seven days a week, with Camden and the studio and Books Peckham.”

Hopefully the shop will continue to develop organically, allowing Peter to spend more time in SE15. Right now his focus is on a new zine, one that’s related to his shop.

“I’m doing The Books Review of Books, a zine focusing on what I sell and people I’ve met who are doing interesting stuff,” he says.

“It seems like doing the book stall I’ve met so many people who are doing great things, so I want to make it more visible – what I do and what they do.”

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cityboroughhousing · 2 years

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City Borough Housing offers a leading guaranteed rent scheme in London. We have a portfolio of properties to rent, suitable for the Private Sector Leasing Scheme (PSL), across Greater London and parts of Kent and Surrey. As as rent guarantee scheme provider we have established working relationships with a number of local authorities and social providers and we pride ourselves on the management and delivery of suitable accommodation. City Borough Housing offers a comprehensive guaranteed rent scheme in London to ensure that our landlords receive both a reasonable rental income and a professional management service (provided at no extra cost). As your guaranteed rent company the landlord enters into a private sector leasing agreement directly with us, City Borough Housing Ltd, for a minimum term of 3 years during which we will pay a fixed rent every month.

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emilysarsam · 6 years

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Taking back the market: An auditory dérive through Pueblito Paisa

Dérive (“drift”) in psychogeographic terms, suggests to derive the meaning of a place by passing through its varied ambiences with a playful and constructive awareness of the space and the encounters which it facilitates (Debord 1958). The concept offers a lens through which I will explore microclimates within the Seven Sisters market in Tottenham. My approach to this study was heavily influenced by spacial theorists such as Henri Lefebvre and David Harvey, whose book “Rebel Cities” I happened to be reading at the time of discovering the market. Pueblito Paisa, strongly resembles Harvey’s idea of a “microstate”, which he describes as an autonomously functioning fragmented state, that is born out of the stark polarization of wealth in highly urbanized cities (Harvey 2013, p.15). In the market, I’m also reminded of the concept of heterotopia, which according to Foucault, is a non-hegemonic space of “otherness” and, in the case of Pueblito Paisa, illustrates the result of social heteronomy, a product of class systems within urban capitalist centers. In this heterotopia however, “ethnic, gender and language inequality are key factors in encouraging agency and entrepreneurship which contribute to a sense of belongingness, identity and self-representation” (Roman-Velazquez 2013).

This fieldwork project, in the shape of diary entries and a sound map, reflects an exploration of the market through dérive. It aims to shed light on the complex social fabric that forms Pueblito Paisa’s community and illustrate the important role that such communities play in today’s urban context.

The market (When referring to the market, the names “Latin Village”, “Seven Sisters market”, and “Pueblito Paisa” are used interchangeably.)

Latin Village, located at 231-243 High Rd., contains 39 shops, of which 23 are owned or leased by Latin American retailers (Roman-Velazquez 2013). After Elephant & Castle in Southwark, The Seven Sisters market has the second highest concentration of Latin American business in London (Cabrera 2017). Since 2004, Haringey Council and Grainger development company have been negotiating a regeneration scheme for the area which requires the demolition of the market to make way for 196 non-affordable residential units and 40,000 sq. ft of retail space. Although the developers promise to provide a new long term home for the Seven Sisters Market within this space, the market community fears that it will disintegrate and be unable to afford the rent in the new development (https://tottenham.london/WC).

1. December: My first visit to Pueblito Paisa

I’m sitting in Latin Village’s Peruvian restaurant, “Pueblito Paisa Café”, which looks out on to the Seven Sisters station, allowing a glimpse of the outside world and reminding me that I’m in London. The restaurant is the only place I’ve spotted any other “gringxs”, by which I’m referring to people like myself. Regarding most of the market community is Latin American and speak little to no English, I completely forget my geographic location.

Music is ubiquitous. Almost every shop has its own speakers, playing a selection of Bachata, Salsa, Merengue and Cumbia tracks. Multiple tv-screens hang above the aisles, displaying the, mostly Youtube, playlists. Music is a vital element of the market’s soundscape and its impact on people’s uplifted mood is striking. Conversations are interrupted by familiar tunes, when spoken dialogue turns in to a song, whistle or dance. While wandering through the market like a tourist, I meet Alejandro Gonzalez Gortazar, a Cuban journalist and artist who’s been in the UK for 10 years and has known the market equally as long. He’s helping his friend Fabian, who owns the restaurant “Monantial”, with renovations. Having heard that the market would soon be moved to a temporary location, I am surprised to see people investing time and money in improving a space which developers were threatening to demolish. He happens to break for a cigarette so I take the chance to approach him and introduce myself, hoping he would be able to tell me more about the market. Luckily, he’s eager to speak and begins to talk about Pueblito Paisa’s foundation. According to Alejandro, a group of Colombian immigrants discovered the market about 20 years ago, which then was a half vacant market run by mainly African traders. Noticing they could rent stalls for cheap, they took their chances and started businesses, sending out for kin in Colombia to join in on the opportunities.

All of the market’s stalls have a commercial purpose, but still people seem to be using the space as a community center. There’s a notion of informality and inclusiveness at Pueblito Paisa which allows the general public access to and usage of the space without the pressure to consume or spend money. I think that markets function as important places of integration and solidarity for diverse communities and vulnerable people, where they can find affordable (and sometimes even free) food, social networks and even job opportunities. So why talk about Pueblito Paisa? And why through my eyes and ears, a gringa who has no prior connection to the market or the Latin American community.My sense of “rootlessness”, having been raised in Austria by a Canadian mother and an Iraqi father, has sparked my interest in the formations of “homes away from home” by immigrants and displaced peoples. At Latin Village, sound strikes me as one of the most powerful stimulants in recreating this sense of home. The omnipresence of Latin-American music, Spanish speaking voices, the sizzling of empanadas in the deep friers. Modern technology has enhanced the mobile notion of sound, allowing displaced people to reclaim space through sound and reestablish a sense of “home” wherever they go.Pueblito Paisa offers a fascinating location to study sound’s capacity to communicate impressions of a vibrant community’s social dynamics which is experiencing a period of transition. The Seven Sisters regeneration plans will uproot a well established community and possibly eliminate its collective memory. All I feel that my project can achieve is to exhibit the importance of this market to the livelihood and wellbeing of a community which is overlooked by developers interested in little more than reproducing capital wealth. To create documents that will allow the continuation of Pueblito Paisa’s existence, if only in people’s memory.

6. December: Second visit with Rita

(Screenshot taken of Seven sisters market through Google Maps Street View)

We’re sitting in Pueblito Paisa Café’s conservatory again, juxtaposed between two realms, Latin Village and Seven Sisters. The market is invisible, hiding in plain sight behind trees and vegetable vendors on High Rd., making it hard for passersby to assume what lays behind. This invisibility has offered the community a safe place to establish and express itself freely but the market’s lack of visibility has also made it hard for the community to gain the support they need to protect it.

This time with Rita, my Spanish speaking friend who’s offered to help with translation, we meet Fernando and his colleague Nixon of El EstanQuillo, Pueblito Paisa’s most dynamic hang-out, functioning as a grocery store, butcher, bakery, café, bar, and dance club. Nixon is a baker from Colombia who came to London and found work in Fernando’s shop two years ago. The space is a melting pot of sounds, where the noise of a juice mixer blends with Colombian christmas music and the chopping of meat. All the while kids, sipping on their hot chocolates, watch their parents dance with Corona bottles in their hands. Just across the aisle, we find Fabian from “Manantial”, replacing the carpet in front of his restaurant, completing the renovation process that Alejandro started last week. Later I find out through Mirca Morera, the founder of the Social Enterprise Latin Corner UK and one of the leading women fighting to save the market and protect the rights of its traders, that Fabian is a victim of the 7/7 bombings and is currently facing eviction charges on false accusations by the council appointed market facilitator, Jonathan Owen.

Just next door is the salon of a lovely Portuguese hairdresser, who is repainting her storefront and invites us to the reopening of her shop the following Saturday. Mirca will later tell me that she has a heart condition relies on the income and stability that the market can offer her, to ensure her health and livelihood. While she chats to us about family and work, her warm and welcoming spirit makes us feel like she’s always known us. Some in the market recognize me and wonder how I am and where I’ve been. Many traders tell me that their customers to them are friends before potential income-sources. “When a frequent customer doesn’t show up for a couple of days, I begin to worry and, if possible, call them to see if they’re alright”, Victoria Alvarez tells me. Vicky is the president of the association El Pueblito Paisa Ltd, owns two businesses in the market and is the face of the current crowd-funding campaign striving to raise 7,500 pounds towards a legal defense fund to preserve the market and its community.

9. December: Third visit with Paul

We’ve decided that Latin Village reveals elements of the failing system we live in.

Pueblito Paisa succeeds in protecting individuals who have fled economic hardship and possibly persecution, by offering them job opportunities and social networks. Rather than just facilitating economic reproduction, the space functions as a safe place guaranteeing the community’s happiness. Here, individuals do not self-maximize for the sake of reproducing their own wealth, but rather self-sustain for the sake of reproducing their own and community’s happiness. In an ideal reality, where governing systems enforce city development to improve the life quality of its citizens, particularly minorities and the most vulnerable, the protection of spaces, like Pueblito Paisa, woul be of highest priority.

Upon arriving at the market we head straight to El EstanQuillo to visit Nixon and Fernando. “Bomba En Navidad” by Richie Ray and Bobby Cruz, who Nixon adores, is playing while customers dance beneath the christmas decoration. We go over to see the Portuguese hairdresser who’s celebrating the reopening of her shop. She invites us in for snacks and drinks and to dance to some Reggaeton tunes together with her family and friends. After getting in touch with Latin Village UK over Facebook in the hopes of learning more about the organisation’s activities, Mirca invites me to the market to chat this evening. I find her sitting at her little community desk which she has set up in her stepfather’s video and music shop, “Videomania”. Her table is surrounded by artwork made by children from the market community, for who she organizes regular field trips to universities and museums. A trained educator, Mirca adores and is adored by the market community. With slogans and hashtags like, “take the Victoria line to Latin America”, she’s targeting the anglophone community through Latin Village UK’s campaigns. She’s also taken her plead to the UN triggering an intervention by the UN working group on business and human rights. Mirca and Vicky Alvarez seem to be the informal mayors of the market. They know the names and stories of everyone and fight restlessly to make their stories heard. They tell me that half of Pueblito Paisa’s business owners are female and that the market plays an important role in offering women, especially from Latin America, the opportunity of employment or entrepreneurship. These opportunities have raised their self-esteem and empowered their agency in a city which makes it extremely difficult for migrants, particularly female, to integrate into the job market.

Above: Images from Latin Village UK’s crowdfunding campaign: https://www.instagram.com/savelatinvillage

Below: Video still from Latin Village UK’s campaign video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luEy65Y5n7s

16. December: Fourth visit alone

I’m on the tube heading back South, siting across from three men who left the market the same time as I did. They recognize me, smile and start speaking to me in Spanish, the market’s notion of community clashing with London underground’s nature of anonymity. It’s an incredibly precious feeling, realizing that inside this vast city, a sense of familiarity amongst strangers is possible.

Back at the market, I sit inside Vicky’s salon, chatting to her and Mirca while outside the market begins to fill up for an evening full of music and dance. Vicky tell her life story, of how she arrived in London from Colombia about 30 years ago. It was only until her father was murdered due to the Colombian conflict, that the UK granted her asylum and she was able to flee the country. She lost four of her siblings during the war and has undergone immense trauma, making her a very anxious person today. She tells me that the current market facilitator, Jonathan Owen, uses harassment to tear apart the market community and make way for developers to start working on the regeneration project. Many community members are Colombian refugees and suffer from PTDS. Vicky fears for the mental health of the community and is convinced that Jonathan’s bullying and threats may evoke anxiety and flashbacks of the terror they lived through in Colombia. “We are not just a shopping market, we are like a psychological clinic, a therapeutic market.” (Roman-Velazquez 2013). I am deeply humbled by Vicky and Mirca, who fight day and night to protect the market. Not to ensure their own livelihoods, but to defend their community’s right to existence, free cultural expression, and mental health and stability.

In the bathroom, which goes dark after 9PM when electricity is cut, I meet Lorena who is holding up her phone to illuminate the bathroom. She notices that I’m new to the market and asks me how I like it here. “I love it, what about you?”. She laughs, “me? I am Colombian, of course I love it! It’s the best place in London”. We continue to chat about life in the city while she holds the flashlight over the sink while I wash my hands.

Pueblito Paisa is a place of casual heart-warming encounters like this, a public space in its purest form, which is open to all and is shaped by the diverse people who use it. These are the spaces we need most in increasingly urbanizing cities like London where urban commons are reclaimed by profit-driven developers who are privatizing the city for their own economic benefit. It is places like Latin Village that remind us that cities can exist for people and not only for profit. It is places like this that make me feel “at home”.

“Dériving” in Pueblito Paisa: A sound map

Follow the link for the soundscape and its description (to trace the dérive, refer to the map above):

https://soundcloud.com/emily-sarsam/pueblito-paisa-an-auditory-derive

Follow the link for a Spotify playlist of music heard at Pueblito Paisa:

https://open.spotify.com/user/1111197818/playlist/1y5DaUkpu0nnBbowCwv2hM

References:

Cabrera, Maria. “We need to recognise the latinx community in the UK: Save Pueblito Paisa.” http://www.gal-dem.com/latinx-community-pueblito-paisa/ (accessed December 30, 2017)

Costa-Kostritsky, Valeria. “‘I won’t be displaced again’: the fight to save London's latin market.” https://www.opendemocracy.net/5050/valeria-costa-kostritsky/fight-to-save-london-latin-market (accessed December 30, 2017)

Debord, Guy. “Theory of the Dérive”. 1958. http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/2.derive.htm (accessed December 30, 2017)

Harvey, David. Rebel Cities: From the Right to the City to the Urban Revolution. Paperback edition. London: Verso, 2013.

Roman-Velazquez, Patria. Valuing the work of small ethnic retail in London: Latin retail at E&C and Seven Sisters. Presentation given at Department of Sociology, UCL. 23 March 2013. https://latinelephant.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/valuing-small-ethnic-retail-space_ec.pdf (accessed December 30, 2017)

Photographs & Map:

All Photographs and the map are my own.

Photo 1 (cover) : An aisle in Pueblito Paisa, 2017.

Photo 2: El Pueblito Paisa Café, 2017.

Photo 3: El EstanQuillo, 2017.

Photo 4: Tiendas Manuelita, 2017.

Photo 5: Horvipan, 2017.

Photo 6: El EstanQuillo, 2017.

#latin village #pueblito paisa #colombia #london #tottenham #haringey #gentrification #soundscape #seven sisters

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