What would your reaction be to your favorite place in the world being destroyed? You’d probably be upset, right?
Not me, I’m completely indifferent. I’m not saying that’s a good thing. I have just seen it so many times that I am completely used to it. I also see things from a different perspective thanks to watching this tragic occurance over and over again.
I found a place that fet like home for the firstntime in 2008 when I came to Tokyo. I’m not talking about the whole city. Just a single station. A village atmosphere right next to the city center. A place that had escape gentrification due to having no major roads and two crossing above ground railways that made development diffiuclt.
i watched developers move one of the train lines underground which improved traffic. Everyone was happy. Then they destroyed the area around the station, a big old market which was full of local vendors.
They replaced it with a department store. They built a second department store. They tore a massive holenin the town to build a highway. Buildings whose landowners didn’t want to sell mysteriously burnt down. A street full of local shops became a strip of name brands as loca businesses fell one by one to the increasing cost of rent.
This was coordinated. A few developers and the local and prefectural government obviously were working together to turn this into a trendy area and kick all of us who loved the town out unless we embraced this change and sold out the community.
Within 5 years the town was a shell of it’s former self.
While moving around Asia I found similar beautiful places where people felt free turn into caged shopping malls where life was no longer affordable and no where comfortable and human remained. I can think of at least 6 neighborhoods I loved that I saw destroyed and another 10 that I wasn’t as emotionally invested in.
Of course I was angry, angry enough to get involved in anti-gentrification movements all over Asia.
After aeeing the pattern play put and the after effects though, I noticed it wasn’t as bleak as I had initially thought.
Movements are a funny thing. Everyone thinks they exist to achieve some kind of stated goal, but often their most positive effect is keeping people connected and alowong them to think outside the box.
In one city, destorying the local neighborhood resulted in free comminity spaces popping up all over the city. In another it led many people to travel the country and connect with people all over. Some of them became very famous or made a lot of money and put all their resources into artistic and community projects. In another country, the whole national discussion changed as a result of the destruction of a single strip of farmland.
I’m not saying gentrification is good, it’s a plague upon the earth. But where our will is strong, no powerful force can destroy us. An idea is stronger than any individual and the spirit of a place can move and spread. A healthy tree creates fruits and those fruits can seed new trees.
Rather than let an oppressor define you, focus on spreading your fruits.
I left my neighborhood and resolved to become a kind of Johnny Appleseed, planting the spirit of that town everywhere I went. And I did.
I obviously can’t take full credit for all the positive developments after the destruction of any of these neighborhoods, but I aboslutely played a part in it. I shared ideas and help people who wanted to protect local culture connect with each other and many others were doing the same thing, and still are.
If we give up, then its all lost…but If we keep our spirits, those who seek to control us can only force us to evolve and grow stronger.
So I am no longer woried when ai see that my current neighborhood is going through a similar process. Come tear my town to the ground and I will seed 1000 more.
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