London is Changing: Regeneration, Gentrification and Redevelopment

Join Iain Sinclair, Anna Minton, Tom Bolton and Helen Parton for a discussion on London, how it is changing, how it affects us and what can be done about it.

Anger on the streets of Brixton, protests on the street of Norton Folgate: the anger at changing neighbourhoods and the desire to preserve London’s historical patches has rarely been stronger. Be it locals being priced out of their old area, the bulldozers moving in on beloved buildings everyone is know that London is changing. Some are excited, some are nervous and some are angry.

Before the discussion begins, representatives of some London protest groups will give short presentations on the parts of London they wish to protect or preserve.

Iain Sinclair’s books include London Orbital, Hackney, That Rose-Red Empire, Downriver (which won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the Encore Award) Ghost Milk and American Smoke. He lives in Hackney, east London.

Anna Minton is a writer and journalist and Reader in Architecture at the University of East London (UEL). In 2013, she became a Reader in Architecture at UEL. Between 2012-2014 she was the 1851 Royal Commission’s Fellow in the Built Environment. She is the author of Ground Control: Fear and Happiness in the Twenty-First Century City.

Tom is a London based writer and explorer and is the author of Vanished City, The : London’s Lost Neighbourhoods which looks at the ten London areas, well-known in their day, which have disappeared from the A-Z as well as London’s Lost Rivers: A Walker’s Guide.

Helen is the editor of onoffice Magazine and was programme manager of Clerkenwell Design Week 2013 and 2014. Helen provides copywriting for professional bodies including the Design Council and the Professional Planning Forum.

This discussion is chaired by James Drury, Londonist Editor in Chief.