From the Drake, to the Broadview, to Filmores

Eventually, I want to write more about this but this short post will have to suffice for now. Toronto's next gentrification culprit: Filmores. This year, the Broadview Hotel (formerly Jilly's) opened. The Broadview Hotel attempts to recreate the change the Drake Hotel created in the west end, by literally copy pasting the model. Mark my words, this gem (Filmores), located at Dundas and George (oh so close to the memorable corner of Dundas and Sherbourne), is not far behind. 

Here's how it appears gentrification works in Toronto: neighbourhoods go through gentrification, but Coffee Time (which I am convinced is a front for money laundering), stays in place. Super-gentrification begins when Coffee Time gets replaced by a medium range restaurant, and hyper-gentrification happens when the medium range restaurant becomes a boutique/concept store, coffee shop or restaurant. For evidence of my theory, look no further to King St. West and Bathurst, where Coffee Time was replaced by Wild Wing, which will soon be replaced by something with 'raw' walls and a chalkboard. Also, the corner of Queen West and Niagara, Coffee Time has been replaced by 'Loaded Pierogi'. So it begins...again.

Bye Bye Barcelona

On my second visit to the Catalan capital, where I was attending the FAD conference, I was able to discover a lot of it on foot. I enjoyed being able to cover most of Barcelona in this manner, something almost unheard of in London. I was impressed by many things, but I was disappointed by a whole lot more. What I often thought about was who this city did not belong to, and of course this made me think of Lefebvre’s concept of the right to the city. As Harvey (2008) states, “We live, after all, in a world in which the rights of private property and the profit rate trump all other notions of rights.”[via]

Since my research deals with this concept of locality, I thought about the absent local life in Barcelona. The city itself, as the documentary I stumbled on discussed (above), is nothing more than a theme park, a European Cancun of sorts, made entirely for the enjoyment of tourists - tourists who live as though they’ve never left home (I witnessed an American tourist buying American scratch cards at a shop and was shocked). The entertainers on La Rambla seem out of place, as if they are stopping over before completing their journey to Las Vegas. The hamburgers and frankfurters that flood the menus are also out of place. I’ll be the first to admit that I personally have never enjoyed food anywhere in Spain (in all five of my visits to different regions), but there are so many alternative cuisines around the city from all over the world it’s easy to find something affordable and good.

I wondered then, what was the appeal of such a place? Why are people flocking to come here? It’s overcrowded wherever you go, and most of the tourists (as the documentary differentiates between three types of visitors: tourists, travellers, and voyagers) have no idea what Barcelona or Catalonia is about.

On the plane over to Barcelona, I had written a whole piece on travel guides and how they only cater to the super-rich, or the typical tourist routes. After watching this documentary however, I felt that sharing this film was much more relevant and important since these are issues we are witnessing in cities worldwide.

Sources:

• http://newleftreview.org/II/53/david-harvey-the-right-to-the-city
• http://www.byebyebarcelona.com