Naked City: Night of the Landlord Dread
Gentrification – it can be a nasty word, a bit like ‘eugenics’ and ‘ethnic cleansing’. All three generally involve those with power and authority imposing their will on an often hapless minority. Hey, does that sound a bit familiar, like what’s happening with the proposed eviction of public housing tenants from Millers Point and The Rocks?
Earlier this week the media quoted real estate agents and developers, smacking their lips as to how wonderful this ‘gentrification’ will be for this traditional working class, public housing estate. Paralleling the grandiose high rise of Barangaroo across the road. Despite what will probably be a hard-fought campaign on the part of Rocks residents to retain their homes, there’s an awful inevitability about the whole process.
Money, the scramble for the million-dollar view and the prestige of living adjacent to James Packer’s towering monolith are bound to override the years of tenure and tradition established by the public housing community. The jewel in the crown is the twelve-storey, Lego-like Sirius building, which sits along the approach to the Harbour Bridge and contains seventy-nine ultra saleable apartments. It’s long been the target of the tabloid media, outraged that public housing tenants are afforded those ‘million-dollar’ views of Circular Quay for a greatly reduced rent.
If we can draw a cinematic analogy, the whole saga reads like a souped-up zombie movie. The normally rabid flesh-eating posse have switched their focus to that of gobbling up prime real estate, storming the traditional terraces and ripping old-aged pensioners from their beds. Once the O’Farrell Government declares the area open for plunder, the zombie real estate lurch will begin with a ferocity that not even George A. Romero could imagine.
If you thought Putin’s annexation of Crimea was brutal wait til the Beamers and Benz clog the streets of the Rocks as the gentrifying zombies converge on the prized Sirius building. There will be cries of anguish at first when they see how small the apartments really are but they’ll soon realise that if you buy up an entire floor you can achieve the space that your status deserves – not to mention those million-dollar views!
As sleek coffee shops and upmarket restaurants join the lurch, the zombies will turn their attention to a complete social cleansing of the area. Terraces will be transformed, restored to a condition that is beyond pristine and delivery vans will unload tonne after tonne of upmarket furniture and priceless antiques. Meanwhile, the bus to Claymore will patrol the almost fully cleansed streets, rounding up the last of the public housing tenants and whisking them out of sight, out of mind.
As every piece of desirable real estate is consumed by these insatiable real estate zombies attention will soon be directed at a fresh field of plunder. Look out Woolloomooloo – they’re coming to get you!
