EDITORIAL
2 Obiter Dicta
West Queen West and the Gentrification Curse
(Second) Hippest Neighbourhood, and probably the name of
Kimye’s next spawn
I
f you were to peruse the Vogue website (don’t
play, I know you regularly do) and glance at
their “Most Shared” stories, you’d find a seemingly innocuous article about global street style.
Nestled in between a slideshow of Kate Middleton’s
pregnancy wardrobe and a video of Nicki Minaj
teaching the “Anaconda” dance to a group of models
(watch if you want to feel sad about life), is yet another
one of those numbered list-cum-article literary monstrosities, which have effectively taken over the internet as a result our ashamedly short attention spans.
Unlike the others, however, this one is notable, if
not for its superior style (still cringing at the use of
“normcore”), than for its content. The list names West
Queen West the second hippest neighbourhood in the
world, outdone only by the Shimokitazawa district of
Tokyo. Cue cheering and hipster hyperventilation.
A deluge of commentaries have sprung up on the
likes of the Toronto Standard and blogTO, many of
them marveling that Toronto beat out Bushwick (!) for
the penultimate position on the list. Recurring comparisons to the Brooklyn neighbourhood reminded
me of another article I had read recently about one
blogger’s quest to document what he perceived to be
the dissolution of New York. The blogger, a resident of
the East Village, lamented that the once vibrant, chaotic neighbourhood that he called home had turned
into a cesspool of heteronormativity, Starbucks, and
football fans. Our New York correspondent longed for
the days of oddballs, poorly regulated food service,
and enough crime “to keep us awake.” Those were the
days, he says, when the urban experience was unpredictable, unregulated, and vaguely unsafe.
The article described a sadly all-too-familiar phenomenon: quintupled rents, small stores being forced
out, and luxury boutiques (or worse, big box stores)
popping up where dive bars once stood. Once the
young and hip (and rich) move in, the reasoning goes,
the path towards commercialization and Midtown
soullessness is fixed. Even if the hipsters moving
into these neighborhoods see themselves as decidedly against such a metamorphosis, its only a matter
of time before landlords catch on to an area’s steadily
increasing popularity and eventually drive out small
and quaint businesses with egregious rent hikes.
Consequently, when I saw West Queen West singled out on the Vogue list, I couldn’t help but think
this was its swan song. If the multiplicity of vegan
bakeries and artisanal coffee shops are any indication,
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“Be just. And if you can’t be just, be arbitrary.”
william s. burroughs
ê Nicotine and refuse: WQW at its finest.
WQW is already a lost cause. But surely hipness consists of more than just proto-gentrified dive bars,
boarded up store fronts, and diners that fail to meet
basic hygiene standards. The markers of coolness are
after all just that: superficial signifiers of eccentricity, implying a vague sense of lawlessness and nonconformity. These seem quite separate from what
it is that truly gives a city its personality: a vibrant
culture of human characters, living creatively and
in resistance of suburban pedestrianism. And this
requires, of course, a healthy dose of tolerance, which
Torontonians seem to have in spades.
In opposition to New York’s gentrification complex, then, I’d argue that the onset of hipness needn’t
necessarily signal the end of uniqueness and soul.
By some standards (the presence of Starbucks and
the price of a meal at the Drake), WQW has already
bent to commercialism and yuppie culture. By others
(excellent galleries, no-pretense watering holes, and
one of the best independent bookstores in the city), it
preserves an atmosphere of eccentricity and a sense
of community. Which of these factors ought to be
editorial board
editor-in-chief | Karolina Wisniewski
managing editor | Sam Michaels
layout editor | Heather Pringle
editorial staff
business managers | Alvin Qian,
Adam Cepler
news editor | Mike Capitano
opinions editor | Carla Marti
arts & culture editor | Marie Park
sports editor | Evan Ivkovic
copy editor | Subban Jama
accorded greater weight? Should WQW be regarded
as staunchly preserving its eclecticism, or are we
watching a neighbourhood unravel before our eyes?
Perhaps only time will tell whether the West Queen
West will go the way of Williamsburg and Greenwich
Village. In the meantime, we can take solace in truly
hip and as-yet-undiscovered Dundas West (but don’t
tell Vogue I said that).
For the Vogue list, see:
http://www.vogue.com/slideshow/1080625/
fifteen-coolest-street-style-neighbourhoods/
For the article about New York, see:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/08/06/the-end-of-new-york-how-oneblog-tracks-the-disappearance-of-a-vibrant-city.
html ◆
website editor | Asad Akhtar
communications manager | Angie Sheep
contributors
Dean Sossin, Jeffery Hernaez, Toby Samson,
Hannah de Jong, Gleb Matushansky,
Kate Henley
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