My neighborhood has become so cool

I was born in Hackney. These days, when you say you’re from Hackney, people respond, “Oh, Hackney it’s so cool there!” This shift from stigma to desirability perfectly encapsulates the double-edged sword of gentrification: revitalization at the expense of affordability and the original community fabric. And in February 2026, the opening of a Gail’s that chain of chic artisanal bakeries in Hackney Central was described as “the ultimate marker of gentrification accomplished” in the neighborhood, the “Final Boss” of the process. When I saw that, I felt like laughing. And then I felt like crying. And then I bought a croissant because, well, they are really good. The real issue, the one that’s got the whole neighborhood in an uproar right now, is the LTNs the Low Traffic Neighborhoods these low-traffic zones that the city council has been setting up all over the place since 2020. The idea is to encourage people to get around by bike or on foot rather than by car. A noble intention. The result in practice? Hackney now has 19 LTNs, covering 70% of eligible roads and about 50% of its total area—the highest percentage in all of London. In practical terms, when I drive to pick up my kids from school on certain evenings when I work late, I have to take twenty-minute detours just to get through my own neighborhood. Hundreds of residents protested outside City Hall in January 2026, and one resident summed up what many are thinking: “I don’t see this desire for road closures in the people I meet. These measures have really held us back. I know the council says it wants cleaner air, but they’re wearing blinders.” And the rents. Let’s talk about the rents. Since April 2026, rents in Hackney Council’s social housing stock have risen by an average of 4.8%, pushing the average weekly rent from £128.87 to £135.37 and that’s just for the social sector. In the private market, it’s a whole different story. The apartments that young artists and musicians were renting in Hackney Wick for four hundred pounds a month ten years ago now go for three times that amount. Those same artists who made the neighborhood desirable, who filled the galleries, the parties, the markets they’re gone. Driven out by the prices they themselves helped drive up. It is the cruel and well-known irony of gentrification. To get to work, I take the London Overground from Hackney Central, which, paradoxically, is one of the advantages I have over my friends who live in neighborhoods that are, in theory, better off. During the RMT strikes, the Overground continues to run normally, which is a real advantage for Hackney residents compared to other neighborhoods that rely more heavily on the Underground. But there’s a separate strike on certain bus routes in East London adding to the mix, and some mornings, getting to Liverpool Street feels like a physical challenge.  And Dalston at night? My street on weeknights after 10 p.m. sometimes looks like a different place. Antisocial behavior, drug use on the streets, and noise disturbances from nightlife in certain parts of Dalston are concerns that residents regularly raise with their elected officials. It’s not a matter of class or race; it’s just the classic equation of a neighborhood that gentrified too quickly, attracting bars and restaurants but not the services needed to manage the fallout. Yet I have no intention of leaving. Not because it’s perfect we’ve just seen that it isn’t. But because in the morning, when I head down to Ridley Road Market, there’s still something left that resembles what this neighborhood has always been. Voices speaking Turkish, Yoruba, and Creole; fruits you can’t find anywhere else at that price; people haggling, laughing, and living life to the fullest. Hackney was all of that, but above all, it was a community. And as long as there’s a little bit of that left in the streets, I’ll stay too.