Having heard about a talk that I gave at The Hope Institute (see the summary of the talk here; also my contribution to The Hope Institute blog here), an editor of a magazine called Monthly Coffee asked me if it’s alright for them to publish a one-page summary of my talk. Then, I literally re-wrote it, and it’s out now as shown in the attached JPG file. Come to think of it, given the preponderance of instances of commercial gentrification affecting a number of small cafes and art spaces in Seoul, I would have given a ‘lighter touch’ and a different take on the column if I were given more time. In the column, I tried to emphasise the importance for all citizens to realise that gentrification is non-discriminatory for most citizens, and that most of us are compelled to live a life of nomads (as displacees and being under constant displacement pressure) under gentrification as urban disaster. The nomad and disaster analogies come from my earlier encounters with TakeoutDrawing in Itaewon, Seoul, which has been launching an inspirational fight against its landlord (Psy, the pop singer) to resist displacement pressure.
