Gentrification was usually described as a slum clearance scheme, or given some other populist name, to disguise its true purpose – enhanced income streams for the state and the financiers. The fate of the resident population was not discussed. In fishing terminology, they were the bycatch, and like bycatch, were seen as having no commercial value.
Waterloo and Redfern experienced an exodus in the Depression years to corrugated iron and canvas humpies in the bush at La Perouse, due to the lack of employment opportunity and attendant poverty. The camp, known as Happy Valley, had a population of more than 330 in 1932, and was demolished in 1939. This exodus has been described in some circles as gentrification induced by economic poverty.
The area’s second wave of gentrification occurred in the 1950s when the government announced its slum clearance program. The government “acquired” the land, razed existing housing and sold the land to private sector developers to build new housing stock. The developers wanted to construct multistorey multi-occupancy buildings to maximise their profits. To facilitate this, strata titles were created, which meant that each unit in a high-rise building had its own title. This enabled the finance sector to lend with greater surety on more units of housing stock, which led to much higher returns from the same block of land.
Some of the existing occupants were displaced to Campbelltown, a newly created residential area on the Sydney metropolitan area fringe, where housing was cheaper due to the lower land values and lack of services. Others wound up in shanty towns known as Frog Hollow and Hill 60 at Yarra Bay, which were demolished in the late 1960s.
The area’s third wave of gentrification occurred in the 1970s. The government operated its own redevelopment scheme and built public housing estates on land it acquired by various means. The residual residents, despite their protests, were displaced to public housing in the Campbelltown area, which still lacked services and employment opportunities. This wave of gentrification was the subject of Tom Zubrycki’s documentary, Waterloo.
The fourth wave of gentrification will occur in the period post-2015. It formally commenced with the government’s decision to seek expressions of interest for the purchase of the Australian Technology Park at Eveleigh. Where the area’s current residents will be displaced to has not yet been announced, as per historic practice.
UrbanGrowth, the entity created to sell government-owned real estate in the Sydney metropolitan area, flagged its intention to initiate a new category of gentrification in Waterloo, Alexandria, Eveleigh and Redfern. This “employment gentrification” will sit alongside its siblings – economic, cultural and social gentrification – and like them will destroy diversity in the community.
The government will facilitate employment gentrification through planning laws that will restrict the nature and purpose of the workplaces able to be built in the post-redevelopment period.
Workplaces for the trades and services sector would not be able to comply with the new planning consent rules for the area, even if the prospective employers could afford the property prices. The workplaces and their employment opportunities will be forced to relocate outside the inner city. Their displacement will deplete the current diversity of employment opportunities in the area. Employment will now be for desk jockeys and computer botherers working in air-conditioned offices many storeys in the air.
In its heyday, the Waterloo, Alexandria, Eveleigh and Redfern area had 45,000 people living, working and socialising in it. Even with the proposed increase in density for the area, the population will still be under that, as will the diversity of occupations and number of employment opportunities on offer.
The history of the earlier waves of gentrification in the inner city is repeating itself. The sole variation is its form – employment gentrification.
