BRICK LANELondon, the expanding city

Nouha HansenCultural Context 3A

Extended EssayJanuary 2015

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Introduction

London is an expanding city – a city that is growing both in terms of space, functions, societies and cultures and in terms of continuous internal restructuring with layers and juxtapositions of social and cultural processes and dialogues. It is a city with outreach, attraction and creation, but not free of internal tensions. The city continuously attracts people from different parts of the world due to its rich work market, multicultural society and diversity, and its political and cultural role and values.

As the new inhabitants make London their home, they add new layers of social and economic life and new cultural aspects to existing communities and physical environments. This process of interaction between people and place has increased London’s diversity and reinforced the unique character of its areas and neighbourhoods – qualities that have in the past decades been actively used by the local authorities to brand these areas to encourage development and economic growth. The juxtaposition among different groups has not been conflict-free. Yet, it has fostered new culture of diversity and otherness in the city and appears as a driver in many neighbourhoods.

The East London neighbourhood Brick Lane in the borough of Tower Hamlets illustrates some of these processes and impacts in terms of physical environment, dialogues and the creation of new ‘public culture’. The area has been the point of arrival for several successive immigration waves; French, Jewish and most recently from Bangladesh. Each of these waves and cultures characterised the area strongly. Today the Brick Lane neighbourhood spanning from Whitechapel to Bethnal Green is home to a large Bangladeshi community with many Bangladeshi restaurants and with multiethnic markets, artists’ studios and vintage shops. Brick Lane has been rebranded as ‘Banglatown’ at the end of the 1990s within new public, economic and cultural strategies around ethnicity and is undergoing a process of regeneration and gentrification.

In my essay I explore how and to which extent the Bangladeshi community that has dominated Brick Lane influences their physical environment. Is Banglatown successful in the eyes of its residents and in the eyes of the borough? Did the re-branding succeed in recreating the culture of the area and changing London’s collective memory of Brick Lane as a poor area with racism? What is the influence of Banglatown on subsequent development in the area and what are the learnings for coming initiatives in Brick Lane so they can be more beneficial?

Methodology

To explore these questions I have undertaken practical and theoretical investigations and reflected on the area’s development, community, current modernity and future:- I have undertaken site visits to Brick Lane and its surrounding area and surveyed its spaces, signs of change, symbols, functions and activity. - I have explored historical readings and memoirs describing daily life in Brick Lane during the different times to understand the interaction and transitions among the communities. Especially, I have focused on first generation community artist Rachel Lichtenstein whose family also lived in Brick Lane, and the social activist Kenneth Leech’s account of the events in 1978. Both of these authors bring forward a prominent knowledge of the local community and the area’s day-to-day changes.- I have researched relevant theoretical literature in order to improve my understanding of how the resident communities change space, and how different societal relations; planning authority, local people, new culture, businesses, and other social forces interact forming spaces with their diversities and symbols. I wanted also to explore how an area gets renewed with a new image and which effects this brings to its development and potentials. My theoretical exploration has focused on selected axes to inform my understanding of a space beyond its limits, how the community uses space, interaction in space and among its groups. It has also focused on exploring the consumer experiences and authenticity and new public culture, image and memory of the area. I have looked into how much it is possible to balance development and inclusiveness in the renewal of cities, here particularly Brick Lane. Brick Lane as experienced

Turning from Whitechapel High Street into Osborn Street, our Brick Lane journey is about to begin. The tall green Bangladeshi-inspired street lamps guide us to the beginning of Brick Lane where the gate invites us into Banglatown.

Fig. 1. Banglatown gate at the beginningof Brick Lane.

Fig. 2. Street name transcribed intoBangladeshi.

Brick LaneLondon, the expanding city

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Suddenly, we are surrounded by shops offering Bangladeshi foods, sweets, and 3p/min telephone cards. With Central Film School and Glasgow Caledonian University to our side we continue crossing orthogonal streets whose transcribed names are mounted alongside their English names on the walls - walls that are gradually becoming more and more colourful. The graffiti is subtle on Brick Lane until we pass by a parking alley, where the surrounding walls have been split up into large canvases with bold graffiti created by well-known street artists. A group of people in suits take pictures with their iPhones of the graffiti, while graffiti-tour guide Dave explains how the different pieces complement each other and add meaning.

“Sir, madam, please come inside for the best curry on Brick Lane” we hear from a promoter in front of every restaurant fitted into the industrial buildings.

The first landmark on Brick Lane is Jamme Masjid mosque at the corner of Fournier Street with its tall and slender, ornamented metallic minaret that lights up in bright colours after dark reflecting the colours of graffiti. Here are also two shops selling among other things touristic merchandise: ‘I love Bangladesh’ and ‘I love London. The 18th century

Scale 1:25000 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200 m

Fig. 3, 4, 5: The Jamme Mosque Minaret and merchandise.

houses around Fournier Street with their highly glazed lofts stand as a reminiscence of their original use for the historic clothing industry.

The variation of shops now includes more independent vintage and artistic shops and hipster cafés and bars, especially condensed around the Truman Brewery, which is the second landmark. It has served as an invisible boundary between the Bangladeshi area, earlier other immigrants’ area south of the brewery, and the white area to the north of the brewery.

The brewery’s large industrial buildings with their open plans have

Fig. 6: Map of the Brick Lane area.

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been reappropriated for markets with food from international cuisines and stalls covered in printed clothing and hand-made items as well as the popular Moniker’s Art Fair and The Other Art Fair on Hanbury Street.

Brick Lane’s famous market traditions is dated back to the 18th century when farmers sold their livestock and products, which extended to selling exotic animalslike lions and rare birds. Today the markets include vegetables and fruits along with odd old domestic and business objects.

Just across the street is the Kobi-Nazrul Bangladeshi culture centre, and crossing Brick Lane, passing by two Bangladeshi wedding planners specialised in grooms’ outfits, we find the other part of the culture centre.

Continuing further along Brick Lane, under the new railway bridge, which marks the area to the north, we are met by the Damascene restaurant and the princess-like cupcake shop owned by an Argentinian couple. From inside we get a glimpse of the Brick Lane scene unfolding. The last part of Brick Lane is predominantly characterised by its independent shops and hipster cafés and restaurants. In this part of Brick Lane we find announced London’s ‘Best Bagel’ and long-queued ‘Cereal Killer’ restaurant.

If we walk off Brick Lane, our surroundings quickly become calm and residential. In the local area, you will see people living their lives, not paying much attention to foreign observers.

The area is part of Tower Hamlet’s Fournier Street and Brick Lane Conservation Area and is one of the largest conservation areas in the borough and comprises Brick Lane and its surroundings including several architecturally interesting buildings, for example the Christ Church Spitalfields by Nicholas Hawksmoor. The early Georgian quarter and the 18th century houses around Fournier Street are also important characteristics of the area. Houses in the area were mainly

used for the clothing industry and not as residential as was initially intended.

Brick Lane is a changing neighbourhood with a great diversity and juxtaposition among different cultures, functions and styles, but certainly a unique creation made by its occupants and visitors.

Imageability

Brick Lane’s clear spatial structure with its long, linear path, which is crossed by orthogonal streets leading to the more quiet residential parts, makes it easy for visitors to navigate and explore without getting lost. It is so an area that applies to what Lynch would call a readable city. The area with its spatial structure and organisation has a high probability of “evoking a strong image” (Lynch, 1960, p9) in its observers. This precise mental image of the area ensures the visitors would stay in control while they are in the process of exploration. It allows the observer’s senses to grasp the surroundings while sensing that there are more extended dimensions to explore. Through this state of awareness, the observer can understand the place over time “as a pattern of high continuity with many distinctive parts clearly interconnected” (Lynch, 1960, p10).

Social dialogues and interactions in time and placeOccupants over time and tensions

Since the early 18th century, Brick Lane has been the gateway to Britain for several waves of immigration despite struggling with a number of strong social problems including lodging houses and brothels. The Brick Lane area also housed displaced residents following the expropriation of the deprived Cable Street further south. The area hosted firstly a small group of Irish immigrants, then a larger group of French Huguenot silk weavers during the 18th century followed by East European Jews in the late 19th century. In the 1970s, the Brick Lane area housed the most recent immigration from the Sylheti region of Bangladesh bordering India, which was a consequence of Bangladesh emerging as a new country and several economic crises. The new Bangladeshi inhabitants arrived as the result of economic chain immigration from the Sylhet region in Bangladesh. Usually, one single male immigrant would arrive in Brick Lane and facilitate for the rest of his family or village to follow by helping them find accommodation and jobs. This made Brick Lane, which had already a cluster of social housing, a suitable area with cheap housing and jobs in an already established clothing industry. The chain immigration, along with the fact that most of the new inhabitants arrived with very little English created a great interdependency within the community.

Similarly to most of Brick Lane’s other immigrant groups, the Bangladeshis worked (underpaid and under bad conditions) in the

Fig. 7. Bold grafitti by professional street artist.

Fig. 8. One of the many independant shops.

Fig. 9. Lion cub.

Brick Lane’s famous market traditions is dated back to the 18th century when farmers sold their livestock and products, which extended to selling exotic animals like lions and rare birds. Today the markets include vegetables and fruits along with odd old domestic and business objects.

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well-established clothing trade. The building at the corner of Fournier Street that started as a Huguenot church transformed with each new community, first into a synagogue and now into a mosque.

The Brick Lane area had been the scene of racial tension since the first arrival of immigrants; “The persistence of unemployment, poor housing, and a general sense of neglect has provided fertile ground for racist and fascist explanations” (Leech,1980, p3). For these groups, the immigrants were a source to blame for the area’s condition rather than questioning the authorities’ responsibilities. They were a visible foreign and economically and socially deprived community that alarmed deprived people in the East End as they feared competition. These conditions have allowed time and stimuli for racism to grow into organised groups.

Racism became a major issue in the Jewish newspaper Polishe Yidl. On October the 3rd, 1884 the newspaper shed light on the pain of the Jewish community: “[A]lthough the Jews have freedom of entry, rights, etc, do the English like the Jews? The answer is No! […] you will hear, every time a Jew passes by, the loving call “Bloody Jew!” […] A pogrom in Brick Lane, in the crossroad of Commercial Road can be a more bloody and terrific affair than one in the Baltic” (Leech,1980, 24).

Strong bad feelings towards the new immigrants materialised in the formation of racist and fascist organisations, which planted their roots around the Brick Lane area, especially on the Bethnal Green side including The National Front. They allied with young local skinheads to mark their presence by rampaging through the neighbourhood chanting racist slogans and destroying the property of the Bangladeshis.

The streetscape was transformed into a warzone; there were racist slogans painted on the walls and the Bangladeshis’ shop windows were broken. Skinhead gangs and members of racist organisations occupied the street itself by presence and by distributing their racist publications. There were many racist attacks, which frightened the Bangladeshis for simply walking in their local streets.

New solidarities

Racism became a sad reality of everyday life for the Bangladeshis with no real support neither from the police nor from the council. The tension and racist crimes escalated in 1978 resulting in the murder of the young Bengali clothing worker Altab Ali on May the 4th 1978 who was stabbed in Adler Street off White Chapel Road near Brick Lane. His murder sparked the active mobilisation of the Bangladeshi community and the need to unite within the Bangladeshi community in the battle against racism and violence. Large protest marches where held, the most massive on May the 14th where about 7000 Bangladeshis marched from Brick Lane to Downing Street, the official residence and office of the British Prime Minister.

The community approached a new defence attitude to protect themselves. Trying just to co-exist with the area’s original residents had not served them well and made them an easy target for racism and violence. As a result of the major 1978 events several anti-racism groups were formed and the existing ones acquired new strengths. In collaboration with several youth movements, Hackney and Tower Hamlets Defence Committee and Anti-Nazi League organised anti-racism protest marches during the summer of 1978. Several community projects were also initiated and strengthened including the involvement of members of the Bangladeshi community in the area’s health care offers as doctors and nurses, and after school programmes for Bangladeshi children and women’s groups. Another significant initiative is the establishment of the Kobi-Nazrul Centre, a Bangladeshi community centre lobbied for by Spitalfields Bengali Action Group that has supported Bangladeshi culture and arts. The centre is still active today.

Controversies

The Bangladeshi community required more protection from the police. Since this was not effectively met, the Bengali Housing Action Group and the Bengali Welfare Association campaigned for housing Bangladeshi families in more safe locations while still emphasizing their great concern for living in multi-racial communities and not being isolated in ghettos. Despite of this, the Greater London Council (GLC) stirred a political controversy in the media where the GLC still suggested the creation of Bangladeshi ghettos by allocating entire council blocks solely for the occupation of Bangladeshis as a response to the housing in safe areas. This reflected the political controversy and did not seem to provide the aimed for security to the Bangladeshi households as this would have reinforced their isolation as a vulnerable community easily targeted by racist actions. After much criticism, the suggestion was recalled and dismissed as ‘a misunderstanding’ as reported in the East London Advertiser on June 16th, 1978. Fig. 10 & 11: Streetscape with racist symbols.

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The interface between their immigrant Bangladeshi community and the host country became burdened with connotations of racism and violence - and many complications. This pushed the Bangladeshi community together and forged them away from this interface.

A shared identity in an existing urban fabric

The immigrant Bangladeshi community integrated in an existing physical environment, which has its own history and processes. They had no influence on the spatial organisation of space but only reused existing space in the same way that it had been used before albeit from shop names in Bengali, replacing the Jewish shop names.

The social housing in the area was a big attraction for the Bangladeshis who were squatting in homes in the same area and provided a safe environment for their social interaction away from visibility and exposure and racist actions. The spatial segregation of these estates has as Iza Aftab concludes from her space syntax analysis (Aftab, 2005) of the Brick Lane area’s council estates enabled the Bangladeshi community to preserve their own social networks. In my views this was rather an attempt of self-protection than a willing choice of segregating from interaction with the majority British community as Aftab suggests in the same article. But as a result of negative experiences, the Bangladeshi community’s interaction with the British became more limited during the 1970s to necessary social services. They had their own school, shops and mosque. The way the Bangladeshi community settled into the Brick Lane area was not special to them – the French Huguenot community and the Jewish community before them had done exactly the same.

A beginning of change

In the 1960s and 1970s, the Brick Lane area, which had many cheap spaces to rent also attracted a community of new artists. They located mostly in the brewery, and have progressively changed the racially problematic reputation of Brick Lane.

Brick Lane branded as Banglatown

In an effort to boost the economic state of the area by place branding, Tower Hamlets in association with three other inner-city boroughs, earmarked Brick Lane in 1997 a ‘Developing Cultural Quarter’. The aim was to focus on visitor economy as an alternative to the manufacturing economy that had faced regression by re-branding and re-imaging the neighbourhood as Banglatown (Shaw, 2011, p386). Using cultural strategies and valuing otherness reflected in the recreation of mini ethnic neighbourhoods as Chinatown, Quartier Latin, Little Italy etc is a tendency seen in other cities. The neighbourhoods with their new images are aimed at attracting visitors and businesses to the

concerned areas.

Major outcomes of the rebranding and re-imaging of Brick Lane were the addition of new street furniture facilitated by Tower Hamlets’ strategy for this neighbourhood. These include the Bangladeshi gate at the entrance of Banglatown from the Whitechapel side, Bangladeshi-inspired street lamps and street names transcribed into Bangladeshi.

Authenticity of Banglatown

Rebranding Brick Lane as Banglatown in celebration of its Bangladeshi community created and advertised in London a new identity for the area and its community. In my view this has been capable of changing a ‘collective memory’ about Brick Lane particularly with other new developments. However, it is important to explore whether this reflected the community’s original identity and it remains important to investigate how much this identity corresponds to Bangladeshis’ understanding of themselves.

Contradicting the urban image that was accentuated through Banglatown, the majority of the community has their origins in the Sylheti region of Bangladesh in countryside villages surrounded by farmland and nature. The village’s dwellings are light and airy constructions, suitable for the climate. The council project to improve the economy of the area through the Banglatown concept was thus

Fig 12 & 13: Sylheti villages.

non-conform to the Bangladeshi people’s original identity as coming from the countryside.

This investigation shows that the newly created Bangladeshi identity Banglatown was not the battle of the Bangladeshi community whose priority had certainly been safe and peaceful living in a multi-ethnic community. Neither did the Bangladeshi community need physical symbols to create a shared identity as they were already a community since arriving from Bangladesh, as described about chain immigration. The battle against racism and violence had created new solidarities through and brought them closer together as a group even more.

Nevertheless, the cosmetic physical additions succeeded in creating an identity to the outer community making the Bangladeshi

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community positively identifiable. Today, any visitor to Brick Lane will know when they are entering the authentic Banglatown. It is all there setting the scene for an exotic experience: the ornamental gate, the street lamps... and the smell of curry, and here and there, interesting vintage shops and art studios and galleries. The focus is not on the Bangladeshis themselves but as part of the experience. As the cultural sociologist Sharon Zukin observes in relation to the transformations of cities, “[A]uthenticity has taken on a different meaning that has little to do with origins and a lot to do with style. The concept has migrated from a quality of people to a quality of things, and most recently to a quality of experiences,” (Zukin, 2010, p3) and this seems to be the strategy that the council has employed to improve the economy and the image of the area.

The community does not exist in a vacuum; it is “not static or resistant to change” (Lin, 1998, p6). One way of understanding ethnicity and community is as “situational social phenomena that frame the identities of individuals and order group life, which are constructed and intensified as localities encounter and respond to broader social and economic change” (Lin, 1998, p6).

A neighbourhood’s authenticity cannot be measured against how well it re-creates a village based on its ethnicity. Therefore, Banglatown should rather be assessed on how well it facilitates an interface between the area’s residents, from the Bangladeshi community and other social groups, and visitors. Does it feel like a touristic place or a local area? Unfortunately, we do not get to know much about the Bangladeshi community living there or get a real feeling of their presence in the area.

As a result of the re-branding and re-imaging of Brick Lane as Banglatown and the publicity, a growth has been encouraged in the local businesses, especially the restaurant business. Between 1997 and 2002 (Shaw, 2011, p388) the number of restaurants rose from eight to 41. While the customers prior to the Banglatown project had been mainly Bangladeshi men, the new publicity has attracted a wider scope of visitors from other parts of the city, especially young people (Shaw, 2011, p388) while the Bangladeshis’ visibility in the street scene diminishes.

The new face of Brick Lane

The new image of Brick Lane has attracted new people, new developers and new shops and has changed the experience of space. Like in other cities, and as a result of recent changes in Brick Lane and neighbouring London areas a gentrification process has also started in this part of London. Zukin summarised gentrification processes with their economic interests in cities saying, “Places for cool cultural consumption develop an attractive image for an

Fig. 15: Grafitti found Hanbury Street.

unlikely neighbourhood, which then sparks a commercial revival, a residential influx of people and money, and, finally the building of new luxury apartments with extravagant rents” (Zukin, 1995, p37). The City is already extending into the Brick Lane area with new luxury developments.

The Avant-Garde Tower in the northern part of the area is a new residential development by Telford Homes with luxurious flats that are promoted on their website as set “in the heart of a trendy hotspot in Shoreditch”. Even Banglatown was aimed at changing the memory of Brick Lane, it was not part of the developer’s strategy to seduce new buyers to approach the area. The area is sold more on its central location close to the Canary Wharf, central shopping areas of London and even proximity to Harrods 5 miles away, and not based on Brick Lane’s qualities; Banglatown, its markets, and all local features, searching interaction elsewhere in the city. If a potential buyer wants to know more about the local area – the trendy hotspot – he will find the following advertising commercial text titled City of London: The Famous Square Mile: A Global Financial Powerhouse:

“When it comes to accessing central London, Avant-garde is perfectly placed for a walk to work in The City, Bishopsgate, Aldgate, Finsbury Circus and Moorgate. Shoreditch High Street Station (Zone 1) is only 75 metres/80 yards from the entrance of Avant-garde, meaning just a 15 minute transit time to Canary Wharf. From London Liverpool Street (10 minutes walk), the Central Line runs right across the West End: Oxford Circus, Bond Street, Marble Arch on to Notting Hill. The Circle Line takes you directly to High Street Kensington (the home of Harrods) and to Sloane Square in the heart of the designer names and fashion houses of Sloane Street and Brompton Road.”

This suggests that Banglatown will only on a short term be a drive attracting new businesses to improve the economy.

The increasing popularity of Brick Lane among a different clientele searching for diversity has contributed to the increasing housing prices, which have affected the Bangladeshi community. The first generation Brick Lane artist Rachel Lichtenstein explores the impacts

Fig. 14: The Avant-Garde Tower seen from Brick Lane.

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of increasing prices with a Brick Lane resident in Heba Women’s Institute in her memoir On Brick Lane from 2007. The interviewee describes the tangible consequences, “We have to go because it’s too expensive to stay. […] Brick Lane has been renamed Banglatown and has become the central place for the community outside Bangladesh, but the community it serves is moving, as it is too hard to live here with a big family” (Lichtenstein, 2007, p206).

Banglatown - collective memory

Rebranding and re-imaging Brick Lane by creating a new identity via a cultural project for the area overrules both the shared ‘collective memory’ of the area and personal experiences in good and bad: Londoners might see the area with its new face as a new exciting neighbourhood with edgy niche shops and exotic restaurants while its association with strangers, poverty and conflicts fades away. Bangladeshis feel the area is becoming more part of London’s tourism than being a local area. Banglatown appears as an elective project repressing the history and risks to affect the collective memory of the Bangladeshi inhabitants since “instead of keeping track of these erasures and suppressions [of our collective past] – has fallen prey to mythical narrations and nostalgic recollections” (Boyer, 1994, p480). Opinions about this transformation are mixed. While the owner of one of the textile shops on Brick Lane commented that Banglatown has nothing to do with Bangladeshi culture, and he was offended by the street’s new nickname Curry Lane (personal conversation) another Brick Lane resident tells that “Brick Lane today is better, tourists come and I see many different kinds of people” (Lichtenstein, 2007, p204)

The extent to which the new identity of the area and the story of Banglatown is confirm to the real Bangladeshi community prompted the documentation of the history of the Bangladeshi community and their presence in Brick Lane and prompted the establishment of the Swadhinata Trust in 2000 to document and promote Bangladeshi culture and heritage as a part of Britain’s history.

The need for such a Trust has arisen from an understanding that “an absence of documentation and social data representing Bengalis’ heritage, historical presence and achievements internationally, can contribute towards a sense of marginalisation, low self-esteem and alienation of young people in particular, as part of a minority ethnic community within a wider society. This in turn can limit their participation and contributions to mainstream culture” (www.swadhinta.org.uk).

Conclusion

Brick Lane derives its meanings from its history, its people, and their interactions in space, and is today a diverse area with different historic, social and cultural layers and mixes in space. Banglatown is an eclectic project based on a public cultural strategy that focuses on the Bangladeshi community, however, does not sum all the experiences in the neighbourhood and risks to repress its history and the history of the Bangladeshi community. Banglatown, however, has succeeded in changing the face of Brick Lane and its previous identity that was associated with immigration and conflicts in public space, and in attracting new visitors and businesses.

While Brick Lane has been named and branded as Banglatown and planned to offer an authentic Bangladeshi experience, it is experienced as a sum of all its characteristics, processes, image and how it is remembered. Banglatown is not experienced by its visitors as a Bangladeshi village and is not authentic in this regard, however, this does not determine its success or failure and whether it is liked or not.

Banglatown is another layer added and juxtaposed to Brick Lane’s many other historical and cultural layers. A common feature in many of Brick Lane’s layers is the aspect of ‘making the space your own’. In this sense, space is as Manuel Castells expresses “a material product, in relationship to other material products – including people who engage in historically determined social relationships that provide space with form, a function and social meaning” (Castells, 1996, p441).

Each of the communities who settled in Brick Lane created their own desired spaces, for example for religious, educational and commercial purposes. They transformed existing spaces for their needs. Similarly, the new groups of artists, street artist and independent shops have nurtured from the possibility of adapting space, not having to adhere to a rigorously planned space. This is one of the main factors that I believe makes the area interesting and popular.

Banglatown is part of London’s promotion as a ‘world city’ becoming an addition to London’s ethnic consumer experiences, and has succeeded in attracting new groups to the area making a contribution to the expanding city of London.

Change is a natural part of the area’s life bringing incoming and outgoing movements of people and communities. Brick Lane’s strong imageability has given it a power to readapt, transitioning with the settlement of new communities. The process of renewal, which is currently bordering the area is expected to gradually extend onto the area and is seemingly inevitable risks excluding the local community. While economic regeneration to create new value is not negative in itself, respecting the area’s residents and layers is important.

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The influence of Banglatown as a driver attracting visitors and improving the economy seems to be only short termed, as new developments are focusing on their proximity to London’s financial districts. In the process of one cultural layer predominating the neighbourhood it is important to ensure that the area’s residents have control and the sincere opportunity to co-create its meaning and form. It is also important to avoid marginalisation and its consequences as seen over history and to enable mobilisation of the community as this is important for improving the condition of the area. It is essential that Tower Hamlet’s policies for the area are inclusive.

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Fig. 1-5: Author’s own images.

Fig. 6: Base map from Digimaps, and edited by author.

Fig. 7-8: Author’s own images.

Fig. 9: Markéta Luskacová (1979). Lion cup and dog, Club Row.In: Lichtenstein, R. (2007) On Brick Lane. London: Penguin Books, p310.

Fig. 10: Trevor, P. The experience of life in the East End of London leads many Bengali families to accept racial abuse and attacks as a constant factor of everyday life.In: Leech, K. (1980). Brick Lane 1978: The Events and Their Significance. Birmingham: AFFOR, p2.

Fig. 11: Trevor, P. [Untitled]In: Leech, K. (1980). Brick Lane 1978: The Events and Their Significance. Birmingham: AFFOR, p22

Fig. 12:Wikimedia commons, “Tribal Village of Khasia Madhobkunda Sylhet Bangladesh”. Accessed online 10.11.2014: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tribal_Village_of_Khasia_Madhobkunda_Sylhet_Bangladesh_2.JPG

Fig. 13:Geolocation, “Bangladesh Sylhet Jaflong Khasia Village”. Accessed online 10.11.2014: https://geolocation.ws/v/P/54934837/bangladesh-sylhet-jaflong-khasia-village/en

Fig. 14-15: Author’s own images.

Aftab, I. (2005) The Spatial Form of Bangladeshi Community in London’s East End. In: Van Nes, A. Space Syntax 5th International Symposium, Delft University of Technology. Deflt, The Netherlands. Amsterdam: Techne Press 2005, 129-144

Castells, M. (2010) The Rise of the Network Society. 2nd ed. West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell.

Hillier, B. and Hanson, J. (1984). The Social Logic of Space. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Leech, K. (1980) Brick Lane 1978: The Events and Their Significance. Birmingham: AFFOR.

Lichtenstein, R. (2007) On Brick Lane. London: Penguin Books.

Lin, J. (1998) Reconstructing Chinatown – Ethnic Enclave, Global Change. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

London Borough of Tower Hamlets (2009) Brick Lane and Fournier Street Conservation Area: 1. Chapter Appraisal, 2. Management Guidelines.

London Borough of Tower Hamlets (2012) Curry Capital 2012 www.towerhamlets.gov.uk/lgnl/leisure_and_culture/olympic_games/curry_capital_2012.aspx [accessed: 2/1/2015]

Lynch, K. (1960) The Image of the City. Cambridge: The MIT Press.

Shaw, S. J. (2011). Marketing ethnoscapes as spaces of consumption: ‘Banglatown – London’s Curry Capital’. Journal of Town & City Management. 1 (4), 381-395.

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Tedford Homes www. telfordhomes.plc.uk [accessed: 22/11/2014]

Zukin, S. (1995) The Cultures of Cities. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.

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List of figures Bibliography

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