Editor's note: Laura Beers He is a professor of history at American University. She is the author of several books on British culture and politics, including the recent book Orwell's Ghost, which explores the relevance of George Orwell's writings to the 21st century. Her views expressed here are her own. Read more of her thoughts on CNN.
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This month marks the 25th anniversary of the release of Richard Curtis' blockbuster film Notting Hill. The film is now a classic romantic comedy, starring Julia Roberts as American movie star Anna Scott, filmed on location in London, and Hugh Grant as shy bookseller William Tucker. Roberts' character falls in love.
It premiered internationally in May 1999, grossing $363 million (approximately £200 million at the time). The film is a loving depiction of love across social and cultural divides and has withstood the test of time. Last year, Vanity Fair ranked it No. 11 on its list of the best romantic comedies of all time, and a few months ago, Harper's Bazaar placed it even higher at No. 4. Did.
But the social world the film depicts hasn't aged much: Whereas in the 1990s Notting Hill was still a social outcast and shabby chic neighbourhood where a group of thirtysomething professionals might end up, today it's a bastion of extreme wealth and privilege that young professionals, and indeed 99% of the population, can never afford.
In Curtis's depiction, this west London area is an upwardly mobile, almost exclusively white, gentrifying bubble. Young professionals can afford to not only rent but also own townhouses in central London. Even if, as in the case of Grant's character, an unfortunate divorce affects his mortgage payments and he ends up taking in an eccentric Welsh lodger. He can also afford to invest in a travel bookstore that is no longer economically viable.
Even in the late 1990s, access to such disposable income marked the characters in Notting Hill as privileged. But their privilege was not so bad as to make them completely irrelevant.
In key romantic moments in Notting Hill, indicators of class privilege are recycled from elitism to intimacy and quaintness. Who can forget that sight? The two protagonists scale the fence of one of West London's many gated private squares, after which the trespassers illegally kiss among the rose petals.
MCA/Everett Collection
An iconic scene from the film sees Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant's characters strolling through a gated garden in West London and then sharing a kiss.
These fences speak of London's exclusivity. During World War II, the iron fences around these squares were removed and melted down to make munitions. As a result, “more green space is now open to the public.” This was an unintentional “democratic gesture” by then Prime Minister Winston Churchill's wartime government, and was praised by observers such as George Orwell.
But already in 1944, Orwell wrote that “railings are being returned to the squares of London one after the other. You can keep people’s children out.”
For Orwell, with the horrors of the Great Depression still fresh in his memory, such indicators of social inequality were inherently illegitimate. Twenty years later, in May 1968, a new generation of social critics jumped the parapets in organized protest, once again labelling Notting Hill's private gardens as an indefensible symbol of Britain's enduring social hierarchy.
But when the film was first released, in former Prime Minister Tony Blair's Britain and President Bill Clinton's America, a large portion of viewers found Grant's opulence glamorous, and the gated gardens of west London I accepted it as an innocent idyll.
The 1990s were a time of economic and social optimism. Optimism spread: “Things can only get better,'' as Prime Minister Blair's 1997 campaign song said, and “tomorrow will be better than yesterday,'' as President Clinton's 1992 campaign song said.
Politicians and the public have not given much thought to the impact of growing inequality. The point is that even if it remains unequal, the economic pie is growing. A rising tide floats all boats, and those still floating in shallow waters can hope that one day they will be able to own their own townhouse.
Steve Eason/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Tony Blair shakes hands over tea while campaigning in 1997. Labour's election anthem was D:Ream's club song 'Things Can Only Get Better'.
Twenty-five years later, with the economic collapse of 2008 and the Occupy protests that followed well in the rearview mirror, it is even harder to ignore the impact of a resurgence of social inequality in the UK and US, and around the world. Ta. .
Access to affordable housing is at historically low levels. A resurgence in homelessness has seen an increase in the number of people sleeping rough in encampments, sparking debate in cities across the UK, US and elsewhere over the rights of local governments to fund homeless communities.
Young people in particular are being squeezed by rising rents and property prices, making it more difficult to get onto the housing ladder. Millennials are less likely to own their own home than previous generations.
In the mid-1990s, a professional couple in their mid-30s, like Grant's character and his ex-wife, might have been able to afford a house in Notting Hill, but only if they had family help as a down payment. , plausible.
Laura Beers
In the mid-1990s, a professional couple in their mid-30s, like Grant's character and his ex-wife, would likely have been able to afford a house in Notting Hill, even if they had family help as a down payment.
In 1995, when you can imagine them buying their blue door home, the average price of a terraced house in Notting Hill was £383,039 (£758,392, equivalent to around $940,000 today).
However, during the 1990s, Notting Hill, long a center of Caribbean immigrant culture and home to the annual Notting Hill Carnival, underwent a rapid process of gentrification. From 1995 to 1999, house prices in Notting Hill rose by 75%.
By the end of the 2000s, the area was inaccessible to all but the most privileged first-time homebuyers, but young people, especially those in their 20s and 30s, could still find a rental property if they wanted to. was possible. Renting a room in a shared house, like Grant's character, lodger Spike (Rhys Ifans).
Mike Kemp/Photo/Getty Images
Colorful terraced houses in Notting Hill have recently been on the market for millions of pounds.
The process of gentrification and urban redevelopment that began in cities around the world in the late 20th century has accelerated further in the 21st century. House prices in major city centers have risen disproportionately to almost all other forms of capital, with the result that young renters and home buyers are now effectively locked out of the central London market. It is.
Grant's character's home (now with a blue door repainted white) sold for more than £4.5 million in 2014. It's no wonder he's probably worth twice as much today.
The average terraced house in central London now sells for more than £3 million. And in San Francisco, Manhattan and other major U.S. cities, housing has become unaffordable to all but the wealthiest people. Home prices in the San Francisco-San Matteo-Redwood City area have increased nearly 500% since 1995, according to Federal Reserve data.
As a result, the proportion of people in their 30s who own homes in major urban centers such as London and San Francisco has fallen dramatically.
Access to rental housing is subject to a similar fate. In the early 2000s, I used my graduate student income to rent a series of studios and shared houses in central London. And most of my college friends lived in one-bedrooms and one-room apartments in Manhattan on their teacher's salaries and graduate student stipends.
All but one of my New York friends have now moved out of Manhattan. The only people I know left in central London are people in their 60s and 70s who bought their homes in the last century.
Spencer Pratt/Getty Images
Like central London, rental prices in Manhattan have risen dramatically in recent years and are now double the national market rate.
According to housing website home.co.uk, the average rent for a shared house in Notting Hill is £1,254 (just over $1,500) a month, while the average rent for a Notting Hill apartment is four times that.
Meanwhile, many properties in central London, Manhattan, and San Francisco remain vacant and held by wealthy real estate investors banking on continued rise in property values, a situation that is exacerbated by the availability and affordability of properties. This will only exacerbate the housing shortage.
Progressive activists and politicians have sought legislative remedies for a situation in which not only gated gardens but entire city centers have become inaccessible to all but the wealthiest people.
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However, such proposals face strong and effective opposition from landowners determined to maximize property values.
In the UK, Chancellor Rishi Sunak's government's long-promised Tenancy Reform Bill has failed to deliver the promised protections for tenants. The New York state budget passed last month included tax incentives to encourage new housing construction and protections against excessive rent increases and no-fault evictions, but progressives say renters will not A complete package of protection was not included. The dream of city life is likely to remain inaccessible to many.
Rewatching Notting Hill 25 years after its release, I realized that the film's overarching fantasy was not about a movie star falling in love with a struggling bookstore owner, but about ordinary men in their 30s. This means that all groups can own a townhouse. at Notting Hill.
