How Gentrification Makes Service Workers Unable To Live In The Communities They Service
She Works At The Hospital In Shoreditch But Lives One Hour Away
I work as a nurse at a hospital in Shoreditch earning £32,000 annually. The hospital has been in the neighborhood for seventy years. I have worked there for nine years. I started living in Shoreditch in an affordable flat with roommates. When my roommate moved out I could not afford to replace her on my salary. I had to move to outer London.
Now I commute one hour each way to work at a hospital in the neighborhood where I can no longer afford to live. My commute costs money and time. My exhaustion from commuting reduces my quality as a nurse. The community I serve has no connection to my life because I cannot afford to live in the community.
The hospital serves residents of Shoreditch but employs nurses who live outside Shoreditch because gentrification made Shoreditch unaffordable for service workers. This creates geographical disconnection between service providers and communities served.
Healthcare workers, teachers, social workers, police officers cannot afford to live in the neighborhoods where they work. This disconnects them from the communities they serve. The service workers commute from distant neighborhoods. They do not develop community relationships. They provide services to neighborhoods they do not live in.
Gentrification creates this geography where service workers are spatially excluded from the communities they serve. The workers become temporary inhabitants of the neighborhoods during work hours then retreat to distant neighborhoods where they live.
This is unsustainable long-term but it is currently stable because workers tolerate the commute to maintain employment. The hospital does not need to raise wages because workers accept gentrification as unchangeable. The workers bear the cost of commuting rather than demanding wages sufficient for neighborhood housing.
SOURCE: https://prat.uk
