Reading The Age article about the attacks on fashionable new places in Footscray, my 14-year-old son's response was "cool". It's ironic because we've been to and enjoyed two of the places that have been the target of recent "anti-hipster" sentiment, including graffiti that reads "F--k off hipster scum". Burger joint 8-Bit is 500 metres from our home, the bar Littlefoot even closer.
I reprimanded him, emphasising that destruction is no way to make a statement. Even so, I knew that his reaction reflected our own sniping about the "hipster" takeover of the neighbourhood.
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Footscray burger restaurant vandalised
Vandals have targeted an upmarket burger restaurant in Footscray, smashing glass and scrawling offensive, anti-hipster slogans on the windows.
I don't agree with the attacks on these venues, let alone think they're cool. But I do think another "C-word" is relevant and consider my son's unsubtle response an indication of his adolescent appreciation for the "up yours" the aggression seems to represent. As inner city suburbs like Footscray and Brunswick are progressively remade through consumption, no one is as left out as those who can no longer afford to live here. And while consumerism is one relevant C-word, class is the real elephant in the room.
As Tim Winton writes in his latest book, The Boy Behind the Curtain, the word class has largely disappeared from public lexicon. Consequently, mentioning it is seen as "awkward", even "provocative". Discussing a conversation he had with a journalist in which he mentioned class divisions, Winton writes: "Having uttered the C-word in polite company I felt, for a moment, as if I'd shat in the municipal pool."
I got a feel for the lurking problem of class in term four of 2016 when I did some work with my daughter's grade six class at Footscray City Primary School. As part of a research project on children's experiences of place and belonging, we talked about their perspectives on the schoolyard and neighbourhood. The school is positioned on the boundary of Seddon and Footscray and over the last few years, the proportion of middle-class children in attendance has increased.
Supported by their wonderful teacher, who lives in Caroline Springs because she "can't afford to live in Footscray", the grade sixes and I had stimulating discussions about the factors that influence the experience of feeling comfortable in a place, including gender, ethnicity, religion and ability. While there was some caution about religion, class was the factor about which everyone seemed most awkward.
But there were clearly class distinctions in the room. For a start, the middle-class kids loved Seddon, declaring their enjoyment of sharing breakfast in the "hipster" cafes with their parents on a Saturday morning. Though most of these kids were more ambivalent, even a little afraid, about being alone in Footscray, some of the less well-off, including those who live in the housing estates near the Maribyrnong, appeared deeply uncomfortable about the prospect of hanging out in Seddon. It's clear why. Without money to spend there's only so much fun to be had in a place dealing in $9 juices, yoga, beauty therapy and home furnishings.
But Footscray is still a more welcoming place for the kid with a crew cut and a scooter. As one particularly savvy boy made clear, there are free mangos at the Footscray market if you know how to get them and the delights of a halal snack pack can be bought for as little as $6. Down on your luck? There's a range of others in Nicholson Mall well equipped to empathise. The comfort of the "working-class kids" in Footscray reflects that it has remained a bastion of ethnic and socio-economic diversity.
While they have every right to be here, the proprietors of these new venues have arrived at a time of acute sensitivity about the exclusions of class. We too experienced these challenges when we switched from one Footscray home to another.
Our new neighbours, an "old Footscray" couple were unwelcoming from the outset. Unfriendliness became hostility when we questioned their right to play music at a loud volume for hours every weekend. After several attempts at polite discussion, my husband brandished some EPA brochures and the wife ripped them up, with the words "f--k off you poofter". As ugly and unnecessary as it was, when they sold a year later, I understood their resentment when I learned that because of the prices in Footscray she could not afford to pay her brother out and stay in the house when their mother died.
In 2016, we "recently arrived" jumped on the Bulldogs bandwagon, proud to declare our affiliation with the 'Scray during the finals season that brought the city's western suburbs into focus. Crossing class barriers in the other direction is far more difficult. Embracing Pilates and single origin coffee requires both disposable income and middle-class confidence, available to some and not others.
What happened to 8-Bit, Up in Smoke and Littlefoot is ugly and unfortunate and I sincerely hope it doesn't happen again. As The Age article made clear, the people who run both venues are just trying to make a living and "bring more diversity" to an area they love.
However, their businesses represent change to a suburb that will soon lock out those who can't afford to be part of this development. Given this, it is perhaps unsurprising that one of the tactics employed by those protesting the suburb's new joints was gluing the lock of the door to render access impossible.
Ceridwen Spark is vice chancellor's senior research fellow in the Centre for Global Research at RMIT University.
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