jd Ⓐ★😼🚀🌍🇪🇺🇭🇺Jun 29, 2017

Yesterday the #Hungary govt shut down the number one dissident bar/community centre in Budapest - the cops found 1.99gram of pot on a customer 17 days before.

Reality: This is about attacking activism + NGOs funded by George Soros which the right wing govt hates. Short version.

Aurora is in the poorest district in the centre of Budapest – they bought an old building and made it a vibrant artistic musical and political space – also a jewish community centre that welcomes muslims + gypsies and all other social rejects. Therefore, I like it - and the govt hates it.

My Photos: Citizens debating in front the district council meeting... Interesting how the anti-Aurora people with signs complained about drugs + about becoming a 'party quarter'.

I feel that the Govt/Fidesz Party has coopted the anti-gentrification cause and all my people are on the wrong side of the debate! :-/

Show threadSimon 🌧

@jd Ah, we went there when we were in Budapest, it was a beautiful space. Sad news indeed.

Do you think that the govt sees Aurora as a gentrifying force? (or did I just misunderstand what you said?)

Jun 29, 2017 at 3:43pmWeb
Show threadjd Ⓐ★😼🚀🌍🇪🇺🇭🇺Jun 29, 2017

@simonv3 i wrote too short, sorry. No, the govt sees it as a beehive of George Soros agents plotting to bring back liberal democracy. Seriously.

The War on Drugs is the excuse to shut it down.

Maybe you noticed that upstairs were offices for various lefty liberal NGOs? It doesn't actually matter if they are funded by Soros, it is the smear (antisemitic, really) that the opposition is all controlled by the big scary jew - Mr Soros.

The fact that the bar was a HQ of all kinds of diversity also makes it a target – so much 'cosmopolitanism' in one place is still seen as a dangerous thing in Central/Eastern Europe.

The Gentrifying is what the neighbors authentically see as a threat to their rents going up, etc – the Hipster Effect is real. But the Hipsters are only partially to blame in this case, the govt itself has created a small econ boom there also.

Show threadjd Ⓐ★😼🚀🌍🇪🇺🇭🇺Jun 29, 2017

@simonv3

Some articles about Hipsters and #Gentrification....

The peril of hipster economics
– When urban decay becomes a set piece to be remodelled or romanticised.
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/05/peril-hipster-economics-2014527105521158885.html

Hipsternomics: Is the creative class ruining urban communities?
http://edition.cnn.com/2014/08/14/business/hipster-housing-one-square-meter/index.html

Bring on the hipsters
– Gentrification is good for the poor
http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21644164-gentrification-good-poor-bring-hipsters

Show threadSimon 🌧Jun 29, 2017

@jd Yeah, it makes sense to me. I mean, it's a 101 in Portland, especially in the Alberta area, and my brother has actually done research for this in Montreal.

There's also a similar thing with 1980s squatters in NYC (which I thought is similar to the history of the Aurora bar, right?) who fought against the gov for the right to live in the apts they squatted in and contributed to, but are now also a massive gentrifying force in the neighborhood (because people think it's cool).

Show threadSimon 🌧Jun 29, 2017
@jd (if you're interested in the NYC squatters story and their struggle, I just listened to this podcast episode which I felt was pretty good! http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/squatters-lower-east-side/)
Show threadjd Ⓐ★😼🚀🌍🇪🇺🇭🇺Jun 29, 2017
@simonv3 thx, i will listen in a day or two :-)