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High streets
商業街
Strange town
陌生的城市
Why some streets in London stay resolutely the same
為何倫敦仍執拗地保持部分街道不變樣
KENTISH TOWN ROAD is a humdrum high street in north London. It contains pawnbrokers, pound shops, hairdressers and some long-in-the-tooth hardware stores. Unlike Camden Town to the south, full of bars and tattoo parlours, or Hampstead to the west, with its bistros and boutique clothing shops, little seems to have changed on the street for the past three decades. “It's never quite got going,” admits Gary McLaren, a local bookseller. Yet the lack of change is odd—and hints at some of the strangeness of London.
肯特鎮路（KENTISH TOWN ROAD）是倫敦北部的一條頗顯乏味的街道。這這條街上有當鋪、一磅店（像中國的一元店）、理發店和一些古老的五金店。不似南部盡是酒吧和紋身店的卡登姆鎮和西部滿是夜總會與精品服飾店的漢普斯蒂德，30年來肯特鎮路似乎并無改變。當地的一位書店老板Gary McLaren 坦誠，“它從未真正改變。”但是欠缺改變是如此之怪異—而且這暗示了倫敦的些許陌生感。
Kentish Town has excellent transport links to central London, and plenty of residents prepared to pay good money for that. Off the high street stretch rows of pretty Victorian terraced houses, which sell for as much as 2m ($3m) apiece. Between 2007 and 2014 property prices in the postcode area surrounding the main Tube and railway station more than doubled. An influx of French parents, drawn by a school that opened in 2011, is pushing prices even higher. Yet Kentish Town's shops and cafes are almost invariably untrendy and in some cases mouldering. A hair salon, a butcher and a sportswear shop have each been owned by the same men for more than a quarter of a century. Why?
肯特鎮通向倫敦市中心交通便利，還擁有眾多愿意支付交通費的居民。距主干街不遠，目之所及盡是鋪陳開來的一排排維多利亞式排屋，這些房子售價每棟房屋200萬歐元（合300萬美金）。在2007至2014年間，在主要的地鐵站和火車站附近的房價都翻了一倍不止。一所于2011年開放的學校吸引了大批法國父母，這些法國父母的涌入也促使房價的再升高。然而肯特鎮的商店和咖啡館幾乎一直都是那個價，有時候價格還會下跌。一間發廊、一間肉鋪和一間運動服裝店，同一店主可以擁有這其中一間店鋪超過25年。這是為什么？
One explanation is that, in common with other parts of London, Kentish Town has lots of social housing as well as costly Victorian terraces. Camden Council, the local authority, is building even more in the borough. This helps cheaper shops survive, suggests Tony Travers of the London School of Economics: council tenants are less likely to drive and so rely more on local outlets. And the sheer volume of car and lorry traffic on the busy high street, which is a main road into the city, might deter shoppers from visiting and swanky businesses from setting up in the area.
一種解釋是，與倫敦的其他地區一樣，肯特鎮有許多的社會住房（指由住房協會和地方市政會提供的廉租房或廉價房）和高價的維多利亞式排屋。倫敦卡姆登地方議會（地方當局）甚至在自治市（享有自治特權的市鎮）建造更多這樣的房屋。倫敦經濟學院的Tony Travers表示，這樣有助于更廉價的店鋪存活下來：那些社會租房的租戶的購買力收效甚微，所以更多的還是依賴于當地商鋪。在繁忙的主干街（通向市中心的主街）上，汽車總量和貨車流量很可能遏制了顧客對商店的光顧，也阻止了一流企業在此處的設立開辦。
Demography plays a part, too. Fully 72% of the population of Kentish Town is white, including a good number of Irish residents—higher than the proportion in London as a whole, at 60%. Unlike the high streets around Peckham and Brixton in south London, which cater for African shoppers who may travel far to reach them, few specialist shops draw people to Kentish Town. “We're not a destination high street,” sighs one local trader.
人口結構也是很大一部分原因。肯特鎮有近72％的人都是白人，其中大部分是愛爾蘭居民（比倫敦的愛爾蘭總人口還要多）—這比倫敦總人口的60％還多。不像倫敦南部的佩卡姆和布里斯頓附近的街道那樣，為了迎合那些專門為來到這些這里的非洲顧客而設立的商店，這里幾乎沒有獨特的店鋪足以吸引人們來到肯特鎮。肯特的一位商人感嘆，“我們的街道并不是顧客的目的地。”
NIMBYs have not always helped. Lots of civic groups are active in the area, campaigning against late licences and the like, says Dan Carrier of the Camden New Journal, a newspaper. A local business association is also good at complaining. Partly because of this, a big supermarket has not yet opened on the high street—though Lidl, a discounter, will set up shop this year. “We quite like that it is rough around the edges,” says Michael Williams, a writer and local.
鄰避效應（not in my back yard，指居民或當地單位因擔心建設項目帶來諸多負面影響，從而激發人們的嫌惡情結，滋生“不要建在我家后院”的心理，及采取的強烈和堅決的、有時高度情緒化的集體反對甚至抗爭行為。）并不一直都起作用。該地區的許多公民組織是很活躍的，他們常反對老舊的許可證這類事物，來自卡姆登新日報（Camden New Journal）的Dan Carrier說道。當地的一個工商協會也很擅長這種控訴。在一定程度上出于這種原因，一家大型超市都未能在這條街上開張—即使是將在今年開業Lidl（一間德國的連鎖超級市場，在全球擁有超過8000間分店。）當地作家Michael Williams說，“我們的確喜歡在邊緣徘徊，不入大流。”
Paradoxically, soaring house prices in the area might be another brake on change. Wealthy family buyers mean that some houses once split into flats have been turned back into homes, says Mr Carrier. The result is fewer shoppers on the high street. Wealthy residents are more likely to get their groceries online or drive to bigger stores. And most will go out to the West End rather than a local restaurant.
相反的是，該地區飛漲的房價可能是改變的另一個阻礙。Carrier表示，那些富裕家庭的買主意味著曾被隔成公寓的房屋已被變回原來的大房子。結果便是街道上越來越少的顧客。富裕的居民更可能在線購物或是開車去大商店。而且其中的大多數人會去倫敦西區（the West End）而不是當地的餐廳。
Such “counter-currents” will prevent Kentish Town from gentrifying fully, suggests Gillian Tindall, a local historian. And they affect many other streets in London, too. Lupus Street in Pimlico serves a large council block on one side and white stucco houses on the other. Caledonian Road in Islington, close to rapidly-changing King's Cross, is still full of kebab shops. London is a global city, but it is also a collection of villages, cranky and resistant to change.
當地的一位歷史學家Gillian Tindall表示，這般“逆流現象”將完全阻止肯特鎮的區域貴族化。而且他們還影響了倫敦的很多其他街道。例如皮姆利科的Lupus街，一邊提供社會住房，另一邊就有高檔的白色粉刷住宅。伊斯靈頓的古蘇格蘭路（Caledonian Road，臨近不斷改變的國王十字火車站）仍舊滿是烤肉店。倫敦是一個全球化城市，但是它也是一個村落的集合而且它古怪又固執的拒絕改變。譯者：張娣 校對：周曉婷
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