How I Fell in Love With Housing Politics

A personal history of protest, planning, and finding meaning in the mess

Familiar land, seen from above

October 2018. We stared at the map. London land lit up like a mosaic, yellow, red and purple, and felt, briefly, powerful.

The kind of feeling you get when looking out of your tiny, A4-sheet-of-paper-sized aeroplane window and looking down thousands of metres, down at houses, fields, cars, all looking toy-like, as if you could pick them up between your thumb and forefinger.

Everything seems so much more changeable, less permanent and heavy, from up there. You see patterns, you see spaces

Isle of Dogs, London, the Thames’ famous “dip” in the Eastenders opening credits.

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Starting from the grassroots

Rewind six months, April 2018. In a community centre’s main room by Victoria Park, east London, the room has filled out. I take the floor, supported by the kind gaze of Christine, the elderly centre manager who I’d been gardening with for a year of Sundays, my then girlfriend, and a few allies.

The room is otherwise packed with unfamiliar faces. I clear my throat, about to present my vision for an exciting new way of living in the city, and why they should join me to develop and build cohousing.

After warming up, I got into my flow and spoke for ten minutes. Upon finishing my slide deck, the final slide: any questions? 

Six hands jump up instantly.

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Rebel, Rebel