18 March

Had a discussion yesterday about the Rockley Pub, now featuring a restaurant run by Matt Moran. My issue with some of these developments is that it’s partly a process of gentrification. Taking facilities in a poorer area, and reshaping them ‘upmarket’. Sure it will bring wealthier, mobile people to Rockley to eat and drink, and some money into the community. But overseas these developments often lead to the exclusion of the original poorer residents, some are even forced to move. You can see a bit of that now even in Central West towns, as people flee the Covid cities and drive house prices well up in our towns. Welcome investment in some ways, but pricing many locals out of the market too. Is it progress when a local town’s traditional diners go upmarket, become gentrified to attract passing trade and the wealthier in those towns? At a time when many of these towns desperately need new industries and jobs, what they’re getting is vastly overpriced hamburgers and coffees. They can sit in these swish cosmopolitan eateries and watch the tumbleweeds outside go past all the closed shops. City folk see country towns as the big city, minus the traffic and noise. They’re treating them like expensive suburbs in Sydney, which is what gentrification can turn them into.