What does the future hold for the young people in ‘Tech City’?
Yesterday saw the launch of a new initiative aimed at connecting less privileged local young people from Hackney, Islington, and Tower Hamlets with the fast-growing digital technology cluster around Old Street.
Tech City Stars, supported by the Mayor’s Fund, will initially equip 125 local youngsters with a digital apprenticeship and route to employment in the Tech City cluster.
Since the Government and Boris Johnson’s team got behind what they christened ‘Tech City’, they have encouraged efforts to make connections between local people, and in some ways the omens look good.
What we are seeing in East London might be seen as a process of ‘gentrification’ – tech entrepreneurs and tech businesses moving into what was once a poor neighbourhood, pushing up prices in the process and displacing less wealthy firms and residents.
Bourgeois bohemians
But it is clearly gentrification with a difference. For one thing, the new arrivals apparently value the area’s gritty, diverse urban vibe and see themselves as adding to it.
These are the bourgeois bohemians about whom US commentator David Brooks writes so well – they pride themselves on their informal, open-minded, and entrepreneurial spirit. They don’t see strong distinctions between the worlds of research, business, charity and public service – they firmly believe these things work best when they come together.
These are the sort of people who when they see a problem see it as an opportunity, or simply want to fix it. That could bode well for an area with many social problems (some 40% of local 16-24 year olds are out of work or not in formal education) but also rich with potential.
Beyond this, the ‘bobos’ who have set down roots in inner East London tend to believe in the value of openness and engagement as a source innovation and economic development.
Talking recently at Centre for London Ideas for London Salon, Rohan Silva, the Cameron adviser who drove 10 Downing Street’s interest in Tech City (and a man who exemplifies Tech City’s casual, can-do spirit), talked about the value of chance encounters to government policy.
People like Silva view connecting with local young people as not just a social responsibility, but a source of new ideas and economic opportunities.
It’s surely not hard to imagine a growing number of these new East Londoners taking root, sending their kids to local schools, and getting their hands dirty working on local issues.
Compare and contrast Tech City with Canary Wharf. Canary Wharf has made a big contribution to London’s economy, and offered employment to many local people in the process. And Canary Wharf Group and other big firms situated there have supported programmes intended to help poor local young people acquire skills and find work.
But it is hard for most of the people who work there to feel any real contact with the surrounding area: an island mentality reigns. Tech City is clearly very different. If Canary Wharf feels a bit like a space ship landed on a hostile planet, Tech City feels at least half local.
Two worlds colliding
At the same time the old complaints about gentrification have yet to be answered, and the expansion of the tech cluster will inevitably crowd local residents and firms out.
The creative-class settlers and the poor, mainly migrant locals come from different worlds, and the space between them – educationally, culturally and in attitude – remains vast.
The skills and mentalities valued by Tech City firms aren’t easily taught in schools or on the job – at least not to most children from poor backgrounds. And initiatives like Tech City Stars or the Tech City Apprenticeships are so far fairly modest in scale and unproven in effect.
All which is to say that initiatives like Tech City Stars are to be welcomed. But it’s far from clear what Tech City will mean for local young people.
Ben Rogers is Director of the think-tank Centre for London. The Centre is currently researching the relationship between the Tech City firms and local young people. Find out more at centreforlondon.co.uk