It has been almost 4 years since the end of the Downtown Eastside Street Market in the form that it was in all its glory.
For me, it has perhaps been long enough to finally lament on what was lost in a neighbourhood that I call my home, and whether anything like it will ever appear again.
This will be the first in a series of periodic blog posts as I reflect on our achievements, the difficulties that we encountered, and the friends and enemies we made in the process.
The tragedy, to me, is in many ways a story of the neighbourhood itself. The failure to recognize potential due to prejudice, the continual and unrelenting destruction of human value, and the systemic bias that still plagues the colonial city government.
It is now, and will be for a long time, a shadow of what it was and what it could have been.
One only has to look at other cities around the world to see glorious examples of other markets merely allowed to thrive by towns and municipalities that don't seek to control and kill everything that they don't understand.
If I wanted to, I could blame lots of individuals, but what would be the point? All of them know who they are, and all of them know what we lost.
In the end, this is not a story of individuals, but a story of a neighbourhood. Its is a story corruption, both on the streets and at city hall, and it is a story of how universal and pervasive the story is of how corruption destroys all value.
As a beginning, I will post a few photographs of the thriving Stanley Market of Hong Kong.
For me, it has perhaps been long enough to finally lament on what was lost in a neighbourhood that I call my home, and whether anything like it will ever appear again.
This will be the first in a series of periodic blog posts as I reflect on our achievements, the difficulties that we encountered, and the friends and enemies we made in the process.
The tragedy, to me, is in many ways a story of the neighbourhood itself. The failure to recognize potential due to prejudice, the continual and unrelenting destruction of human value, and the systemic bias that still plagues the colonial city government.
It is now, and will be for a long time, a shadow of what it was and what it could have been.
One only has to look at other cities around the world to see glorious examples of other markets merely allowed to thrive by towns and municipalities that don't seek to control and kill everything that they don't understand.
If I wanted to, I could blame lots of individuals, but what would be the point? All of them know who they are, and all of them know what we lost.
In the end, this is not a story of individuals, but a story of a neighbourhood. Its is a story corruption, both on the streets and at city hall, and it is a story of how universal and pervasive the story is of how corruption destroys all value.
As a beginning, I will post a few photographs of the thriving Stanley Market of Hong Kong.
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