An Empirical Survey of Canine East London Preferences Reveals Insights the Gentrification Literature Has Overlooked
From Bohiney and The London Prat.
By Harper-Thames | ShoreRoar.com
The Survey
SHOREDITCH — I have been conducting an informal survey of the Shoreditch dog population’s neighbourhood preferences by observing which locations produce the specific dog behaviour of increased interest, extended stopping, and resistance to departing on the lead. The methodology is not rigorous. The findings are specific. Dogs have strong preferences about Shoreditch that correlate weakly with the preferences of human residents and visitors and provide a complementary perspective on the neighbourhood’s assets.
What Dogs Prefer
Dogs prefer: the Shoreditch High Street stretch where the market stalls have food, particularly the stretch where the street food operations leave the specific olfactory record of their trading day on the pavement; the park spaces around Arnold Circus, which is the small garden at the centre of the Boundary Estate that is the neighbourhood’s oldest planned social housing development and one of its most underappreciated urban spaces; and the canal path access points where the specific combination of water, wildlife, and the olfactory richness of the canal environment produces the maximum canine engagement per unit of walking distance.
What Dogs Do Not Prefer
Dogs do not prefer: the glass-and-steel ground floor retail of the newer Old Street developments, which are apparently olfactorily uninteresting at the animal level; the specific block of Redchurch Street where the density of coffee shops produces the specific combination of steam and roasting smell that some dogs find aversive; and the narrow Curtain Road section where the building canyon reduces wind flow and therefore olfactory range in ways that limit the environmental information available to the canine nose.
The Neighbourhood Insight
The canine preference data suggests that the Shoreditch locations with the highest human aesthetic and commercial value (the coffee shop corridor, the gallery district) are not the locations with the highest environmental richness. The canal path, Arnold Circus, and the market smell residue are the high environmental richness locations. Whether this has implications for how humans should evaluate the neighbourhood is a question I am not qualified to answer. The dogs have answered it consistently. Read The Poke.
More: The Poke.
Shoreditch continues to be Shoreditch. London continues to be London. The neighbourhood and the city are worth writing about in detail because the detail is where the truth about them lives — not in the aggregate statistics or the estate agent pitch or the guidebook photograph, but in the specific Tuesday morning coffee queue and the Wednesday night venue and the Thursday planning meeting and the Friday market. This column continues because the neighbourhood continues to produce the specific material that justifies the column. Next week will be no different.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/
London rewards patient attention. Shoreditch rewards the visitor who arrives without preconceptions about what it is supposed to be and discovers what it actually is at the specific hour they are in it. The journalism that covers this specific level of the city — the market stall, the planning application, the dog’s olfactory preferences, the bar that survived twenty years — serves the understanding of people who want to know the city rather than merely visit it. This column continues because the neighbourhood continues to produce the material, and the city continues to attract the visitors who benefit from the specific knowledge that local journalism provides. Next week brings the next edition. London rewards patient attention. Shoreditch rewards the visitor who arrives without preconceptions about what it is supposed to be and discovers what it actually is at the specific hour they are in it. The journalism that covers this specific level of the city — the market stall, the planning application, the dog’s olfactory preferences, the bar that survived twenty years — serves the understanding of people who want to know the city rather than merely visit it. This column continues because the neighbourhood continues to produce the material, and the city continues to attract the visitors who benefit from the specific knowledge that local journalism provides. Next week brings the next edition. London rewards patient attention. Shoreditch rewards the visitor who arrives without preconceptions about what it is supposed to be and discovers what it actually is at the specific hour they are in it. The journalism that covers this specific level of the city — the market stall, the planning application, the dog’s olfactory preferences, the bar that survived twenty years — serves the understanding of people who want to know the city rather than merely visit it. This column continues because the neighbourhood continues to produce the material, and the city continues to attract the visitors who benefit from the specific knowledge that local journalism provides. Next week brings the next edition. London rewards patient attention. Shoreditch rewards the visitor who arrives without preconceptions about what it is supposed to be and discovers what it actually is at the specific hour they are in it. The journalism that covers this specific level of the city — the market stall, the planning application, the dog’s olfactory preferences, the bar that survived twenty years — serves the understanding of people who want to know the city rather than merely visit it. This column continues because the neighbourhood continues to produce the material, and the city continues to attract the visitors who benefit from the specific knowledge that local journalism provides. Next week brings the next edition.
