Hoxton Street has been a regular destination for several years now as I venture up to mentor at the Ministry of Stories behind the monster supplies shop (🤫). Its market-like atmosphere – traders and proprietors lining the stretch, all ages from around the borough rubbing shoulders – feels like a real throwback to a bygone age. And it can be a reassuring one.

I am usually in a rush, quite head down, but even I have noticed changes on the way from the overground, not least the loss of football coach and youth mentor Errol McKellar's garage on Cremer St. The carpet shop closes down, then an old pub. A craft beer spot pops up, then a handmade bike shop, both run by migrants (which becomes relevant later). A 150-year-old bakery shutters, a deli arrives in its place that has all the gourmands salivating for an overpriced salt beef bagel. Arty folk spill out of a gallery more exclusive than welcoming, a comics-themed bar lands like "pow!" Meanwhile imposing stacked apartments loom in the distance and £2m penthouses are up for grabs.

Change is inevitable in cities, as it is in life, but you do wonder whether councils, developers and planners think hard enough about what an existing community loses when they're trying to quickly lure a new one with all the mod-cons and a hefty price tag to go with it. How these different elements could/should co-exist in harmony…

What are we talking about it here? Gentrification and rising inequality, of course. And there are few better recent micro-studies of this phenomenon than photographer Zed Nelson's The Street, which I finally got round to watching the other week.

Amar Patel