Slow Thrills

"Take a look around you. Try and get an apartment here"

I've just watched the documentary Once Upon a Time in New York on BBC4 and I found it fitting that they gave the last word to Patti Smith, who showed up outside the last night of CBGBs unannounced and largely ignored. The film examined how the rundown NYC of the 70s gave birth to punk, disco and hip-hop and ended with the news that crazy real estate prices had forced CBGBs to close and sell to the developers.
The same thing is happening in London as some of its more historical venues face redevelopment (Hammersmith Palais, the Astoria and the Garage).
I live in Belfast now, a city which has failed to preserve landmarks and buildings like CS Lewis's house, has allowed the pub which housed the poet's circle of the 1960s (Heaney, Longley, Muldoon) to be turned into a gastro-pub, and actively stifles flyposting and grafitti. In short, we appear like a cultural wasteland compared to NYC so I'm shocked that they have allowed a potential cultural museum disappear.
Who am I to moan though? I live in an 'urban regeneration area' which has regenerated so fast that I would now be unable to afford to buy here. Such is the unreal world or real estate.