What We Lose When the Rent Skyrockets
A Memoir of A City Slowly Losing its Soul
In Welsh, a language of my ancestors, there is a beautifully melancholic concept called Hiraeth (thanks to Aaron J. Middleton for teaching me this). It has no perfect translation in English but it roughly reads as a sort of homesickness and longing for the departed, especially in the context of a bygone history of Wales and Welsh culture. Hir means ‘long’ and aeth roughly translates to ‘grief or sorrow’. This type of grief is the yearning you feel for a home and culture you might never experience again.
This type of longing can be held by individuals and cultures who have lost a piece of themselves to the march of time, colonialism, culture shifts, or arguably, even the loss of their city’s energy due to mass tourism and skyrocketing living costs.
I have lived in Montreal for a decade now but I grew up in the beautiful and humble charm of Halifax, Nova Scotia (east coast Canada, for those unfamiliar). I know the yearning for a home by the sea, the smell of salty ocean air and the dialect of my maritime fellows. I also know that my hometown is undergoing rapid changes as it grows beyond its capacity.
I experienced hiraeth on my last visit as the entire downtown core has been excavated, reshaped, and rebranded. Storefronts that sat empty…
