ABSTRACT
A new form of historical consciousness was being attached to the big smoke stack’s industrial chic heritage. Coal burning furnaces spewed smoke and soot into the atmosphere from tall brick chimneys. Boilers, incinerators, fires and smokestacks belched soot and smells across the district, polluting the air and soiling washing. The industries brought with them other forms of pollution too: noise, smoke and disagreeable smells. As the population grew, so did complaints about the pollution. Gentrification, and newer residents’ complaints about pollution, certainly played a part in the deindustrialization of the area. But also people’s understanding of and perceptions about pollution were also changing. The shift in public attitudes towards industry and pollution, and its intersection with the gentrification process, is best represented in the fight to close the incinerator in Zetland, a small suburb next to Waterloo.
