Mr Blue Sky wrote:Canton is slowly gentrifying but I’m glad I got out of the area after 20 years. I preferred it with all the rough pubs (I drank in the Canton, Napier, Spoons and Kings) and I can’t stand hipster hangouts but that’s probably because I’m too old to be trendy. There are barely any vacant retail units the whole length of Cowbridge Rd East but at night, with all the shutters closed, it makes a pretty depressing sight.
Without wanting to provoke Jantra, Pontcanna, where I lived, is so infested with yummy mummies, MAMILS and posh English people that its status as a hotbed of Welsh nationalism has probably gone for ever. The Gogs and Nats now live in Canton, Riverside and Grangetown. The south west side of Cardiff is more Welsh than I can ever remember it being.
I'm not too sure about that. I hear Welsh spoken a lot in Pontcanna, but the Welsh language is an interesting marker of gentrification. Lots of Welsh speakers in north Cardiff - places like Whitchurch, Rhiwbeina and Llandaff North. Pontcanna is still a stronghold as are parts of Canton, Victoria Park, and now Grangetown.