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Showing posts from May, 2016

No McDonalds in Glebe? It's Not So Simple

Now, I've spent a lot of time in Glebe over the years, including an 8 month stint living in the place. So when I heard about the proposal for McDonald's to set up a pop-up outlet in the old Valhalla cinema on Glebe Point Road, with a view to a possible permanent store, my first reaction was to think "no! No way! Glebe doesn't want McDonalds. Keep your rampant multinational commercialisation out of Glebe". So I went to join up with the opposition campaign on Facebook, and what I saw there actually changed my mind. Comments against the commercialisation encroaching on Glebe, sure. But there were also comments that McDonalds is just too downmarket. Glebe has a sophisticated café culture, wrote one poster. We don't want the likes of McDonalds in our suburb. Well, sure, a sophisticated café culture is great...if you can afford it. Glebe is a very socio-economically diverse suburb; or as the Sydney Morning Herald put it, "an almost schizophrenic mix of wealth a