I came to live in Brixton in the late 1980s. Looking back, I now see what I have found here: acceptance and somewhere to belong. I am an articulate man (although a product of nothing greater than a secondary-modern school and without university education) and I am white. Even so, because I am gay I know how prejudice can gnaw at a person's sense of self-worth, especially if they start on you early. Brixton has always welcomed refugees - those seeking refuge - and a lot of people rejected by elsewhere have gravitated to Brixton over the years. Damaged or different people drawn to find spiritual kinship amongst oppressed people perhaps? Certainly Brixton used to be a place where you didn't have to be either wealthy or conventional to live... to count

There has always been something special here, an atmosphere of acceptance and understanding that Brixton has because of its history, its peoples... and its troubles. There is cohesion across the varying communities of blacks, whites and others. Cohesion across race and to a lesser extent, across class. And a rightful defiance of anyone who'd dare push Brixton people around. In Brixton the marginal and the outsiders of the wider world could be insiders.

This cohesion is now under increasing threat, from people who sometimes aren't even aware that their own emotional security and sense of entitlement gives them power - because they've always had it. People who give little thought to what it's like outside majority culture - because they've never been outside. And, of course, from systems weighted in their favour. When I washed up here the best part of twenty years ago I was more naive I'll admit, but I wasn't like some of the upscale, arrogant (and let's be honest, frightened) people who arrive in Brixton now. I didn't tell the weed dealers, on my doorstep back then, to "get off my property". I got to know them. They were there first. It was their street, and my neighbours' - not mine. The cohesion I mention is delicate. It relies on mutual respect. Some of the newer residents just don't get it. Some of them couldn't care less!

Brixton's current fashionability was largely built on the backs of black Caribbean people and on the backs of poorer people in general, including the Irish. And arty, radical types from all over helped cement it together. Now many are left out of this fashionability or have been forced out. Not everyone is a home-owner or a career high-flyer and Brixton is being re-packaged and resold by and for wealthy, conservative consumers. Poorer people can't settle in this neighbourhood anymore as they can't afford to rent here. Many existing poorer people can't stay. Dissident minds struggle to keep brotherhood here. Residents who don't fit in with recent conformism (and Brixton's current fashionability is a form of conformism) can sometimes feel crushed by the demands of professional people who've read that Brixton is "hip", moved in recently and within months want everything their way. Brixton is an area some of these people would previously have never considered a place they could live. They show no real affinity for it. They attempt (and will fail) to control it. They don't engage with it.

Trendy bars and gated-developments do not a happy community make. Lots of existing locals find the new prosperity and many of the new venues excluding, expensive and irrelevant. "Market forces", allowed priority over pretty much anything of real worth today, ensure that the needs of the well-to-do, floating from style-bar to smart apartment, are met. Those with the deepest pockets are first in the queue, while schools and sports facilities for everyone are often left in poor repair or are sold.

(Effra Primary and Dick Shepherd schools were both demolished to make way for upmarket housing developments. Ferndale Centre and Santley Road school were sold and converted into apartments. Unsurprisingly Brixton now has a massive shortfall of school places. Also when the ownership of former council estates is transferred to housing trusts there is often a significant reduction in the number of homes for rent.)

I've just received Lambeth council's second booklet about revitalising the borough. For Brixton more "cafe culture" is suggested. The writers of this booklet say "a number of replies" expressed the desire for "more cafes and restaurants". How many people said this? Who are they?

"Cafe culture" is already is a tired cliche of urban renewal. It is also entirely superficial. Come the next recession who will be in all these cafes and bars?

In the two page spread specifically on Brixton in the "Revitalise" booklet there is no mention at all of black Britons or the significance of Brixton to Caribbean people. Or for that matter any of the minority communities (racial and otherwise) that have made Brixton so special. They might as well not exist. Photographs show streets empty of life - ripe for redevelopment.

Lambeth Council has been accused of institutional racism. They roll out the red carpet for big-business to eat up the area and for the monied who see Brixton as a good investment. The council grant planning permissions for "luxury" housing again and again. Yet a lot of long established people and businesses in Brixton, including many black-owned businesses, have to struggle just to stay where they are. Equally, there has been no recognition of the creative contribution that the predominantly white squatting culture once made to this area - the highly successful Cooltan arts centre and 121 Railton Road, the anarchist bookshop, cafe and performance space, for example. "Dirty squatters" was the extent of Lambeth council's understanding.

(In fact Brixton has a heritage of theatrical people and eccentricity dating back to Edwardian times. It even had a few grand theatres. The last official performance space, "The Brix" inside St Matthew's church, became "Mass" nightclub in 1998. The last purpose-built theatre, The Empress - Granada Bingo in its last years - in Brighton Terrace was demolished in 1992.)

This year it was announced that the annual Legalise Cannabis Festival in Brockwell Park had been cancelled, mainly at the insistence of Conservative councillor, Clare Whelan. When I confronted Ms Whelan on this she snapped "the cannabis festival is gone and it's never coming back". Now, whether you smoke cannabis, support it's legalisation, or you don't, the Legalise Cannabis Festival was a very enjoyable, hugely popular and crucially, a free day of entertainment in the park for everybody. It is no more. At the same time Councillor Whelan supported an application for "Park Live 2005", a commercial music festival in Brockwell Park. This one was fenced and tickets cost £25 each.

In Railton Road a newer neighbour has petitioned the council to close down Harmony, a long-established pub, mostly used by people of Caribbean descent. He is "intimidated" by the clientele, he says. Keith Henry, the landlord (a reasonable man who has listened to legitimate noise complaints) tells me that this most vehement complainant has never even set foot in the place. "It's ignorance, they fear me," Keith says, with obvious sadness. More accepting locals of varied backgrounds, defend the pub. It is unjust that Lambeth Council has often to be reminded not to act on the demands of an intolerant few at the expense of everyone else. Borough publicity may suggest that "vibrant, multi-cultural Brixton" is celebrated but when it comes down to street level it's difficult for poorer people, many people in minorities, or those who just don't or can't conform, to feel that they can trust Lambeth council even a little. It was partly because of the very marginality of Brixton that it's creativity was born. I don't see how labelling Brixton a "cultural quarter", as Lambeth council plan to do, while at the same time mainstreaming it and disassociating it from unconventional people, the mad, the poor, or those narrowly perceived as "undesirable", is compatible.

What happens to the former patrons of Harmony, and Mr Henry's livelihood, if newer neighbours succeed in having it closed or it becomes an exclusive bar? What happens when there are no cheap cafes, selling egg and chips? What happens when the council's criminal neglect of Brixton's famous markets causes their ultimate demise? What happens when jerk-chicken is only available with a side-salad and a glass of white wine and it costs £15? What of so-called "vibrant, multi-cultural Brixton" then? Will it only be available in first-class?

It seems to me that some people only want a part of Brixton if it's "hip and edgy" at some distance or filtered through their own upmarket tastes. And in truth, aren't words like "hip", "edgy" and "vibrant" often the words estate agents or magazines use when they fear to talk plainly about blacker areas of town? The tastes of some of the newer residents of Brixton are bland and suffocating of real culture. Their attitudes are a form of control and oppression.

When I first moved to Brixton Eddy Grant's infectious early 80s pop-reggae tune "Electric Avenue" could still be heard regularly on the radio. It talked of poverty and violence and asked who to blame. Visit Electric Avenue today and the street is as dilapidated as ever. There are still big problems and deprivations here. But now they are wreathed by increasing exclusivity and the affluence of an elite. Whether you blame "market forces", Lambeth Council or the blinkered and fearful demands of the professional classes, to me there's no doubt that this division exists and that it is bad for Brixton's more long-standing communities. "Regeneration" is great if it benefits everyone. "Gentrification" is not the same thing at all. Welcome to "New Brixton" - No loitering and keep off the grass.

Paul Bakalite is environment champion for Coldharbour/Angel Working Group, Brixton