Bangkok's clean streets, empty souls

Banthat Thong used to be a neighbourhood, not a concept. You could live here and find everything: restaurants, bookstores, hardware shops, clinics, banks — even a place to have your shirts made. It was one of those streets where life unfolded upstairs and business happened downstairs. Today, it is something else entirely.

- Sirinya Wattanasukchai

Food shops opened on Banthat Thong Road, a former hub of car spare parts and sport equipment shops. Gentrification has driven up rents and swept out affordable food and a sense of authentic community from the area. ANUCHA CHAROENPO/BANGKOK POST

(ANUCHA CHAROENPO/BANGKOK POST)

Over the past few years, the you-know-who institutional landlord has transformed Banthat Thong into a curated “food street.” Old tenants running small, nonfood shops saw their leases end and rents rise beyond reach, their spaces taken over by cafés and themed restaurants. What was once a living neighbourhood has become a commercial strip run by operators who come for profit, not place — leaving little sense of belonging or responsibility.

Yet amid this gentrification and rebranding, the basics have been overlooked: no dumpster areas, no short-term parking for delivery riders, and no affordable food options for those who work along the strip. Trash piles up at night, riders idle along the curb, and low-paid workers struggle to afford lunch in a place that sells nothing but food. A shopping or community mall typically provides a staff canteen and waste facilities, but Banthat Thong, similar in scale and purpose, offers neither.