2 ms·

This is function of house prices, not of natural segregation. When I was growing up in London the streets around me were fairly mixed. You could find public sc

This is function of house prices, not of natural segregation. When I was growing up in London the streets around me were fairly mixed. You could find public school educated lawyers, minor celebrities, and even a few financial types living close to factory and shop workers. As public housing was sold off and property prices were goosed towards the stratosphere the inevitable result was separation, because the poors were economically cleansed into poverty ghettos. Now houses on the street I grew up on - built as cheap and dense worker housing - sell for around £1m. I think the arrow of expense points in both directions. Building more nice neighbourhoods would lower prices. But one of the reasons nice neighbourhoods aren't built is because it's so easy to make money by building cheap trash housing and selling it to people who can barely afford it.

alexashka 5y ago
> one of the reasons nice neighbourhoods aren't built is because it's so easy to make money... Neighbourhoods require infrastructure, which require a functioning government. Easy money will always be made one way or another - neighbourhood quality is a political problem. It's like creating new software vs maintaining software. Most people can only maintain, sort of. It takes a different breed to create and an exotic, rare breed to create well. I'm not surprised that most politicians are pouring money from one government program bucket into another. That's all most people can do, is maintain. I'm surprised there hasn't been a single political movement worth a shit within my lifetime.