6 ms·
When I stayed in London half a year ago, we overnighted in the Limehouse area, at the edge / outside of the ULEZ. I can tell from experience there is a big dif
by BartjeD 2y ago
When I stayed in London half a year ago, we overnighted in the Limehouse area, at the edge / outside of the ULEZ.
I can tell from experience there is a big difference in the air. In that area it smelled like exhaust and smog, while the center had no such thing.
When I reflect on it, I feel that the less affluent areas have been left out to dry / rot in the exhaust. While the upper class city center is now pristine.
- leoedin 2y agoThe ULEZ has covered the entirety of London, including Limehouse, for more than a year. The outer zones of the city are definitely dirtier, but it has less to do with ULEZ and more to do with practical travel times. Despite great public transport, getting between the spokes of the wheel is still a challenge, so people who don’t work in the city centre often drive. The further out you go, the more people like that there are.
- chgs 2y agoLimehouse is way inside the ULEZ, like miles inside.
- philipwhiuk 2y agoIt is, but East London has had terrible air for years. Cars don't help, but there's lots of sources (City airport for starters)
- everfrustrated 2y ago>for years Centuries in fact. The prevailing wind is from the west so the worst air has always been found in the east.
- WithinReason 2y agoYes, that's why it's usually the east part of large towns that is the poorer area, and the west is rich.
- vidarh 2y agoLimehouse is now far inside the current ULEZ boundary. While there are small upper-class enclaves in the city center, the most affluent areas of London are the outer boroughs. You can this reflected in electoral maps as well, where the center is mostly Labour, while the outer boroughs have typically voted more rightwing. ULEZ has expanded outward step by step, but the strongest resistance to further expansion has come from the more affluent areas further out.
- Earw0rm 2y agoLeft/right politics, high/low income and high/low status don't map neatly onto London's demography, and haven't since Tony Blair, New Labour and "champagne socialism". Outer and anti-ULEZ right-wing areas - Bexley, Romford, Welling, Uxbridge - might be more affluent than deprived inner-city parts, but they're a lot less affluent (as well as far less educated) than the professional-class areas of the inner city, which these days seems to span all the way from Muswell Hill down to Tooting. Tory/rightwing votes used to be a thing for rich people who wanted to keep their winnings for themselves, pay less tax and/or encourage the less successful to work harder and pull themselves up by their bootstraps. The modern tory party seems to be mostly for losers, racists and grumpy pensioners who want to blame all their problems on immigrants, LGBTQ+ and "the woke".
- vidarh 2y agoI agree to an extent, but the affluent pockets of inner London have relatively few people, and often are immediately adjacent to areas that are still comparatively poor. Even e.g Kensington has seriously deprived areas. You're right it's not a straight match, but overall the narrative of the comment above about ULEZ benefiting the wealthy first and foremost didn't fit even before the expansion.
- Earw0rm 2y agoIt most benefits poor (and likely minority ethnic) people living in inner London, and the built-up bits of outer London that look like inner - Hounslow, Croydon, Enfield etc. And the biggest disbenefit is to people who identify as poor or hard-up but are in reality somewhere near or a bit above average (mostly down to whether or not they own their home outright) - and are much more likely to be white. So it's pretty obvious how this lines up with UKIP/Reform, the whole "deserving vs undeserving" poor narrative, and why the people smashing up the cameras look a lot like football hooligans.