4 ms·
As someone living in London, I would generally agree with this - compared to a lot of places, London does seem to have a lot of housing in quite bad repair. To
by NickPollard 14y ago
As someone living in London, I would generally agree with this - compared to a lot of places, London does seem to have a lot of housing in quite bad repair.
To take a wild guess why, I would suggest two factors:
1) The housing stock is old compared to a lot of places, so much of it needs modernization and renovation
2) The lack of space to expand (plus restrictions on greenfield developments) means new housing is limited, so there is not much competition to existing landlords. Why spend thousands of £ on upgrading your property if you can leave it as it is and still charge high rents?
- anovikov 14y agoYes probably something about that - restrictions on new development and a lot of other red tape which all but prohibits complete renovations of entire houses and/or new construction. Because otherwise, in a country with that much fluid capital, you would have a lot of good housing (and land isn't a problem, as most of those houses are just 3-5 storeys, and public transportation is in perfect shape meaning you could squeeze in a lot more people). Even the very center, places like Knightsbridge, are almost entirely old, rotten shit.
- justincormack 14y agoWe like those old houses. We do not consider them shit. The entire character of the city comes from its history embodied in its buildings. Most of the new homes are total shit, and won't last nearly as long as the old stuff.