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I also left London recently, although I moved due to the weather. For every 29-year-old graphic designer who moves to Cambridge to buy a family home, there's a

I also left London recently, although I moved due to the weather. For every 29-year-old graphic designer who moves to Cambridge to buy a family home, there's a 22-year-old who's just started their career who's willing to live in a bedsit in Wood Green (as, coincidentally, I did at 17, trying to break in to the big city). You're meant to get older, and move out of the city. Circle of (urban) life. Give it 50 years, and Reading will be a suburb of London, rather than just a commuter town, CrossRail will have priced out current residents near the stations, and the city will keep trundling on. That you see yourself as being one of the "original" residents doesn't give you some inherent right to below-market-prices in property. That the same graphic designers and digital media folk who priced families out of Brick Lane are now feeling the same effects of the gentrification cycle they were part of is not meant to be a surprise. I hear Peckham is the up-and-coming part of town at the moment, but there's no damn way I'd live there, just like I wouldn't have lived in Brixton or Isle of Dogs 15 years ago. But give it 15 years, and you won't be able to afford in Peckham, either...

crdoconnor 12y ago
>That you see yourself as being one of the "original" residents doesn't give you some inherent right to below-market-prices in property. It speaks volumes that you implicitly put the rights of Russian oligarchs and Arab oil barons to buy property (which they often leave empty) above those of the working and middle classes of London. I'll come back to London when they start taxing the wealthy again. Until then I'll watch from afar as every last drip of culture and life is squeezed out of every community by rising property prices.
- jstanley 12y ago
  > It speaks volumes that you implicitly put the rights of Russian oligarchs and Arab oil barons to buy property (which they often leave empty) above those of the working and middle classes of London. It's not about putting anyone's rights "above" anyone else's -- whoever is willing to pay the most gets the property, that's all there is to it.
  - Zarkonnen 12y ago
    So you are putting the rights of people with more money above those with less money. It's not a natural law that this is the case, it's still a political decision.
    - crdoconnor 12y ago
      It's many political decisions, including, but not limited to: * Perpetual QE * Ultra low taxes on property (council tax) * Rules that allow foreigners to buy property and not be taxed at all if they declare themselves non-resident. * Rules that allow tax evaders in foreign countries to stash their wealth here unimpeded. * Lower taxes on capital (dividends, capital gains) than labour (salaries). * A reluctance to build social housing in London.
  - venomsnake 12y ago
    Not rights but interests. The brits are getting the shaft, while the rich foreigners pour their money.
    - joosters 12y ago
      Nope. If you're rich and British, you'll do just as well in the housing market as a rich foreigner.
- zo1 12y ago
  "(which they often leave empty)" [Citation Required] Genuinely curious.
  - andyjohnson0 12y ago
    http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jan/25/its-like-a-ghost-town-lights-go-out-as-foreign-owners-desert-london-homes http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jan/25/its-like-a-gh...
  - mseebach 12y ago
    There certainly exists properties (even, anecdotally, entire streets) in London that serve as wealth-deposit-assets for rich foreigners of questionable repute. Many of these are left empty as the owners aren't in the "landlord business" and merely want to hold a liquid asset (an occupied house isn't as liquid as an unoccupied one). There is also a story about the saudi royal family buying up a strip of houses on Bishop's Avenue (the most expensive street in London, despite being somewhat suburban) sometime in the 80s or 90s as a bolt hole, but IIRC recently disposed of. It's clear that this produces some pressure on the housing supply in London, but nowhere near enough to account for the sheer numerical pressure (some ~800k housing units required by 2021 and the rate of new builds is way, way off that target).
- peteretep 12y ago
  > It speaks volumes that you implicitly put the rights of > Russian oligarchs and Arab oil barons to buy property > (which they often leave empty) above those of the > working and middle classes of London. Sure. But if we'd been having this conversation 20 years ago, it'd have been the rights of the Yuppies above the East End families, and then 200 years ago, it would have been those wealthy landed gentry pushing out the good hard working Hugenots, and so on and so forth and you still don't seem to see the irony of bearded new media workers being priced out of the same market they were busy pricing others out of a decade ago. I'm also curious about just how many Arab Oil Barons and Russian Oligarchs you think there are, as a percentage of an 8m person city? Because right now, blaming a handful of immigrants who are buying multimillion pound properties that almost no-one else can afford smacks of racism.
  - crdoconnor 12y ago
    >you still don't seem to see the irony of bearded new media workers being priced out of the same market they were busy pricing others out of a decade ago. Because there is no irony. I bitched about that too. I don't want ANYBODY priced out. >I'm also curious about just how many Arab Oil Barons and Russian Oligarchs you think there are, as a percentage of an 8m person city? One unoccupied oil baron's mansion in Central London could be demolished and replaced by affordable housing for hundreds of people. Rich people occupy more valuable space. >Because right now, blaming a handful of immigrants who are buying multimillion pound properties that almost no-one else can afford smacks of racism. I think you're confusing an understanding basic physics with racism.
    - mseebach 12y ago
      > One unoccupied oil baron's mansion in Central London could be demolished and replaced by affordable housing for hundreds of people. LOL. No. The politics of building on the greenbelt might be thorny, but it's nothing compared for what it'd be like to suggest demolishing listed regency buildings anywhere, much less central London. The best you can hope for is to replace the extremely wealthy absent foreigner with an extremely wealthy resident (foreigner or not).
darkFunction 12y ago
I agree with the idea of the 'urban cycle'. New, young professionals are happy to share a small bedsit in a bad area if it means a high salary, but at some point in life you have to rebalance your quality of living. That's a problem I have with London- the constant churn. Everyone is transient. Friends you make are leaving in a year or two, maybe to go abroad or to buy a house in the suburbs. Many, many of the people living here do not consider it a 'home' but a stepping stone towards their goals, and I think this contributes to a lack of community spirit and feeling of belonging. I never felt like a 'Londoner' because there never seemed to be such a thing. On the other hand, this vast diversity and anonymity is of course one of London's great strengths.
pessimizer 12y ago
>You're meant to get older, and move out of the city. This is the perspective of someone who moves into the city from their suburban and small town homes and families. They plan to make a lot of money, meet a partner and drink a lot, get married, get a dog, have a child, then move back to the suburbs in a senior position at a remote BigCo to a house that looks just like the one they grew up in. Most people in the city were born there, live there all of their lives (or maybe switch cities), then die there. Those people are being displaced by what are ultimately temporary residents who can always go back home. Are you surprised when you see older people who live in the city?
- peteretep 12y ago
  > Most people in the city were born there 40% of people in London were born outside the UK You can't get figures for how many were born outside of London very easily, but glancing at my Facebook feed for the first ten people I know who live in London, only one was born there (and he's from Enfield, which might as well be Scotland). This percentage feels about what I'd expect.

crdoconnor 12y ago

>That you see yourself as being one of the "original" residents doesn't give you some inherent right to below-market-prices in property. It speaks volumes that you implicitly put the rights of Russian oligarchs and Arab oil barons to buy property (which they often leave empty) above those of the working and middle classes of London. I'll come back to London when they start taxing the wealthy again. Until then I'll watch from afar as every last drip of culture and life is squeezed out of every community by rising property prices.

jstanley 12y ago
> It speaks volumes that you implicitly put the rights of Russian oligarchs and Arab oil barons to buy property (which they often leave empty) above those of the working and middle classes of London. It's not about putting anyone's rights "above" anyone else's -- whoever is willing to pay the most gets the property, that's all there is to it.
- Zarkonnen 12y ago
  So you are putting the rights of people with more money above those with less money. It's not a natural law that this is the case, it's still a political decision.
  - crdoconnor 12y ago
    It's many political decisions, including, but not limited to: * Perpetual QE * Ultra low taxes on property (council tax) * Rules that allow foreigners to buy property and not be taxed at all if they declare themselves non-resident. * Rules that allow tax evaders in foreign countries to stash their wealth here unimpeded. * Lower taxes on capital (dividends, capital gains) than labour (salaries). * A reluctance to build social housing in London.
- venomsnake 12y ago
  Not rights but interests. The brits are getting the shaft, while the rich foreigners pour their money.
  - joosters 12y ago
    Nope. If you're rich and British, you'll do just as well in the housing market as a rich foreigner.
zo1 12y ago
"(which they often leave empty)" [Citation Required] Genuinely curious.
- andyjohnson0 12y ago
  http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jan/25/its-like-a-ghost-town-lights-go-out-as-foreign-owners-desert-london-homes http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jan/25/its-like-a-gh...
- mseebach 12y ago
  There certainly exists properties (even, anecdotally, entire streets) in London that serve as wealth-deposit-assets for rich foreigners of questionable repute. Many of these are left empty as the owners aren't in the "landlord business" and merely want to hold a liquid asset (an occupied house isn't as liquid as an unoccupied one). There is also a story about the saudi royal family buying up a strip of houses on Bishop's Avenue (the most expensive street in London, despite being somewhat suburban) sometime in the 80s or 90s as a bolt hole, but IIRC recently disposed of. It's clear that this produces some pressure on the housing supply in London, but nowhere near enough to account for the sheer numerical pressure (some ~800k housing units required by 2021 and the rate of new builds is way, way off that target).
peteretep 12y ago
> It speaks volumes that you implicitly put the rights of > Russian oligarchs and Arab oil barons to buy property > (which they often leave empty) above those of the > working and middle classes of London. Sure. But if we'd been having this conversation 20 years ago, it'd have been the rights of the Yuppies above the East End families, and then 200 years ago, it would have been those wealthy landed gentry pushing out the good hard working Hugenots, and so on and so forth and you still don't seem to see the irony of bearded new media workers being priced out of the same market they were busy pricing others out of a decade ago. I'm also curious about just how many Arab Oil Barons and Russian Oligarchs you think there are, as a percentage of an 8m person city? Because right now, blaming a handful of immigrants who are buying multimillion pound properties that almost no-one else can afford smacks of racism.
- crdoconnor 12y ago
  >you still don't seem to see the irony of bearded new media workers being priced out of the same market they were busy pricing others out of a decade ago. Because there is no irony. I bitched about that too. I don't want ANYBODY priced out. >I'm also curious about just how many Arab Oil Barons and Russian Oligarchs you think there are, as a percentage of an 8m person city? One unoccupied oil baron's mansion in Central London could be demolished and replaced by affordable housing for hundreds of people. Rich people occupy more valuable space. >Because right now, blaming a handful of immigrants who are buying multimillion pound properties that almost no-one else can afford smacks of racism. I think you're confusing an understanding basic physics with racism.
  - mseebach 12y ago
    > One unoccupied oil baron's mansion in Central London could be demolished and replaced by affordable housing for hundreds of people. LOL. No. The politics of building on the greenbelt might be thorny, but it's nothing compared for what it'd be like to suggest demolishing listed regency buildings anywhere, much less central London. The best you can hope for is to replace the extremely wealthy absent foreigner with an extremely wealthy resident (foreigner or not).

darkFunction 12y ago

I agree with the idea of the 'urban cycle'. New, young professionals are happy to share a small bedsit in a bad area if it means a high salary, but at some point in life you have to rebalance your quality of living. That's a problem I have with London- the constant churn. Everyone is transient. Friends you make are leaving in a year or two, maybe to go abroad or to buy a house in the suburbs. Many, many of the people living here do not consider it a 'home' but a stepping stone towards their goals, and I think this contributes to a lack of community spirit and feeling of belonging. I never felt like a 'Londoner' because there never seemed to be such a thing. On the other hand, this vast diversity and anonymity is of course one of London's great strengths.

pessimizer 12y ago

>You're meant to get older, and move out of the city. This is the perspective of someone who moves into the city from their suburban and small town homes and families. They plan to make a lot of money, meet a partner and drink a lot, get married, get a dog, have a child, then move back to the suburbs in a senior position at a remote BigCo to a house that looks just like the one they grew up in. Most people in the city were born there, live there all of their lives (or maybe switch cities), then die there. Those people are being displaced by what are ultimately temporary residents who can always go back home. Are you surprised when you see older people who live in the city?

peteretep 12y ago
> Most people in the city were born there 40% of people in London were born outside the UK You can't get figures for how many were born outside of London very easily, but glancing at my Facebook feed for the first ten people I know who live in London, only one was born there (and he's from Enfield, which might as well be Scotland). This percentage feels about what I'd expect.