8 ms·

Good god, what a bitchy article - and quite sad to see that most of the response here is equally whiny. London is one of the world's top cities. That presents

by swombat 11y ago

Good god, what a bitchy article - and quite sad to see that most of the response here is equally whiny. London is one of the world's top cities. That presents some substantial upsides, in terms of things like night-life, art, business activity, employment, diversity of the population, and, least tangible but most important, the general vibe of frenetic activity and constant renewal and change that a place like this has. It also presents substantial downsides, in terms of things like cost of living, noise, pollution, transport congestion, and of course, the general vibe of frenetic activity and constant stress and change. If you choose to move away from London, fine, go forth and be happy in New Whatevershire in the county of Who Cares... but don't write epic rants about how London's no longer to your taste and therefore it's somehow London's fault. This irks me even more than anti-gentrification obsessives, who seem to believe that because a family has lived somewhere for a couple generations they should be somehow insulated from the consequences of rapid change and economic growth impacting a whole country. Life is change. Change impacts everything, including your environment. If a place changes in such a way that you don't like it anymore, you're free to move somewhere else. Do so, and even write a blog post explaining why you moved, if you feel so inclined, but please bottle up the "my viewpoint is the only important viewpoint, and all change I don't like is bad" crap and keep it to yourself.

doc_holliday 11y ago
Yes places change and become world cities. However the problem is the people that made it interesting gave the culture, night-life and art can no longer live there or have a reasonable existance. You kind of at that point end up with really coorporate art and culture as everything has to be high value and you notice the quality really starts to suffer. Also the people who attend these things find they cannot live there either and it all dies.
- branchless 11y ago
  The difference is the cost of land. If you are in London and given a big deposit from parents to keep your mortgage payments down they you benefit from appreciating asset prices and have disposable income. Life is good (for you). However the cost of appreciating land (in real terms) is that younger people have to pledge more and more of their life to live in the same pile of bricks. It's clearly now reached the point where it's untenable, it's simply a speculative bubble now. All the UK banks are tied up in it, the UK itself is overly reliant on the financial sector, which lends heavily into housing which shows up as "growth" in GDP stats. They will fight hard to prop it up as long as possible. So far we've seen the UK artificially suppressing interest rates and also directly underwriting mortgage risk because even the crazy UK banks won't do it.
- swombat 11y ago
  Whatever goes up must come down. And it'll probably go back up again some time later. And then come back down. And back up. And so on, until we finally figure out how to genocide ourselves. Until then, what do you want to do? Freeze everything into your ideal version of the world? When London sucks for you, move out. When it doesn't, move in. If London sucks for enough people, they will leave, prices will collapse, and the penniless Sitar players will move in again. At the moment, it's not looking like it's going in that direction, so I'd say we have a good while to go before the Doom of London.
  - doc_holliday 11y ago
    Yes, I said something to a similar effect in my other comment. My problem with it is there are a lot of people that get shafted as things change and really get hit hard by it, and the government are to blame for that. Other cities in Europe manage to get a balance between capital investment and tearing the heart out of the city.
- amelius 11y ago
  Exactly. Also, when it is cheaper to rent in Barcelona and commute to London, you know something is wrong [1] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6617319 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6617319
  - ac29 11y ago
    At the time, it was extremely cheap to fly between the two cities (~40USD roundtrip). I just checked the same airline, same airports and the cheapest, midweek flights are about 200USD roundtrip.
  - tomp 11y ago
    Only if you're not taking into account the calue of your time.
JPKab 11y ago
It's not about "tastes". What you're missing is the fact that the prices of real estate in world cities are no longer being influenced by actual, RESIDENTIAL demand. The foreign investment aspect is horrific in London, and then throw in the governmental aspects which favor large, corporate development conglomerates over smaller developments with lower price points.
- swombat 11y ago
  But there is load of residential demand. The population living in London is increasing all the time [1]. Certainly, there's also speculation, but the speculation is not unfounded, like those empty cities in China. People do want to live in London, even at the current prices - more and more people every year. * http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/a55f7d74-51f0-11e3-8c42-00144feabdc0.html http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/a55f7d74-51f0-11e3-8c42-00144feabd...
  - dreamfactory2 11y ago
    Indeed, and that has long been the case. For a very very long time, people have been talking about unaffordability for ordinary workers leading to a price crash - but this has never happened due to insatiable demand coupled with low interest rates. Of course London is expensive but equivalent accommodation in places like Paris, New York, SF, and Singapore isn't that far south per sq meter, especially as a percentage of salaries. Unaffordability is also a red herring - when prices became unaffordable in Japan, lenders just introduced longer multi-generational mortgages. While that is obviously distasteful, it illustrates that demand is sufficient for even those kind of deals to get taken up. This isn't to defend political inaction on the issue, but many people protesting don't seem to have a sufficient grasp of the fundamentals to make cogent proposals that could improve the situation. I believe the foreign investment market is already slowing but if you wanted to make a dent in it, you could introduce duties or prohibitions on foreign owners and/or vacancy.
- cholantesh 11y ago
  We are starting to experience this in Toronto. For perspective, housing is considered fairly expensive in this city, and a 1 bedroom apartment will cost approximately 1000 CAD here. Per the article, it would cost 2300, and foreign investment will assuredly take the price there within a few years at the rate things are going now. It's absolutely terrifying.
baakss 11y ago
>If you choose to move away from London, fine, go forth and be happy in New Whatevershire in the county of Who Cares.. Your comment's attitude reminds me of those AirBnB / DropBox soccer players kicking the kids out of Mission field. When prices inflate, it sometimes removes the 'choice' to move away. So no, not "Choosing to live in New Whatevershire in the county of Who Cares". Choosing had nothing to do with it.
tljr 11y ago
Good god, what a bitchy comment.
biggio 11y ago
How much do you make in London?
- swombat 11y ago
  I've lived in London since 2003. When I first came here, I was making £22k pa. I am making quite a bit more now after working for 12 years, but before my last business took off (in 2010) I was living just fine on about £1500/m after tax for a year and a half, which works out as about £28k/y before tax, which is not a particularly high wage in London. Yes, I wasn't living in luxury, but I wasn't living in poverty either.
  - biggio 11y ago
    I went to see a real estate agent for a crappy 1 bedroom place in Kentish Town, where there is no kitchen and living room and denied contract because I don't earn more than £45k. I wouldn't praise quality of life you can get in London for a £28k/y salary.
    - branchless 11y ago
      Kentish Town. Ugh.
      - biggio 11y ago
        And that!
        branchless 11y ago
        It's amazing what you get used to in London. How you justify living in such a polluted messy place for so little return. Once you walk away you just wonder why you didn't do it sooner. The world is a big place.
vacri 11y ago
but please bottle up the "my viewpoint is the only important viewpoint, and all change I don't like is bad" crap and keep it to yourself. You are projecting a lot onto the article that isn't there.
- swombat 11y ago
  > london, it’s over, and it’s not me, it’s you (the title itself) > At what point do we say enough's enough and actually realise we'd rather live in affordable cities? > But in 2011 I had to say 'fuck you London, our 30 year relationship is over. And for the record, it's not me, it's you.' > London is quite simply taking the fucking piss. > That's like being recommended a restaurant where the food is expensive but really good, and the recommender also notes that the food will make you ill. This last one is a great example of a crappy "my viewpoint is the only one that matters" generalisation... anyway, I'll stop now, the article is littered with these. You can find them yourself.
  - collyw 11y ago
    London is an overpriced shithole. Admit it and don't take it so personally.
  - vacri 11y ago
    None of those are "my viewpoint is the only important viewpoint" nor "all change I don't like is bad".
iolothebard 11y ago
Lmao, so you live in London I take it? This article perfectly matched living in San Francisco for me (and why I got the fuck out).
d_theorist 11y ago
Absolutely. I'm sick of reading these whiny, entitled, rants. London does not owe anybody a place to live within its borders. London has not done something wrong just because you cannot afford to live there. London is perhaps the greatest city in the world. It's certainly in the top 3 or 4. Surprisingly, it's expensive. That's because lots of people want to buy property there. If you want to leave because it's too expensive, I can completely understand that. It's a rational choice. But it's not London's fault. It's not the fault of people living in London. It's nobody's fault. A city can be great and unaffordable simultaneously.
- EliRivers 11y ago
  That's because lots of people want to buy property there. That's part of the problem. It wouldn't be so bad if it was just lots people wanting to live there, but it's not; there are people who do simply want to buy property there as some kind of capital parking. That's damaging to the city.
  - d_theorist 11y ago
    Is it? By what measure?
    - EliRivers 11y ago
      What makes a city such as London valuable is the high density of people (or rather, the high density of opportunity created by having so many people in a suitable regulatory environment; the regulatory environment is essential but fixed - the population density changes). It lowers the costs of a great many things (including more nebulous things like simply meeting people and interacting with them) and increases opportunities for creation enormously. There is a negative feedback loop in action as increased population causes the price of things we cannot simply create as much as we like of (such as places to live) to increase, reducing the attractiveness of the city. Actions that jack up prices push people away, reducing the value of the city. Buying property as a capital park and leaving it empty is one such action.
branchless 11y ago
The article style isn't good, here I agree. However I disagree that people are "whiny". This is simply dismissing potentially valid complaints people have about the way housing in the UK is being financialised in order to extract the maximum possible economic rent over an individual's lifetime. This is not about supply and demand, this is about the creation of money to drive up land costs. And it's not unique to London, as others have pointed out many parts of the UK are very expensive. Life is change. This is a bad change and we should resist.
WaltPurvis 11y ago
>please bottle up the "my viewpoint is the only important viewpoint, and all change I don't like is bad" crap I'd like to know where you see the author expressing anything remotely like "my viewpoint is the only important viewpoint, and all change I don't like is bad". He expressed his views and nothing more. You seem to be the one who's inordinately irritated by viewpoints you don't agree with.
vixen99 11y ago
You are infuriating! One person's crap is another person's interesting read. I enjoyed it and suggest you might want to perform your very own 'keep it to yourself' by the simple device of not reading such a piece instead of taking time off to diss it. Don't like it? Don't read it. The crap/bitchyness comes from you.
logingone 11y ago
How is "diversity of population" automatically a good thing? Pirates from Somalia, mafia from Italy, wannabe ISIL, ... that's diverse. I find these lefty statements clumsy. As it happens, I do vote UKIP, which you'll love and jump at, but I do it for no reason other than to stop the population increasing, because London is quite simply completely and utterly failing, and unable, to deal with it. Last I saw 15 000 properties being built p/a; and population growth: "London had the highest growth, with population in the capital up 1.45%, a result of 82,400 more births than deaths and the highest net international migration of all regions at 107,400."[0] Enough building? Schools can't cope, ambulances can't cope, police can't cope, hospitals can't cope, the tube is a disgrace, housing is out of control and worsening, and as mentioned the air quality is unacceptable. The quality of life is poor, and deteriorating. Quality of life is important, unless you're the frog in a pot, and only realise its effects too late. London, quite simply, is broken. [0] http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jun/25/uk-population-at-record-high-with-net-migration-the-biggest-driver http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jun/25/uk-population...
- lotsofcows 11y ago
  Stop the population increasing? You are aware that our entire economic system is built on the assumption it'll keep increasing? The reason people think racists are idiots is because racists are idiots. "no other reason than to stop the population increasing"! Ha!
- dreamfactory2 11y ago
  and yet, unlike you, all these people want to live there
- dubeye 11y ago
  This is a joke right? Positive population growth = broken?Millions of people live in London despite these negative factors, so only parts of it are broken, other parts are so attractive as to draw in vast numbers in spite of the problems you list. So it's not 'simply' broken, there are parts of it that are clearly working .

by swombat 11y ago

doc_holliday 11y ago

Yes places change and become world cities. However the problem is the people that made it interesting gave the culture, night-life and art can no longer live there or have a reasonable existance. You kind of at that point end up with really coorporate art and culture as everything has to be high value and you notice the quality really starts to suffer. Also the people who attend these things find they cannot live there either and it all dies.

branchless 11y ago
The difference is the cost of land. If you are in London and given a big deposit from parents to keep your mortgage payments down they you benefit from appreciating asset prices and have disposable income. Life is good (for you). However the cost of appreciating land (in real terms) is that younger people have to pledge more and more of their life to live in the same pile of bricks. It's clearly now reached the point where it's untenable, it's simply a speculative bubble now. All the UK banks are tied up in it, the UK itself is overly reliant on the financial sector, which lends heavily into housing which shows up as "growth" in GDP stats. They will fight hard to prop it up as long as possible. So far we've seen the UK artificially suppressing interest rates and also directly underwriting mortgage risk because even the crazy UK banks won't do it.
swombat 11y ago
Whatever goes up must come down. And it'll probably go back up again some time later. And then come back down. And back up. And so on, until we finally figure out how to genocide ourselves. Until then, what do you want to do? Freeze everything into your ideal version of the world? When London sucks for you, move out. When it doesn't, move in. If London sucks for enough people, they will leave, prices will collapse, and the penniless Sitar players will move in again. At the moment, it's not looking like it's going in that direction, so I'd say we have a good while to go before the Doom of London.
- doc_holliday 11y ago
  Yes, I said something to a similar effect in my other comment. My problem with it is there are a lot of people that get shafted as things change and really get hit hard by it, and the government are to blame for that. Other cities in Europe manage to get a balance between capital investment and tearing the heart out of the city.
amelius 11y ago
Exactly. Also, when it is cheaper to rent in Barcelona and commute to London, you know something is wrong [1] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6617319 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6617319
- ac29 11y ago
  At the time, it was extremely cheap to fly between the two cities (~40USD roundtrip). I just checked the same airline, same airports and the cheapest, midweek flights are about 200USD roundtrip.
- tomp 11y ago
  Only if you're not taking into account the calue of your time.

JPKab 11y ago

It's not about "tastes". What you're missing is the fact that the prices of real estate in world cities are no longer being influenced by actual, RESIDENTIAL demand. The foreign investment aspect is horrific in London, and then throw in the governmental aspects which favor large, corporate development conglomerates over smaller developments with lower price points.

swombat 11y ago
But there is load of residential demand. The population living in London is increasing all the time [1]. Certainly, there's also speculation, but the speculation is not unfounded, like those empty cities in China. People do want to live in London, even at the current prices - more and more people every year. * http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/a55f7d74-51f0-11e3-8c42-00144feabdc0.html http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/a55f7d74-51f0-11e3-8c42-00144feabd...
- dreamfactory2 11y ago
  Indeed, and that has long been the case. For a very very long time, people have been talking about unaffordability for ordinary workers leading to a price crash - but this has never happened due to insatiable demand coupled with low interest rates. Of course London is expensive but equivalent accommodation in places like Paris, New York, SF, and Singapore isn't that far south per sq meter, especially as a percentage of salaries. Unaffordability is also a red herring - when prices became unaffordable in Japan, lenders just introduced longer multi-generational mortgages. While that is obviously distasteful, it illustrates that demand is sufficient for even those kind of deals to get taken up. This isn't to defend political inaction on the issue, but many people protesting don't seem to have a sufficient grasp of the fundamentals to make cogent proposals that could improve the situation. I believe the foreign investment market is already slowing but if you wanted to make a dent in it, you could introduce duties or prohibitions on foreign owners and/or vacancy.
cholantesh 11y ago
We are starting to experience this in Toronto. For perspective, housing is considered fairly expensive in this city, and a 1 bedroom apartment will cost approximately 1000 CAD here. Per the article, it would cost 2300, and foreign investment will assuredly take the price there within a few years at the rate things are going now. It's absolutely terrifying.

baakss 11y ago

>If you choose to move away from London, fine, go forth and be happy in New Whatevershire in the county of Who Cares.. Your comment's attitude reminds me of those AirBnB / DropBox soccer players kicking the kids out of Mission field. When prices inflate, it sometimes removes the 'choice' to move away. So no, not "Choosing to live in New Whatevershire in the county of Who Cares". Choosing had nothing to do with it.

tljr 11y ago

Good god, what a bitchy comment.

biggio 11y ago

How much do you make in London?

swombat 11y ago
I've lived in London since 2003. When I first came here, I was making £22k pa. I am making quite a bit more now after working for 12 years, but before my last business took off (in 2010) I was living just fine on about £1500/m after tax for a year and a half, which works out as about £28k/y before tax, which is not a particularly high wage in London. Yes, I wasn't living in luxury, but I wasn't living in poverty either.
- biggio 11y ago
  I went to see a real estate agent for a crappy 1 bedroom place in Kentish Town, where there is no kitchen and living room and denied contract because I don't earn more than £45k. I wouldn't praise quality of life you can get in London for a £28k/y salary.
  - branchless 11y ago
    Kentish Town. Ugh.
    - biggio 11y ago
      And that!
      - branchless 11y ago
        It's amazing what you get used to in London. How you justify living in such a polluted messy place for so little return. Once you walk away you just wonder why you didn't do it sooner. The world is a big place.

vacri 11y ago

but please bottle up the "my viewpoint is the only important viewpoint, and all change I don't like is bad" crap and keep it to yourself. You are projecting a lot onto the article that isn't there.

swombat 11y ago
> london, it’s over, and it’s not me, it’s you (the title itself) > At what point do we say enough's enough and actually realise we'd rather live in affordable cities? > But in 2011 I had to say 'fuck you London, our 30 year relationship is over. And for the record, it's not me, it's you.' > London is quite simply taking the fucking piss. > That's like being recommended a restaurant where the food is expensive but really good, and the recommender also notes that the food will make you ill. This last one is a great example of a crappy "my viewpoint is the only one that matters" generalisation... anyway, I'll stop now, the article is littered with these. You can find them yourself.
- collyw 11y ago
  London is an overpriced shithole. Admit it and don't take it so personally.
- vacri 11y ago
  None of those are "my viewpoint is the only important viewpoint" nor "all change I don't like is bad".

iolothebard 11y ago

Lmao, so you live in London I take it? This article perfectly matched living in San Francisco for me (and why I got the fuck out).

d_theorist 11y ago

Absolutely. I'm sick of reading these whiny, entitled, rants. London does not owe anybody a place to live within its borders. London has not done something wrong just because you cannot afford to live there. London is perhaps the greatest city in the world. It's certainly in the top 3 or 4. Surprisingly, it's expensive. That's because lots of people want to buy property there. If you want to leave because it's too expensive, I can completely understand that. It's a rational choice. But it's not London's fault. It's not the fault of people living in London. It's nobody's fault. A city can be great and unaffordable simultaneously.

EliRivers 11y ago
That's because lots of people want to buy property there. That's part of the problem. It wouldn't be so bad if it was just lots people wanting to live there, but it's not; there are people who do simply want to buy property there as some kind of capital parking. That's damaging to the city.
- d_theorist 11y ago
  Is it? By what measure?
  - EliRivers 11y ago
    What makes a city such as London valuable is the high density of people (or rather, the high density of opportunity created by having so many people in a suitable regulatory environment; the regulatory environment is essential but fixed - the population density changes). It lowers the costs of a great many things (including more nebulous things like simply meeting people and interacting with them) and increases opportunities for creation enormously. There is a negative feedback loop in action as increased population causes the price of things we cannot simply create as much as we like of (such as places to live) to increase, reducing the attractiveness of the city. Actions that jack up prices push people away, reducing the value of the city. Buying property as a capital park and leaving it empty is one such action.

branchless 11y ago

The article style isn't good, here I agree. However I disagree that people are "whiny". This is simply dismissing potentially valid complaints people have about the way housing in the UK is being financialised in order to extract the maximum possible economic rent over an individual's lifetime. This is not about supply and demand, this is about the creation of money to drive up land costs. And it's not unique to London, as others have pointed out many parts of the UK are very expensive. Life is change. This is a bad change and we should resist.

WaltPurvis 11y ago

>please bottle up the "my viewpoint is the only important viewpoint, and all change I don't like is bad" crap I'd like to know where you see the author expressing anything remotely like "my viewpoint is the only important viewpoint, and all change I don't like is bad". He expressed his views and nothing more. You seem to be the one who's inordinately irritated by viewpoints you don't agree with.

vixen99 11y ago

You are infuriating! One person's crap is another person's interesting read. I enjoyed it and suggest you might want to perform your very own 'keep it to yourself' by the simple device of not reading such a piece instead of taking time off to diss it. Don't like it? Don't read it. The crap/bitchyness comes from you.

logingone 11y ago

How is "diversity of population" automatically a good thing? Pirates from Somalia, mafia from Italy, wannabe ISIL, ... that's diverse. I find these lefty statements clumsy. As it happens, I do vote UKIP, which you'll love and jump at, but I do it for no reason other than to stop the population increasing, because London is quite simply completely and utterly failing, and unable, to deal with it. Last I saw 15 000 properties being built p/a; and population growth: "London had the highest growth, with population in the capital up 1.45%, a result of 82,400 more births than deaths and the highest net international migration of all regions at 107,400."[0] Enough building? Schools can't cope, ambulances can't cope, police can't cope, hospitals can't cope, the tube is a disgrace, housing is out of control and worsening, and as mentioned the air quality is unacceptable. The quality of life is poor, and deteriorating. Quality of life is important, unless you're the frog in a pot, and only realise its effects too late. London, quite simply, is broken. [0] http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jun/25/uk-population-at-record-high-with-net-migration-the-biggest-driver http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jun/25/uk-population...

lotsofcows 11y ago
Stop the population increasing? You are aware that our entire economic system is built on the assumption it'll keep increasing? The reason people think racists are idiots is because racists are idiots. "no other reason than to stop the population increasing"! Ha!
dreamfactory2 11y ago
and yet, unlike you, all these people want to live there
dubeye 11y ago
This is a joke right? Positive population growth = broken?Millions of people live in London despite these negative factors, so only parts of it are broken, other parts are so attractive as to draw in vast numbers in spite of the problems you list. So it's not 'simply' broken, there are parts of it that are clearly working .