To hate what's happening to London?

[AWholeLottaNosy]

I moved to London in 1989, it was a great place, full of interesting, arty people, lots of cheap things to do, festivals, clubs, shops, museums. I loved the quirky nature of so many different areas, Camden market, Soho, Notting Hill market at the weekend, the urban grittiness of places like Brixton, Hackney etc. however I can't afford to live in London anymore and feel so sad that all these great places are slowly and surely just becoming one homogenised mass of chain stores, 'luxury flats', unaffordable to most Londoners and the things that made London a great place to live in, shops, markets, clubs, music venues, diversity etc are just vanishing. Boris Johnson obviously not only doesn't give a shit but is actively encouraging this, especially the building of flats just to be bought ( and not even lived in) by foreign investors.

I guess this can't be stopped but I do feel sad about it and wondered how other Londoners felt about it..?

Yeah Kings Cross is great, £8 for a glass of wine when I was there in the summer, £500k for a 2 bed flat in Brixton, unaffordable flats being built on every spare patch of land and on the sites of clubs etc. I have no problem with shitty areas being done up but make them affordable. In ten years time who's gonna be left to work in the shops, teach your kids, work in the hospitals etc?

I didn't leave out of choice, got made redundant and ended up living back in the Midlands to look after my dad who had dementia. I would love to come back, but working in the charity field I can't afford to. I just feel sad about how a lot of the things I loved about it and made it great are going.

I also went back to kings X on Monday and was amazed. I lived in nearby angel back in 1993. Andnused to scavenge the commercial bins on pentonville road for valuables. Can't say I miss those times, and the deprivation !

I was born and brought up in West Ham, near Stratford but me and dp are buying in a commuter town in Essex. I do think middle-income people are being priced out and can see London turning into a place only for the very poor and the very rich.

I don't think regeneration is a bad thing at all, but I do not agree with those 'luxury' apartments being advertised and sold to foreign investors.

I used to wander round KX in the 80s and 90s

it wasn't that scary

(mind you at the time I lived in the East End so KX was kinda posh by comparison)

Tinks42. I would come back if I could afford it. And i wouldn't drive there cos it's so much quicker to get a train to the places I need to go. I don't understand your pearl clutched/knob comment. Please explain...

Maybe I will fall in love in London again if I get my arse out of SW suburbia more regularly. There are
Limits to how much Gail's bakery and Barnes pond enhance your experience of life.

"Thing is once places go all SHINY normal peeps can't live there any more"

I think you can still live in Acton.

Or Tooting

I don't think you will have much luck getting anything coherent out of Tinks, Livvygator!

Barnes Pond is rancid Quint, get away while you can. Plus the place is too full of papps trying to get a picture of Holly Willobooby's arse in a pair of leggings, neighborhood has gone down the pan these days....

Tooting's on the up, Quint. All those people priced out of Balham...

I don't get much community spirit in fulham (fab place otherwise) but am moving to SE London and its much friendlier. Ive met three of my new neighbours already and we are far from even moving in! Love london. Feel v priveledged to live here since the 1990s.

there should be a 'reminiscing about london' thread haha reading these messages takes me back

We could reminise about the church in kings cross, anyone remember that club? Did like that bit of kings cross!

Caronaim with respect, given the income figures you gave it sounds like you must have either bought before housing became expensive, had family help with a whacking deposit or perhaps lived at home with family to save up for a deposit.

These are not options available to everybody and for somebody who has been fortuitous enough to have those advantages it's a bit unsympathetic not to recognize the problems that people who haven't had that luck have had. Because if you're telling me that you have managed to buy a flat on £24,000 in the last 5 years big enough to fit you and a couple of kids without a whacking injection of cash from elsewhere then I simply don't believe you.

Are you really a 'Londoner'? I get the feeling that you class yourself as a Londoner but aren't actually from London. Because, as someone who grew up in London myself, I find it very hard to believe that someone who actually grew up in London and has seen how the changes in the last 20 years have affected their friends and families I'm not sure you would be so unsympathetic.

Yanbu at all. It's becoming a city of extremes.

AWholeLotOfNosy, the people who will work in hospitals and shops and look after their kids will be the same people as now. Transient people who will come in and work for low wages for a few years. Resident working class Londoners will have been driven out apart from the lucky minority who have social housing.

And they will become fewer and fewer as families who have a social housing flat in their family will not let it go even if the family become richer. They will make sure someone is resident in the flat to take on a lease when the resident looks like they may soon die.

I dunno where you went to pay £8 for a glass of wine - that's pricey even in Mayfair! There are still tons of old fashioned boozers left in the area where you can get a glass of wine for £4 tops but they might think you're a bit soft ordering that instead of ale. And £500K for a 2 bed in Brixton is an exaggeration - sure, you might pay that for a swanky loft but the average 2 bed is closer to £375000. Which is still not cheap, I grant you, but it is tiresome when folk bandy about inflated sums to make it seem like London is totally and utterly out of reach for absolutely everybody. Property is expensive compared to the rest of the UK - but not compared to New York or Sydney or Hong Kong.

I also see a lot of integration and real community spirit where I live, and lots of people from extremely varied backgrounds rubbing along together and not just in a superficial way. When I think of the London from my childhood, then my student days and now I can honestly say it has never been better. I never want to go back to the days where whole swathes of the inner city were filthy and plastered with racist graffiti. People forget that bit; just pop along to Woolwich (a place which refuses to improve) and tell me you'd prefer a London like that.

And the Cross was never all that either! There'll always be a new club for new young people - they don't miss it because they never knew it. Times change, things move on.

To all the people saying "London's always been like this!!!" ....

London has always been expensive, but there is actually pretty strong empirical evidence that the capital has become more unaffordable for ordinary people, and that this is having an effect on the amount of population churn and the ability of the capital to sustain stable communities.

Demos has a good report which discusses this.

quarterly.demos.co.uk/article/issue-4/london-all-that-glisters/

I went to look at a new build in roehampton last week and the estate agent told meh he area would continue to improve as more and more council homes are replaced by luxury homes.....

One point I do agree on with the OP though is Boris Johnson who is a crap mayor. What he would have done without the Olympics and the amazing transport changes implemented by Ken I don't know. I wish Ken would stand again. He actually gives a shit about native Londoners, unlike Boris who sees us a means to a Prime Ministerial end.

Moancollins - I have travelled a lot, but yes I am a Londoner, and haven't moved or considered moving since DC were born. I bought a flat on a council estate with a small mortgage, such places are available, even without family help. I am now on a minimum wage job, and even as a single mum, find London a fantastic place to live and raise children. There are plenty of cheap or free activities or beautiful places, and transport is so cheap. I am not unsympathetic either, I said in my first post that what London needs more than anything is a rent cap, and limits on the buy to let industry.

This is an incredible city. I love it.

I lived in London for a grand total of 9 months so am hardly qualified to comment. But I'm going to anyway...

Average house prices in Zone 1/2 are, what, £300k for a 2 bed flat? No idea so being generous but let's assume I'm right.

Young couple need a cumulative income of £60k just to think about a mortgage. Ain't going to happen for most.

Give me nice, uncomplicated, cheap Wales every time. and regular trips to London to see 'ow the uvver 'arf live. I love it there, but I love coming away too.

Interesting article NewStatesman, thanks for that!

Yanbu
I felt really glum a while ago dh and I visited old stomping grounds wandered to Greenwich for the market and it was horrific, a wonderful bustling vibrant market had turned into a major tourist destination. Fave pub a few miles away demolished for housing. I do wonder how many independent shop keepers there are still left. :-(

Our local little cost cutter closed down this week. Too many shiny
Sainsbury and waitrose local I suppose.