London’s traditional elite, such as lawyers, architects and academics, are being pushed out of their enclaves in Mayfair, Chelsea and Hampstead by an influx of global super rich investors, causing a chain reaction of gentrification across the capital, according to research by the London School of Economics.
An influx of ultra-high-net worth overseas buyers is leading the old elite to sell up and move from London’s most exclusive postcodes and buy in areas they previously considered undesirable
— the Guardian
While it may be hard to sympathise with the "traditional elite", these displacements set off a chain-reaction, as the affluent middle class moves into neighbourhoods that were once working class. In turn, lower-income Londoners are forced out of the city all together.
For more on the state of London's housing crunch, check out these links:
2 Comments
Maybe the problem isn't that London/NY etc. etc. are expensive, it's that Post-Modernism has failed to produce new cities that people desire to live in.
It's the city as a commodity. The city has become reduced to lifestyle and amenity....functional urbanism is largely a pre-Internet form of human settlement...from a time where Industry relied on physical proximity to shipping, and worker proximity to industry was a mandatory need to have a large low paid manual workforce...not like that anymore in developed world cities...cities are now sterile...relying mostly in professional businesses, shopping, and large corporate offices...with close proximity being a luxury for the wealthy and a workforce who can commute in...cities are now similar to those old fishing communities that no longer have any fishing industries...just big mansions, posh seafood restaurants on the dockside, and shops that sell porcelain sailboats....
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