(hence the double post today, please forgive me, the short week threw me)
This week’s photographs features events I have been to recently..exhibitions, gigs, dance performances..there is still a lot going on at night in London but the utter unaffordability of living in the centre of our city has meant that the nocturnal streets are a far quieter place than they used to be.
On Friday night I walked through Soho to Covent Garden just after 11pm and it was dead. What was once teeming with people into the early hours of the morning is now relatively quiet by 10pm. It seems that everyone has drinks after work then makes their way back home because they now live miles away, pushed further and further out by ever increasing rents and astronomical house prices. But when these people were forced out, purely for financial reasons, they were not replaced. Properties were bought, not to live in, but as investments, and mostly by foreign buyers, so those places are empty. Where human beings once were, ghosts of property portfolios now reside.
Figures released by the Office for National Statistics show that, in the year to June last year, 58,220 people aged 30-39 left the capital – the highest number on record and a 10% increase on 2010. So the 30 somethings have left and the 20 somethings are broke and can’t go out which means central city nightlife is now so much quieter than it used to be. And all the duller for it.
My city has been gutted and I’m gutted about it.
House prices in the capital have risen by 19% in the past year alone. The average property in London now costs around £535,000, the UK average is £185,700. Rent is also now so expensive it is leaving people with so little to play with they can’t afford to do anything else. The rent situation is now so bad a new hashtag has recently emerged on twitter called #RantYourRent with people demonstrating their appalling living conditions and how much they are paying for them. It is truly despicable what landlords are getting away with and no-one is stopping them. Click here to see examples.
Will the city ever repopulate? Under the current situation, no, its impossible. It would take a strong politician to solve the problem but the solution is simple. Just introduce a rent cap and stop allowing property owners to suck their tenants dry. They have introduced rent caps in other cities in Europe and they have worked completely so why not here where we need it the most?
According to latest figures from the English Housing Survey, London tenants pay 72% of earnings on rent! 3/4 of their entire salary! In other parts of the country and in Europe they might be a third. It would be a joke if it was funny. And even if landlords here charged what was fair they would still be making a killing. So why do we put up with it? I think its because Britain was born out of a feudal society, where the landowners ruled and nothing has really changed. We are the peasants but we’re not revolting..maybe we should be.
There is an election today in London and there is only one real issue worth voting for in this city and its for more affordable living – if you do not like what has happened to this city then maybe you should use your vote to fight to get it back…personally I am just so sick of moaning about it and sure you might be sick of hearing about it (although I have deliberately tried to restrain myself over last six months for fear of utter gentrification fatigue) but I can’t pretend its not happening and everything is ok.
I guess I just never wanted to be one of those people banging on about how much better things used to be but that is exactly what I’ve become. This blog was initially designed to celebrate this city, it was not supposed to be a moan fest. People who are now moving into the city will never know how vibrant and varied and inclusive this city was as they would never have seen it but I have and I miss it deeply. The city of culture is now a city of commerce and the knock on effect it has had is huge.
New London is a shadow of its former self , its inhabitants residing in the shadows of endless blocks of luxury flats that no normal person could ever afford to live in. And when I say ‘normal’, I mean all the average earners, who lets face it, are most of us, being able to survive in this glorious city. It was do-able on a basic salary and now it isn’t and the difference is extraordinary.
I know this city is still teeming with millions of people but they’re now having to get bussed in and out. No-one lives in the centre anymore. If you do you are an anomaly these days. So many of my friends have had to leave the centre and be pushed out as far as zone 6 or even have to leave the city to get reasonably priced accommodation. The migration to areas such as Brighton,hove, hastings etc, which I would now refer to as zone 7 is now for some the only financially viable alternative.
I went on the Millennium wheel at night recently and right across the horizon in every direction all you could see was tons of these tiny little red lights. They looked like fireflies hovering in the night sky but they were all cranes, all busy building buildings that were of no use to most folk. Well done, good job!
A mayor who gave a shit about this could maybe make a difference. Don’t waste your vote, it could make a difference.
(p.s this photograph was taken from lea anderson’s performance at the V&A, more of that tomorrow…)
