Building New Houses

[newbie]

The only people that benefit form the financial services (FS) industry are the already-monied, coke-snorting, forever-partying middleclasses upwards. The FS industry provides very few jobs for poor and working class Londoners - who are now pretty much abandoned in dumping-ground estates for people permanently excluded from employment.

Indeed. But if the froth isn't trickledown in action, where else is the money coming from?

 

[Random]

1939 1951 1961 1971 1981 1991 2001
Inner 3.3 3.6 3.4 3.0 2.4 2.3 2.7
outer 5.2 4.5 4.4 4.4 4.1 4.0 4.4
greater 8.6 8.1 7.9 7.4 6.6 6.3 7.1

2001 http://www.statistics.gov.uk/census2001/profiles/h.asp
historic http://www.statistics.gov.uk/CCI/SearchRes.asp?term=london+population+&x=0&y=0

sorry about the formatting

cheers newbie! For some reason I'd thought London's population had always been expanding. Interesting to see we're still to reach the high of 8.1m from 1951.

Al lot of the people - and their descendents - who left must have swelled areas like Essex and Greater Brighton, I suppose.

 

[Donna Ferentes]

Al lot of the people - and their descendents - who left must have swelled areas like Essex and Greater Brighton, I suppose.

Stevenage, for instance, where the New Town was built for people to get away from London slums.

 

[poster342002]

Indeed. But if the froth isn't trickledown in action, where else is the money coming from?

For those of us at the bottom, there isn't any money coming from anywhere. The only jobs being created are graduate-level and accomodation prices are also aimed at that wage-bracket - the rest of us are being asked to just fuck off quietly, thank you.

 

[Gmart]

I appreciate that trickledown doesn't work very well in the UK at the moment. That's why I was describing the systemic changes needed to facilitate it.

It is essential to setup a good, balanced system in the first place, and the one we have has no penalty for keeping space empty. This is a resource, and so needs to be managed when the market fails.

 

[newbie]

But where supply isn't elastic then market laws don't operate properly.

Housing is too bound up with quality of life to be a market pure and simple. If homeowners find that living in London is no longer attractive factors other than investment return will decide whether they move to Leeds or Spain. Simply building lots of housing in the north doesn't necessarily mean people will move there, no matter how cheap, if the quality of life on offer doesn't match their aspirations.

 

[Random]

"I appreciate that socialism doesn't work very well in Russia at the moment"

It's urbanski74 again!

 

[newbie]

I appreciate that trickledown doesn't work very well in the UK at the moment.

I'm in two minds on this. I mean, I agree with poster that not much reaches the poorest, yet London has had a longish period of widespread prosperity. How else is prosperity paid for- who would really like to return to the age of making stuff, which provided previous 'never had it so good' moments? I, for one, was brought up to work in a car factory and I'm very glad I don't. People in China or India want those jobs, I don't think many here do.

 

[poster342002]

I'm in two minds on this. I mean, I agree with poster that not much reaches the poorest, yet London has had a longish period of widespread prosperity.

But that "prosperity" is meaningless to those of us who not only do not benefit from it, but actually seem to be pushed even further down the scale by it's existance in terms of the lack of working class jobs and lack of affordable housing that comes about as a result.

 

[Donna Ferentes]

I find th eposition is that you can buy all the gadgets you want but that more important things are harder to get and quality of life is less. There are concrete things I can point to (cost of housing, necessity to commute) to back that up, it's not just an unsubstantiated feeling.

 

[newbie]

But that "prosperity" is meaningless to those of us who not only do not benefit from it, but actually seem to be pushed even further down the scale by it's existance in terms of the lack of working class jobs and lack of affordabel housing that comes about as a result.

the poorest are marginalised, through good times and bad, hasn't that always been the case? Objective quality of life now, even for the poorest, is way better than it was before the boom started- eg far more people have (some form of) central heating and indoor sanitation than in the 70s or 80s.

I want to edit that : far fewer people have no central heating or indoor sanitation than in the 70s or 80s.

 

[Gmart]

Meanwhile millions have been brought out of poverty in China over the last few years. That's not a bad thing...

 

[poster342002]

Meanwhile millions have been brought out of poverty in China over the last few years. That's not a bad thing...

... and large numbers of people in China have been plunged into it over the last few years as a result of market-reforms (not matched by political ones). That IS a bad thing.

 

[Das Uberdog]

Also the only stats you have are based upon figures from the World Bank and China's government. There are still food-riots in china, something unheard of under Mao.

 

[Gmart]

... and large numbers of people in China have been plunged into it over the last few years as a result of market-reforms (not matched by political ones). That IS a bad thing.

But what are the numbers? To counter the millions who are better off?