The first place I lived in London as an adult was the Ralph West Halls of Residence, on Albert Bridge Road, opposite Battersea Park. I was 17, it was the height of punk, and I lived just a spit from King’s Road in Chelsea. Since then I’ve lived in most postcodes in the city, circling in towards the centre of town. It’s a litany of experience: Dulwich, Herne Hill, Stamford Hill, Peckham, Brixton, the Oval, Shepherd’s Bush, Notting Hill, West Hampstead (Kilburn, actually), and finally — hopefully — Bayswater.
At the time the cycle was one attempted by many people trying to find a foothold in London: squats, housing associations, shared houses, rentals and then eventually — overextending, obviously — a mortgage on a small, one-bedroomed, top-floor flat off Uxbridge Road.
But no one can afford to do that anymore. This was made horribly apparent to me about 15 years ago, when the world was on the brink of global financial crisis, when swathes of people in my office suddenly started moving out to the Home Counties.
A lot of people obviously start moving out when they start coupling up, having children or — that dreaded phrase used by our parents — “settling down”. More space, more trees, better schools, less crime etc. But my colleagues were moving out to Essex, Kent, Berks and Bucks not for the sake of their health or wellbeing, but because they couldn’t afford to live in London any more. And many of them were on pretty good money, too.
This is where we find ourselves in 2023, living in a city state that is only going to get more gilded, more ridiculously expensive. House prices continue to soar, rentals are going through the roof, and it’s nigh-on impossible to get onto the property ladder. Principally because it has been pulled up by the generation before.
In this respect we are in danger of turning into New York, or at least Manhattan, which has been co-opted by estate agents (sorry, realtors). Previously dodgy areas such as Hell’s Kitchen, the East Village and parts of what you’re still (just) allowed to call Spanish Harlem have now been so gentrified that it’s impossible for most people to live there. A few years ago, I went down to Alphabet City for a meeting, and couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Back in the Eighties, Nineties and even the Noughties, this was a no-go area, a place even cab drivers warned you against visiting unless you wanted to buy drugs (I didn’t).
But what I found was a part of Manhattan that looked like it was a set from a Woody Allen movie — a bunch of suburbanites and plenty of latte. No one was going to try and sell me any drugs, although I found plenty of opportunities to invest in neighbourhood condos.
Now, there are many reasons why the Government can righteously claim that the market is beyond their control, but it doesn’t take an existentialist to understand that our city is rapidly moving in two directions at once — towards the extremely wealthy districts, and the appallingly poor ones.
No good can come of this, something that is going to be exacerbated by the eventual arrival of HS2. This protracted money pit was designed so that we can hop on a train and end up in Manchester, but as anyone with any sense will have already worked out, Londoners are not going to be rushing north to set up home; rather London is going to be even more of a talismanic destination, pushing up house prices and rents even more.
Could the Government pay more development attention to brownfield sites? Could they repurpose empty lots and overhaul dilapidated council estates and post-industrial wastelands? Could they mandate relationships with the private sector that didn’t just prioritise luxury flats and retail? Could they strategise in a way that doesn’t just result in the foregone conclusion that most economists have forecast for years, namely a two-tier city?
Because if we don’t, we’ll soon simply be a conglomeration of gated communities.
Oh, and the Ralph West Hall of Residence, where I pitched up in the summer of 1977 wearing my plastic leather jacket, scuffed plimsolls and Ramones T-shirt?
Well, it’s been demolished, obviously, and turned into luxury flats.
Just what London needs.
Dylan Jones is editor-in-chief of the Evening Standard
