Quote:
Originally Posted by Damien
Well London already need a gazillion new homes which aren't being built. It is depressing the amount of times I see a new housing development only to find out upon a quick Google it's aimed at the high end of the market. There was a case a few years ago, repeated elsewhere, where a new development didn't have a UK marketing office. It was aimed purely at China and other foreign investors. That is the bigger problem.
If you live in London, zone 4 or closer especially, owning a car would be a unneeded expense. However I would say the demographic of immigrants in London differs from elsewhere. It's likely to be a very transient population who come and go. People tend to come down from elsewhere in the UK, or the world, for a decade or so before leaving again. People who start families tend to leave as well.
I don't think London suffers the same issues as the rest of the country. It faces different problems and it almost has to be treated differently. What is good for London may not be what is good for the UK and what is good for the UK may well not be good for London. Immigration is one of those issues, housing is another.
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Your predicted vision for London seems to be a City inhabited, within the inner parts, by the uber rich surrounded by ever increasing numbers of single, people in small flats with no outside space. If they want to have families and luxuries like cars they'll have to move on out and if they want to still work in London they'll have to spend £££££££'s for the privilege of just getting to work. I don't see how that helps London in the long term. It seems to be more the result of a failure to get to grips with the cause of the problem.
Whichever way you look at it, numbers are at the centre of the problem and developments being built with no thought for the future. It wasn't that long ago that 1950's and 60's developments were being razed to the ground - too cramped, no gardens, no community spirit, magnets for anti-social behaviour etc etc etc. Is that what we're going back to?
We need to put the brakes on speculative foreign investment, ensure that a good mix of homes is available and that London doesn't become a giant shanty town with a recreation of Monaco at its core.
We can talk about how many homes need to be built but unless London's population stops growing the number will never be enough, we'll always be playing catch up in terms of the homes and infrastructure needed to support them which is already creaking at the seams coping with existing numbers.
Something drastic needs to be done and soon but simply building ever more, ever smaller, more cramped homes isn't the answer.