London, like most major cities, has significant wealth disparity: central London is filled with high-earning transplants living side by side with impoverished locals. Southwark is the London borough containing The Shard, Tate Modern, Borough Market, Tower Bridge yet almost 30% of children in Southwark live in poverty. Poverty touches every part of London. Even the City of London has housing estates.
Its common in British cities for most owners/renters to have terraced or detached housing while council houses (public housing) are in tower blocks or smaller apartment buildings.
I'm pretty sure anyone around there who owns his apartment does not fit the definition of poor - in fact most of the so-called rich would take more than a decade of saving up just so that they could own the same property.
The great tragedy of Europe is that asset wealth has far outpaced the earnings potential of the population.
Thanks to right to buy starting in the 80s plenty of economically inefficient people with shit jobs bought their houses in London for a tiny amount. Those are now worth a fortune.
They then rented them out and made even more money p
Strivers who actually pay market rates for rent see all their money drain away, often to “poor working class” people who now complain they can’t heat their £1m houses because we aren’t given them even more free money. Meanwhile those strivers who have a pension are about to have that ransacked to give a triple locked pay rise to those poor millionaires.
A lot of older council apartments in the UK seem to be a bit grim. There's some skepticism against apartment blocks and a lot of newer ones seem to have odd pricing.
I live in a nice apartment in Austria but I'd be a lot more critical looking for one to live in the UK.
Yeah, that and a lot seem kinda small while being a bit lower than the prices of some houses(but still too much imo). Been a long time since I dreamed of home ownership admittedly.
I thought grenfell pushed the leaseholder vs freehold pricing out in the open. I've seen stuff about leaseholders effectively in negative equity because of the cost of cladding and a previous government dropped a bill or amendment changing who had to pay for such things or the existence of leasehold.
> high-earning transplants living side by side with impoverished locals.
Hilarious take, honestly. Can you point me to some evidence, maps, tables, or discussions about the impoverished London-born living cheek-by-jowl with fancy Nigerians? This is the first I am hearing about the disadvantaged natives of London.
Now why not try and learn something about somewhere and figure out _why_ there are so many housing estates scattered throughout London. It's actually quite interesting.
It's atypical, yet it is abundantly clear that "poor" is closely mixed in with "rich".
Are you suggesting that the majority of other affluent boroughs in London and Greater London are exempt from containing Council Estates? Islington, Putney, Wimbledon, Chelsea...
I think you're thinking of immigrants as the people coming to the UK from poor countries. Most of those people don't go to London, they move to regional towns and cities.
The people who move into central London from overseas are rich emigrants (Russian oligarchs, Saudi princes, etc).
There is significant social housing in London, where the local council provides housing for people of limited means. This is a historical leftover from more enlightened times (and one that Thatcher tried to eliminate). But the amount of churn in this housing, as you can imagine, is very low - once you have a council house, you never leave it because all the other options are waaaay out of your price range. So there are whole families who have been living in poverty for generations in the centre of London.
The physical presence of Social Housing Estates is the evidence - the occupants are those that aren't otherwise able to afford housing or pay rent. As the commentator says, even the City has Housing Estates.
Majority of people who can’t afford rent in London don’t live in London. The massive subsidies that certain people get, which leads to massive opportunities for their kids and their future career, are all because of where they were born
The first time I read the comment I thought it was making an aggregate claim about newcomers being richer than natives, which struck me as obviously, spectacularly incorrect. Why else would a speaker say "high-earning transplants" specifically? If I had to point out an example of unequal wealth in London I am sure my example would be their monarch, not a vague implication of Johnny-come-lately bankers or lawyers.
I am certain that in the aggregate the relationship between wealth or income and length of tenure in London is positive.
I read it as "native Londoners" vs "everybody else". Eg "born within the sound of Bow Bells" vs. "graduated from UEA with a 2:1 in Accounting and Finance and moved into a flatshare just behind Upper St".
> I am certain that in the aggregate the relationship between wealth or income and length of tenure in London is positive.
I reckon people who were born there and didn't get a London-appropriate degree are unlikely to have amassed wealth. (Excepting Right To Buy, I suppose, but that's more Right Time than Right Place).
OP's point (which I parapharase as "there are two Londons") strikes me as blatantly true, and I've got the impression from art that 'twas ever thus.
> their monarch
You're not British, maybe? Have you spent much time in London? (I was in the "graduated from UEA" bucket above - I've left now, as people like me tend to do as they get older).
The King isn't anywhere near being the richest person living in London. It's also a strange example to choose. I mean Joe Biden is richer than the average DC native, but what does that tell you exactly?
London is a very international city, and the wealthy people who own property in the central areas come from all over the place.
> The King isn't anywhere near being the richest person living in London.
I think he's arguing that Charlie counts in the "native Londoner" bucket.
BTW, don't trust the Sunday Times Rich List estimates of the Monarch's wealth. They changed their methodology after the first list when the palace complained that the Queen came out on top.
A lot depends on how much you value some very illiquid assets. But there's no doubt that London is full of people (both British and not) who have more money to throw around than the King. He is not 'even' a billionaire in terms of his personal wealth.
