Social Cleansing Or Lucky Bleeders?

[Clinton Huxley]

Rent and purchase costs are out of control due to a lack of supply (ie an over regulated market). While housing benefit and mortgage susbisides don't help its the lack of houses thats the big problem

Plenty of empty houses in the Great Wen.

[Svartalf]

Low skilled employable people do not generate enough tax revenue to offset the high cost of housing them in affluent cities. The better solution would be to house them in "single wide" trailers and transport them to areas with work.

City real estate cost are just a factor of commute time. Move all the low wage earners to the cheaper suburbs thirty or forty miles away and house them in single wides, but bus them in for their daily commute.

The only people in live in central London are Russian drug dealers/former KGB agents and Arab princes, the suburbs 30-40 miles out are only a bit cheaper. London is a bit of a weird city even by European standards in Berlin or Paris ordinary people actually live in the centre which isnt really true for London

'ordinary' is a big word... Paris has been gentrifying itself over the last 40 years.
Actual, low wage working people have increasingly been pushed outside city boundaries, even neighbourhoods that used to be reserved for the poorest of the poor, and were known for African population, are rising in value...

I live in an area that used to be populated with furniture makers and garment makers... now, the few furniture makers have been pushed east beyond the Bastille,, garments are couture shops with the stock made elsewhere, and the sellers of used furniture and stuff have become antique dealers. I could not afford to rent the place I live in, If I went to dwell in some unpleasant hole and reted it out, I could get as much as my pension in rent for it... some people have told me 'per week'.

[Svartalf]

Rent and purchase costs are out of control due to a lack of supply (ie an over regulated market). While housing benefit and mortgage susbisides don't help its the lack of houses thats the big problem

Plenty of empty houses in the Great Wen.

Which ones, where, and why?

I mean, we regularly have scandals here about squatted housing that their owners let go fallow for years or decades, neither using, renting out or selling them... in some cases, the owners were banks or insurance companies that are required by law to hold equity, but can't be arsed to manage it and put it to use (or won't do so because they don't feel they will get a sufficient profit margin).

[Clinton Huxley]

Rent and purchase costs are out of control due to a lack of supply (ie an over regulated market). While housing benefit and mortgage susbisides don't help its the lack of houses thats the big problem

Plenty of empty houses in the Great Wen.

Which ones, where, and why?

I mean, we regularly have scandals here about squatted housing that their owners let go fallow for years or decades, neither using, renting out or selling them... in some cases, the owners were banks or insurance companies that are required by law to hold equity, but can't be arsed to manage it and put it to use (or won't do so because they don't feel they will get a sufficient profit margin).

Same here, Svarty.

[FBM]

Possum Neck sounds an awesome place to live.

In fact..Possum is ossum!

Years ago, I was driving through the remote backwoods of MS and took a picture of the sign. As far as I could tell, that's all there was of the place. Unless there was another sign facing the opposite direction. http://mississippi.hometownlocator.com/ ... umneck.cfm

[Audley Strange]

The only people in live in central London are Russian drug dealers/former KGB agents and Arab princes, the suburbs 30-40 miles out are only a bit cheaper. London is a bit of a weird city even by European standards in Berlin or Paris ordinary people actually live in the centre which isnt really true for London

Not true Jonno. Certainly areas like Knightsbridge or Kensington and Chelsea have highly expensive areas, but what major city doesn't? There are plenty of people who are not rich who rent or own houses all over Central London. There are also many charity groups that supply social housing for poor folk and immigrants, people like the Peabody Trust. Not to mention all the homes just outside the EC/WC areas that are still owned by local councils and inhabited by the lower strata of income.

@Rum.

Cheers for that. I wasn't aware it had been implemented. Does anyone think it actually a decent service that a council provides private tenants with an alternative option of a home rather than leaving them out on the streets or are we all just jumping on the "aaaww the poor poor" bandwagon? People should be able to charge what rents they wish on property, if the tenant can't afford that even with assistance then they should find accommodation that is within their means not their desires. This might actually have the effect of lowering rents in the long term for such properties.

[MrJonno]

Personal housing in London really is very low compared to businesses there and other cities. You go to Paris and whats immediately obvious is there is private housing above department stores etc something that is rare in London

[Warren Dew]

I think in the US people tend to move to (or at least encouraged to) where the jobs are.

In the UK basically where the jobs are is where the rent is unaffordable (ie London). What is the point in moving people to places where there are absolutely no jobs?. It's treating the symptoms of a geographically completely unbalanced economy.

People in the U.S. tend to move to states where there are jobs. The UK equivalent would be, for example, moving between England and Scotland.

I live in the greater Boston area and I know no one who lives in Boston proper. People just commute between home in the suburbs and work in the city. I imagine it's not so different regarding those who work in central London.

[Mysturji]

I take it that this "Social Cleansing" applies to the "Great Unwashed"?

[Atheist-Lite]

The US does not have many established lineages?

[MrJonno]

The US does not have many established lineages?

Of course, they have no classes and you are mastery of your own destiny with who your parents are being no significance. If you fail its your fault and if you succeed ditto

[Atheist-Lite]

The US does not have many established lineages?

Of course, they have no classes and you are mastery of your own destiny with who your parents are being no significance. If you fail its your fault and if you succeed ditto

Without their religious organisations they'd quickly drift into a atomised soup of gun toting red necks I figure.

[Svartalf]

Crumple... how are the deported folks supposed to be 'lucky bleeders'?
I mean, Stoke is the kind of place where employment is about as common as live tyrannosaurids...

[Atheist-Lite]

Crumple... how are the deported folks supposed to be 'lucky bleeders'?
I mean, Stoke is the kind of place where employment is about as common as live tyrannosaurids...

Don't they have choice? Is there a guy with a gun putting them on a train to Stoke?

[Svartalf]

Looks like it, yes... if they are being given a choice between unemployment and homelessness...