Alice 💋 · 5 answers · 3y

Is all this gentrification in cities we're seeing sustainable? Seems like every day there's a new multi-million dollar highrise going up in my old neighborhood. There can't be THAT many yuppies with enough money to afford them all?

London is full of empty luxury apartments bought by foreign investors: at well over one million pounds per bedroom, they’re the only people who can afford them. There are whole blocks with only a scattering of actual tenants in them. They’re really noticeable at night because the whole tower will be in darkness except for two or three lit apartments. There’s also a problem with billionaires buying a row of (already huge) townhouses and turning them into one ridiculously massive house for one family - although the council has really cracked down on this. These things have affected high-end areas like Kensington & Chelsea because it’s caused the population to drop. So, even pre-virus, in the evenings, the streets were getting pretty deserted and lots of shops/bars/restaurants were closing because they didn’t have any local custom any more.

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