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London Then and Now: Aerial Shots Show City Grow over Past Two Decades

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Re: London Then and Now: Aerial Shots Show City Grow over Past Two Decades

#51

Post by flower-giraffe »

jokethrowaway wrote: post #30
LilBytes wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What was your reason for loathing living in London? Edit: reason I ask is because I assume it's costs, I can't imagine your apartment was cheap. I don't see much evidence that even SWE's can comfortably live there.

It's not really about the cost. I would say it's pollution, crime and lack of avenues for small kids. I was living on a skyscraper and the amount of black dust I was removing from next to the windows was mind-blowing. I still remember moving 1hr out of London and feeling like I was breathing again. Not what I wanted for my kids. The amount of stabbing and theft going on was pretty crazy. It was all around you. Some p…

Canary Wharf is surrounded by poverty in a brown field redevelopment that has been a permanent construction site for over thirty years. It is not really representative of London.

London is an expensive city, you’ll need several million pounds for a decent family home but if you can afford it it’s an absolutely fantastic place to live.

Unfortunately the lack of affordable housing makes it less likely to be so in the long term.

Arguably it is developments like Canary Wharf and the associated planning concessions that have fuelled the London property market to make it practically unaffordable for the vast majority of people that do the real work.

Re: London Then and Now: Aerial Shots Show City Grow over Past Two Decades

#52

Post by NeoTar »

b112 wrote: post #18
NeoTar wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real story is one of intensification. Before 2000-or-so there weren't many sky-scrapers in the City-of-London (i.e the central financial district), now it looks like there are upwards of twenty. Similarly in almost every photograph there is much less brown/grey space. Either empty spaces, or inner-city car-parks have been replaced by parks, or by new buildings. I think this is reflected in the population history…

I wonder if the inner city driving tax, whatever it is called, could have reduced car parks.

[Congestion Charge](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_congestion_charge)

Not to be confused with the [Ultra Low Emission Zone](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra_Low_Emission_Zone) which also requires a fee to be paid to enter the city.

Re: London Then and Now: Aerial Shots Show City Grow over Past Two Decades

#53

Post by gadders »

okeuro49 wrote: post #41
hk__2 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Now it is honestly too expensive, £8 a pint in pub near work, it makes going out less fun. Aren’t the salaries higher as well? In Paris a pint is €7 on average (~£6) but according to Glassdoor the average SWE salary is only €53k/yr vs. £68k for London.

> Aren’t the salaries higher as well? The killer is house and rental costs. If you want a flat in central London you'll be paying half (or more?) of your £68k salary on rent after tax. In Canary Wharf you might not even be able to afford rent. A £68k salary won't bring you close to being able to afford a mortgage, unless you have capital from other means e.g. inheritance.

To be fair, though, that is a prime-ish location, not much different to trying to live in Manhattan or the nice bits of SF.

Re: London Then and Now: Aerial Shots Show City Grow over Past Two Decades

#54

Post by agd »

jwmoz wrote: post #17
LilBytes wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What was your reason for loathing living in London? Edit: reason I ask is because I assume it's costs, I can't imagine your apartment was cheap. I don't see much evidence that even SWE's can comfortably live there.

It was great in 2012 and comfortable for SWEs (am one). Now it is honestly too expensive, £8 a pint in pub near work, it makes going out less fun.

For non-Londoners, it’s worth pointing out that £8 for a pint is exceptionally high. In most smart pubs in central london the price for a regular pint is approx £5-£6.50. And you can get pints for approx £3 in centrally located Wetherspoons (a common pub chain).

Re: London Then and Now: Aerial Shots Show City Grow over Past Two Decades

#56

Post by gadders »

jwmoz wrote: post #16

When I moved here the Gherkin was an iconic building in the skyline. Now I can rarely see it, surrounded by other generic skyscrapers. I find it really sad they obscured it from vision.

I remember when the NatWest Tower (Tower 42) was the tallest building, but yes I think it's sad that the Gherkin is now hidden behind a bunch of boring box shaped skyscrapers.

Re: London Then and Now: Aerial Shots Show City Grow over Past Two Decades

#57

Post by topicseed »

jwmoz wrote: post #16

When I moved here the Gherkin was an iconic building in the skyline. Now I can rarely see it, surrounded by other generic skyscrapers. I find it really sad they obscured it from vision.

True. The Gherkin even just ten years or so ago was in all the b-roll footage whenever there was a documentary or segment about London, alongside Big Ben images.

Now, there are a whole bunch of skyscrapers, few with character (e.g., Shard), and many pretty basic (alongside Bishopsgate).

Overall, London keeps on building in so many of its areas (Kings Cross, City, Nine Elms, Victoria), and it's nice to see. I just hope these won't sit empty...

Re: London Then and Now: Aerial Shots Show City Grow over Past Two Decades

#58

Post by pjc50 »

AlexMuir wrote: post #22

Almost everything you see is residential. And in the case of the new office blocks (the Canary Wharf shots), the developers are seeking consent for residential conversions. Playing SimCity and building only residential zones doesn't tend to work out great.

And yet people in all those buildings are still commuting _inwards_. Otherwise they'd be living somewhere further away and cheaper.

Re: London Then and Now: Aerial Shots Show City Grow over Past Two Decades

#59

Post by FirmwareBurner »

bettercallsalad wrote: post #49
LilBytes wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What was your reason for loathing living in London? Edit: reason I ask is because I assume it's costs, I can't imagine your apartment was cheap. I don't see much evidence that even SWE's can comfortably live there.

London is actually surprisingly cheaper than many cities in US. You just have to find your place based on the budget. I lived in Ealing area (sure it’s far from many actions but lots of great ethnic food in far cheaper price than anywhere else) in a quite a spacious apartment and it was half as much as what I spent in both two cities I have lived in US. And the tube is excellent (compared to our public transport stan…

>London is actually surprisingly cheaper than many cities in US.

Sure, because average salaries are also much lower than in the US.

Re: London Then and Now: Aerial Shots Show City Grow over Past Two Decades

#60

Post by ido »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #32
fauigerzigerk wrote: post #27

I see lots of new office buildings and sports facilities, so I was wondering what happened on the residential side. What I found is this dataset: Total Number of Dwellings and Net Additional Dwellings, Borough https://data.london.gov.uk/dataset/net-additional-dwellings-... It shows 614,474 net new dwellings between 2001/02 and 2021/22. Unfortunately, they don't appear to collect data on floor space at all. So this is…

Most of the new towers you see in the pictures are flats. For instance, around Wembley Stadium the vast majority are flats. Lots of (fancy) flats on the Isle of Dogs as well. It's mostly offices only in the City and Canary Wharf.

We often hear here (Berlin) that the housing affordability crisis is due to not building enough housing...Yet London apparently built loads in the last 20 years and it's still as unaffordable as ever (or even more than ever)?

Is there any data showing that if we let loose and build a ton of housing that purchase prices and (especially) rents will reduce significantly? It's intuitively true but all the cities you can see a ton of construction in have also gone from "expensive" to "more expensive" at the same time.

Did any major city people want to live in got more affordable (or stayed affordable) in the last 10-20 years?

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