Category: London

Maius, melius, divitius?

13 August, 2012 (16:23) | Affordable Housing, Cities, East End, Eminent domain, Infrastructure, London, Olympics, Redevelopment, Urbanization |

By:David A. Smith   Can you see the future from here? Old buildings obscure Olympics-related development in a view of the East End skyline.   Spectacles always end with a grand finale that makes everyone feel good, the better to validate all the hard work and investment, and yet there is always a morning after [...]

Floggings will continue until supply improves: Part 2, the vanished developers

7 February, 2012 (10:49) | Apartments, Enforcement, London, Rent control, Rental |

By:David A. Smith   [Continued from yesterday's Part 1.]   Yesterday’s post opened up an unduly (and unusually) credulous Economist article spotlighting slumlords in London’s borough of Newham, which suggested that for the borough, if one is paying £120 million annually to provide housing subsidies to people who are stuck renting substandard apartments to slumlords, [...]

Floggings will continue until supply improves: Part 1, the burgeoning slumlords

6 February, 2012 (10:02) | Apartments, Enforcement, London, Rent control, Rental |

By:David A. Smith   Though the Economist is seldom credulous, this time it fell into the trap of excoriating the symptoms while being oblivious to the disease, flogging slumlords without asking where they come from:   To let: bijou residence, airy and well-ventilated, patio garden   Few tourists find their way to the borough of [...]

Much like London

18 August, 2011 (09:06) | Behavior, Cities, Density, Housing, London, New York, Theory |

By:David A. Smith   Just as people need work, people need stress – it’s the antidote to boredom, and the goad that stimulates us to all achievement, and all the rewards that achievement brings.   On TV, so it must be true   But we need Epicurean stress – enough, but not too much – [...]

Slumming it, nineteenth-century style: Part 2, we stayed to change

1 July, 2011 (10:00) | Cities, History, London, New York City, Slum tourism, Slums, Theory, Urbanization |

By: David A. Smith   [Continued from yesterday's Part 1.]   Yesterday’s post concluded with the New York Times’ 1884 slumming reporter venturing deep into the darkest Bowery, where he was surprised by the humanity he found:   A comparatively small environment on the west side may be called the microcosm of the “slummer” for [...]