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"Rent has a natural cap on it ..." John, can you please explain your thinking behind this?
I recently met a few of the squatters who'd moved into Protheroe House, near Tottenham Police Station. Due to the usual council incompetence the building was left empty since last January. They told me they were working, but earned less than what they needed for rent and travel. (The building is now empty again.)
To be fair, I suppose they could have tried couch surfing, hot-bedding, sleeping on buses, or in the airport. Last year, a few streets from us, we had a family with small children sleeping in a car. Of course, there's now a shortage of stables. And sleeping outside may be risky. The last time I looked under this bridge, the bedding had gone, but there was debris which looked like there'd been a fire.
Alan the Tories want those people out of London. The natural cap is based upon what the average Londoner CAN pay and young people with no children can share houses on the minimum wage still. This is the natural cap I am talking about, your example is tragic but still does not negate what I am saying.
Given a static population and no differentiator between areas, there's a natural cap. But people move away from an areas they can no longer afford and others move into that more desirable area - that's part of the gentrification process. Regardless of the social/fairness implications, that is the dynamic at work. I'd live in zone 1 or 2 if I could afford a 3 bed there, but I can't so I go further out.
There's a variant on your argument which does hold: what is the size of the pool of people that can & want to afford the rents for an area vs the # of properties. If the #people > #properties then prices are supported. If not, then bubble.
Houses are the only items on the shelf (as opposed to say, bread) that when their price goes down the whole population gets depressed - Why ?
You tend not to invest in a loaf of bread in the hope that it might one day pay for your nursing home care.
What does all this mean for council tenants in the area?
What does it mean for public housing, Joe? If you're lucky, very little. Because your home is seen as primarily for use, and not simply as a trading commodity.
If you're unlucky this is what happens.
Or if you're really unlucky then following, say, a hurricane, you get the disaster capitalists moving in to demolish whole areas. They are often aided and abetted by local politicians who despise public housing. People like Louisiana Representative Richard H. Baker who - after Hurricane Katrina - was reported in The Wall Street Journal saying: "We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn't do it, but God did".
Locally, of course, we had the Tottenham riot. A far smaller shock than a hurricane and flood. But enough to justify sending in Sir Stuart Lipton and other property developers to plan the "solution" of Tottenham's problems. The main method advocated - no need for a second guess - property development.
And so it goes across London. Demolition and displacement, with new private "villages" and "quarters". With people supposedly getting on the "housing ladder", though more often being invited to climb into the debt pit.
Which is why the choice of refurbishment and renewal was not one of the three options offered by our Tory faux-Labour, social cleansing Council in the "consultation" on the Love Lane Estate (West of the Spurs stadium). People were asked whether they want some, most, or all of the estate knocked down.
I realise that this may be a slightly contentious view. And that in the future people may erect statues of St Milton of Friedman.
(Tottenham Hale ward councillor)
SO does your preference for this approach - refurbishment and renewal - also apply to Wards Corner, Alan?
The central point, Pam, is about people, not buildings. And oddly enough there have been broadly successful efforts to preserve old buildings along Tottenham High Road. But many of the people are being cleared out.
Let me ask you a serious question. Do you actually want to do something about Kober, Strickland and their damaging and destructive social cleansing in North Tottenham?
Because I suspect they and their property developer chums would be quietly delighted if people who oppose these Tory policies are endlessly debating the what-ifs and might-have-beens of Wards Corner.
(Tottenham Hale ward councillor)
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