Dubious
RETIRED MOD
- Joined
- Jul 22, 2012
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- 37,717
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Sure, the rent is absurd and the transport is a nightmare, but that's a fair premium for living in the beating heart of the nation
A report claims Londoners pay 50 per cent more than others to achieve a "decent standard of living
London used to be a city of classes. The working classes, spread across the East End, the sprawling south, and the not-so-nice bits of the north; the middle and more moneyed classes, holed up in the west and in the leafier bits of the north and south.
Now, when it's impolitic to mention the c-word, London is a city of tribes.
From those Shoreditch irritants who tweet and drink coffee to New Cross creatives, Tufnell Park princesses, banker boys, grime guys and more, the city's dwellers now define themselves more by their cultural interests than by their relationship to capital.
And to these tribes we must now add a new one, a growing one, and an annoying one. Let's call them metropolis moaners, a largely middle-class set that spends its every waking hour complaining about how smoggy, noisy and, most of all, bloody expensive life in London is.
Shoreditch graffiti commemorates the battle of Waterloo (Photo: James Gourley/REX)
MMs do virtually — on Twitter, in blog posts, in charity-funded reports — what those proverbial housewives used to do over the garden fence: complain about everything, especially stuff that pinches the pocket.
The latest outburst of metropolis moaning comes from Trust for London, in tandem with Loughborough University.
They've released a report claiming that it can cost a Londoner up to 50 per cent more than a non-Londoner to achieve a "decent standard of living".
Because housing, travel and grub cost more in London than they do anywhere else in the UK, a singe person in Inner London apparently has to spend £410 a week to get by — £130 more than the UK average.
Trust for London says "one in three Londoners are struggling to live a decent life”, and London risks becoming a "city for the wealthiest".
There's a hell of a lot of hyperbole here. A city of the wealthy? It isn’t going to happen. This is still a city packed with everyone from ridiculously wealthy traders to secretaries, McDonald's workers, buskers and immigrants. London has long been a place where the well-off have rubbed shoulders — and occasionally other things — with the down-at-heel.
In fact, London would grind to a halt without its “non-wealthy” residents, without the builders, bus drivers and cooks who make it, move it and feed it. Those who think London could become a city for the rich alone clearly don’t understand how London works.
Cranking metropolis moaning up to 10, Frances O’Grady of the TUCprovided Trust for London with this headline-hogging line: “British people have suffered the longest fall in living standards since Queen Victoria was on the throne, and it’s hitting Londoners especially hard.”
The mention of Victoria is meant to conjure up an image of a city with such speedily plummeting living standards that it won’t be long before we see women in shawls selling soap on misty bridges and muddy-cheeked urchins begging for bread.
Don’t buy it. What the “not since Queen Victoria” blather really means is that where Brits’ wages rose every year over the past hundred years, by varying percentage points, in 2014 they rose by just 0.1 per cent. That’s an increase of a pound a week, which, taking inflation into account, does mean some people are somewhat out of pocket.
Cafe-goers in Dulwich (Photo: Jacky Chapman / Alamy)
Annoying, yes. But evidence that London might lose its poor and become a realm of the super-rich? No. Things might be tough for some, but Oliver Twist it ain’t.
The only reasonable response to all the cries of “London is expensive!” is: of course it is. It’s London.
London life costs a lot for the same reason London life is often noisy and dirty and weird. We’re not talking about some Home Counties village here; we’re talking about the greatest city on Earth.
The higher cost of living in London, in comparison with other bits of Britain, should be seen as a kind of premium: we’re paying to be in the beating heart of the nation, a centre of culture and food and music.
Yes, making ends meet can be a struggle some months. But the rewards for persevering and getting your rent paid and fridge stocked are immeasurable: you get to live in London.
Temporary duck lanes on a crowded tow path in the capital (Photo: Bethany Clarke / Getty)
Could London do with more house-building? No question. I’d build thousands of fancy new abodes, even on the Green Belt, which would have a positive knock-on effect on London’s ridiculous housing costs. Could some Londoners do with a wage rise? Yep. And the sooner we have a proper reckoning with the recession, and the structural decay of the British economy, the sooner we might make that happen.
But the problem with the tribe of metropolis moaners is that, far from inspiring people to think about how London might be expanded and made even wealthier and more people-packed, they incite miserabilism about this wonderful city. They depict London as a cruel mistress, chewing up the poor and spitting them out in Watford, or beyond.
London costs a lot because London gives us a lot. No offence to northerners, but I’d far rather be skint in London than rich in Hull.
I’d rather be skint in London than rich in Hull - Telegraph
A report claims Londoners pay 50 per cent more than others to achieve a "decent standard of living
London used to be a city of classes. The working classes, spread across the East End, the sprawling south, and the not-so-nice bits of the north; the middle and more moneyed classes, holed up in the west and in the leafier bits of the north and south.
Now, when it's impolitic to mention the c-word, London is a city of tribes.
From those Shoreditch irritants who tweet and drink coffee to New Cross creatives, Tufnell Park princesses, banker boys, grime guys and more, the city's dwellers now define themselves more by their cultural interests than by their relationship to capital.
And to these tribes we must now add a new one, a growing one, and an annoying one. Let's call them metropolis moaners, a largely middle-class set that spends its every waking hour complaining about how smoggy, noisy and, most of all, bloody expensive life in London is.
Shoreditch graffiti commemorates the battle of Waterloo (Photo: James Gourley/REX)
MMs do virtually — on Twitter, in blog posts, in charity-funded reports — what those proverbial housewives used to do over the garden fence: complain about everything, especially stuff that pinches the pocket.
The latest outburst of metropolis moaning comes from Trust for London, in tandem with Loughborough University.
They've released a report claiming that it can cost a Londoner up to 50 per cent more than a non-Londoner to achieve a "decent standard of living".
Because housing, travel and grub cost more in London than they do anywhere else in the UK, a singe person in Inner London apparently has to spend £410 a week to get by — £130 more than the UK average.
Trust for London says "one in three Londoners are struggling to live a decent life”, and London risks becoming a "city for the wealthiest".
There's a hell of a lot of hyperbole here. A city of the wealthy? It isn’t going to happen. This is still a city packed with everyone from ridiculously wealthy traders to secretaries, McDonald's workers, buskers and immigrants. London has long been a place where the well-off have rubbed shoulders — and occasionally other things — with the down-at-heel.
In fact, London would grind to a halt without its “non-wealthy” residents, without the builders, bus drivers and cooks who make it, move it and feed it. Those who think London could become a city for the rich alone clearly don’t understand how London works.
Cranking metropolis moaning up to 10, Frances O’Grady of the TUCprovided Trust for London with this headline-hogging line: “British people have suffered the longest fall in living standards since Queen Victoria was on the throne, and it’s hitting Londoners especially hard.”
The mention of Victoria is meant to conjure up an image of a city with such speedily plummeting living standards that it won’t be long before we see women in shawls selling soap on misty bridges and muddy-cheeked urchins begging for bread.
Don’t buy it. What the “not since Queen Victoria” blather really means is that where Brits’ wages rose every year over the past hundred years, by varying percentage points, in 2014 they rose by just 0.1 per cent. That’s an increase of a pound a week, which, taking inflation into account, does mean some people are somewhat out of pocket.
Cafe-goers in Dulwich (Photo: Jacky Chapman / Alamy)
Annoying, yes. But evidence that London might lose its poor and become a realm of the super-rich? No. Things might be tough for some, but Oliver Twist it ain’t.
The only reasonable response to all the cries of “London is expensive!” is: of course it is. It’s London.
London life costs a lot for the same reason London life is often noisy and dirty and weird. We’re not talking about some Home Counties village here; we’re talking about the greatest city on Earth.
The higher cost of living in London, in comparison with other bits of Britain, should be seen as a kind of premium: we’re paying to be in the beating heart of the nation, a centre of culture and food and music.
Yes, making ends meet can be a struggle some months. But the rewards for persevering and getting your rent paid and fridge stocked are immeasurable: you get to live in London.
Temporary duck lanes on a crowded tow path in the capital (Photo: Bethany Clarke / Getty)
Could London do with more house-building? No question. I’d build thousands of fancy new abodes, even on the Green Belt, which would have a positive knock-on effect on London’s ridiculous housing costs. Could some Londoners do with a wage rise? Yep. And the sooner we have a proper reckoning with the recession, and the structural decay of the British economy, the sooner we might make that happen.
But the problem with the tribe of metropolis moaners is that, far from inspiring people to think about how London might be expanded and made even wealthier and more people-packed, they incite miserabilism about this wonderful city. They depict London as a cruel mistress, chewing up the poor and spitting them out in Watford, or beyond.
London costs a lot because London gives us a lot. No offence to northerners, but I’d far rather be skint in London than rich in Hull.
I’d rather be skint in London than rich in Hull - Telegraph
Every city has its perks and down sides....
