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Oliver Schick
Read this last night. If true it's totally unforgivable. Coming on the back of the rape of Denmark Street it's enough to make me want to up sticks of f*ck off somewhere that values it's culture like, well, almost anywhere else in Europe. Anywhere with rent control. Seriously, fuck this country.
Just spent a week in Paris, and while there's plenty not to like about Paris, there's a lot of real positives too. A lot of what is great about it stems from the huge majority of small and independent shops, restaurants, cafes and businesses, many of which have been there for generations with reputations built on consistent quality. All but the mainest of main boulevards are chain free. Even right into the centre of town. That and the affordability of central living means that Paris feels like a city for people to work, live, shop, and eat in. The affordability of rent means that businesses are able to exist on much more realistic turnovers and the entire quality and pace of life feels much more sustainable.
Compare that with the homogenised, glass fronted tourist park that is the centre of London where all but the biggest chains get priced out. Nobody lives there, hardly anybody works there except those in the tourist and chainstore retail trade. It's hugely overcrowded, entirely shit, impersonal and bland. And it’s getting worse at a frightening pace. Waterloo and Vauxhall are next btw. There’s a meeting happening next to me right now discussing the new layout. I suspect there will be fewer voices of dissent over that but there you go.
I might suggest that we’re in the process of killing the goose that lays the golden egg by destroying the very thing that that London a cultural tourist destination in the first place but I fear that the big ticket attractions (the royal stuff and misc/ "proper" history) will override the loss of real, personal history of real London and the place will continue it’s transformation into a fucking medieval themed tourist attraction and giant glass fronted shopping mall. I fear it’s already too late for any form of rent control to control or reverse the damage already done. It’s fucking tragic really.