Professionals send Brixton property prices surging by 15%

[Winot]

So the former head of the Commission for Racial Equality uses it to describe white Londoners fleeing inner city communities, but that's not good enough for you ?

Yeah but he also has some dodgy views about multiculturism iirc.

 

[editor]

Yeah but he also has some dodgy views about multiculturism iirc.

And some!

 

[zenie]

over the past few years, i have come to the sad conclusion that london is fucked. something has changed, someone has said. there's something going and it's to do with money.

You're not wrong there. Housing costs mainly.

 

[Mrs Magpie]

Interestingly, there is more internal migration out of London than into it.
http://data.london.gov.uk/datastore/package/migration-indicators

@Crispy

Well, my family bears that out. I'm the only one left in London, but my sisters married men who weren't Londoners so it's often hard to pick apart the reasons why people move out.

 

[MillwallShoes]

Agree - but this is going to get worse, if huge areas of inner London become unaffordable to the kind of young professionals (like Crispy) who would send their children to London state schools - and are only affordable to the really rich middle classes who would always go private anyway (or move out to Berkshire or Surrey like you say).

Brixton Square - starter flats for a quarter of a million pounds - I don't think the people buying those are going to be adding to the social mix in London state secondary schools in 15 years time.

frightening. really.

 

[MillwallShoes]

Agree - but this is going to get worse, if huge areas of inner London become unaffordable to the kind of young professionals (like Crispy) who would send their children to London state schools - and are only affordable to the really rich middle classes who would always go private anyway (or move out to Berkshire or Surrey like you say).

Brixton Square - starter flats for a quarter of a million pounds - I don't think the people buying those are going to be adding to the social mix in London state secondary schools in 15 years time.

i honestly thought that i was the only one seeing this.

 

[Crispy]

There must be census data out there to help clear this up. Let me see what I can find.

Ok, I'm drowning here. There's masses of data, but no easy way of digging it out in a useful way and interpreting it. I'm not a full-time demographer and we need one of those to do this!

 

[TruXta]

Ok, I'm drowning here. There's masses of data, but no easy way of digging it out in a useful way and interpreting it. I'm not a full-time demographer and we need one of those to do this!

@kabbes is the closest we have

 

[zenie]

i honestly thought that i was the only one seeing this.

you're not, but it's a very different thing to white flight

I've met quite a few people who come to London to get the money, but when the time comes to settle down and do the kids thing they move out to the home counties...consequence of this is that they never add much to the community. London has always been a transient place, the difference now is people (not just white people, all poor or w/c people) are forced to leave areas which were previously affordable, because the young professionals have moved to the cheap places and pushed rents up.

 

[Manter]

tbf much of the white flight from Brixton happened more than 30 years ago, so you've been witnessing the reversal almost.

yes, this ^^^^- gentrification

 

[MillwallShoes]

i'm a new parent. is all this "moving to be near a better school" a new thing? certainly wasn't when i was young (it seemed). did people do that ten, twenty, thirty years ago??

 

[MillwallShoes]

i'm talking in general, not just london. seems to be the norm. something wrong with it.

 

[editor]

i'm a new parent. is all this "moving to be near a better school" a new thing? certainly wasn't when i was young (it seemed). did people do that ten, twenty, thirty years ago??

When I was growing up the choices were simple:
1. You went to the nearest comprehensive or
2. You were posh and paid for your kid to go to a school where they wore smart blazers

 

[Manter]

Well, my family bears that out. I'm the only one left in London, but my sisters married men who weren't Londoners so it's often hard to pick apart the reasons why people move out.

I guess I am the other end of the same equation- I'm not a born and bred londoner, neither are most of my friends, but we all moved to London after university because work etc made it essential- and many of us can't leave even if we wanted to, because of work (tho I don't want to!). So yes, we have all moved into different bits of london looking for our 'home'- some have moved to one of the dormitory counties, but not many.... we are the ones popping up in Tulse Hill, Herne Hill, Brixton, Streatham etc

 

[fractionMan]

You used to be able to send your kids across town to school. Now you can't.

Saying that, the nearest comp to me was all the way across town.

 

[Winot]

London has always been a transient place, the difference now is people (not just white people, all poor or w/c people) are forced to leave areas which were previously affordable, because the young professionals have moved to the cheap places and pushed rents up.

Not sure how new or different this is - I rented in West Hampstead when I first got to London (1993). When my gf was making the move in 1994 the rents had gone up to the extent that she couldn't afford to live there.

We ended up in Brixton as a result

 

[Mrs Magpie]

Also, it's often more helpful to regard London as a landlocked country with different 'counties' because there isn't really a city like it anywhere else in the world. We were the first mega-city, but it's never been one homogenous mass, imo.

 

[Manter]

Also, it's often more helpful to regard London as a landlocked country with different 'counties' because there isn't really a city like it anywhere else in the world. We were the first mega-city, but it's never been one homogenous mass, imo.

the 'villagey' nature of london is one of the nicest things about it

 

[Ms Ordinary]

i honestly thought that i was the only one seeing this.

But this kind of thing is exactly why some of us are worried about property prices surging as dramatically as they are (not just in Brixton, surrounding areas too) - going back to your first post in this thread, it's not just a 'prolier than thou' thing or preserving our little playground in aspic.

 

[Kanda]

When I was growing up the choices were simple:
1. You went to the nearest comprehensive or
2. You were posh and paid for your kid to go to a school where they wore smart blazers

I think this is made more difficult these days with faith schools etc

 

[DownwardDog]

What?? That old article is about parents trying to move their kids into different schools. It's got nothing to do with the claims of "white flight" supposedly going on in south London.

What point are you trying to make? WF never happened in London? It did but it doesn't now? We should call it something else?

 

[Winot]

I think this is made more difficult these days with faith schools etc

And Academies/Free Schools etc. All divisive.

 

[Crispy]

faith schools

A fucking crime against society

 

[girasol]

On the subject of schools, can't find the post to quote now... There are plenty of good state schools in London, full of middle class kids (Wandsworth is full of them for starters). I think people sometimes forget how good the education system still is in comparison to the rest of the world. A lot of professional middle class parents send their kids to state school.

 

[Mrs Magpie]

When I was growing up the choices were simple:
1. You went to the nearest comprehensive or
2. You were posh and paid for your kid to go to a school where they wore smart blazers

You forgot about the 11-plus. Secondary Modern/Grammar. Comprehensives weren't universal until much later.

 

[MillwallShoes]

On the subject of schools, can't find the post to quote now... There are plenty of good state schools in London, full of middle class kids (Wandsworth is full of them for starters). I think people sometimes forget how good the education system still is in comparison to the rest of the world. A lot of professional middle class parents send their kids to state school.

london has the best state schools in teh country, i read somewhere.

 

[Winot]

Lambeth average results at primary level is higher than national average. And Lambeth is low in London terms.

 

[DownwardDog]

When I was growing up the choices were simple:
1. You went to the nearest comprehensive or
2. You were posh and paid for your kid to go to a school where they wore smart blazers

You also could descend into recusancy and go to a Catholic comprehensive (which was supposed to be better) where I grew up.

 

[Winot]

When I was growing up the choices were simple:
1. You went to the nearest comprehensive or
2. You were posh and paid for your kid to go to a school where they wore smart blazers

I'm guessing that where you grew up didn't have the same population density as central London.

 

[Mrs Magpie]

I think people sometimes forget how good the education system still is in comparison to the rest of the world.

Yes, a fair few immigrants I know have given up their middle-class professions overseas and worked as cleaners or whatever here so that their kids get a good education here. Their kids usually go on to University. Certainly from my experience working in schools I'd say the stroppy ones who think school is shit are more likely to be the kids born here whereas the kids born overseas tend to grasp every educational opportunity and do their very best.