The Reader: Constantly changing localities help make the city successful

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Change: a man shelters from heavy rains in a Hackney bar
Corbis via Getty Images
7 August 2018
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LAST week’s article about the rising affluence of Hackney’s residents will have struck some readers as further proof of London’s gentrification problem [“Hipsters cash in on Hackney’s rising fortunes”, August 2].

Yet gentrification is rarely a simple case of rich people forcing poor ones out. For example, Hackney’s changing fortunes reflect the fact that more and more people in their 20s want to live there — people who are less likely to have children and more likely to have disposable income.

Given that London’s population was in decline only 30 years ago — and that much of the city was rundown and dilapidated — the transformation of places such as Hackney should be celebrated. Moreover, change is part and parcel of what makes London successful. Shoreditch’s recent incarnation as a tech hub is just the latest in the area’s long history of transformation, dating back to the Huguenots’ arrival in the 17th century. For the capital to sustain its success, it needs to continue to welcome and make the most of new people and businesses.

Instead of trying to stop London changing we should do more to ensure everyone in the city can benefit. That means making sure enough homes are built for everyone in the city. It also means improving education and training, so that all Londoners can take advantage of the opportunities the city offers.
Paul Swinney
Centre for Cities

EDITOR'S REPLY

Dear Paul

London’s success lies in its multiplicity and ability to reinvent itself. It could be accused of having a gentrification problem — pushing out the poor — or it could be seen as investing in areas that were for years in the doldrums.

Hackney is a borough that has enjoyed a meteoric revival, from an east London wasteland to thriving entrepreneurial tech hub and feeder zone to the City. Its aspirational activity has attracted posh shops — smart kids like smart clothes, bistro food, cocktail bars and clubs — and no one wants to return to the Fifties East End, no-hope monoculture when council house tenants were truly marginalised and neglected.

No one is denying there is not a chronic housing shortage in London but Hackney and other boroughs know the importance of an effective housing programme. It has a London Living Rent programme and is engaging in new-build schemes with private developers and housing association money.

Hackney does not have a problem. Those who deny Hackney a future do.

Janice Morley, Homes & Property Editor

We need to build homes that can withstand heatwaves

YOUR latest report about the heatwave across Europe [“Hot in London, but Europe issues alerts over danger to health”, August 3] understated the deadly effects of excessively hot weather.

Hundreds of people who under normal conditions would survive in the UK, and thousands across Europe, have already been killed by the hot weather. Most of the victims did not succumb outside but died in homes that were unable to keep them cool.

The expert Committee on Climate Change has warned that many new homes built in Britain suffer worse heat stress than older buildings, as a result of inadequate regulations.

It is absolutely critical that national and local policy-makers ensure building programmes to alleviate London’s housing crisis also take account of the need to create homes better suited to the risks of our changing climate.
Bob Ward
London School of Economics

Put art back into the war museum

Am I the only Londoner to be very disappointed with the new Imperial War Museum layout? A team of consultants seem to have decided that the space should be exclusively for school parties or school projects.

It now seems soulless. The wonderful Paul Nash and John Singer Sargent paintings, personal items and letters, as well as idiosyncratic artworks such as Renato Bertelli’s futurist Mussolini head, have vanished. Half the top floor is just an empty space for school lunches.

Also, the Victoria Cross collection in the Lord Ashcroft Gallery doesn’t seem to be a response to war, like the letters or artworks, but more a kind of celebration of conflict.

When I asked where the wonderful paintings and artwork had all gone I was told the majority had been put in storage.
Michael Brett

TfL should not be attacking council

REGARDING your article [“Heidi Alexander attacks ‘disgraceful’ council over plans to block new cycle superhighway”, August 2] — London’s deputy mayor for transport should know better.

A judge took the time to listen to both sides of the argument and found in favour of Westminster Council. Instead of taking a step back as a member of the senior management team at Transport for London and thinking about what went wrong and what could be done better, she is attacking Westminster even though it had no choice but to go to court.

That speaks volumes about how TfL has gone about its decision-making and how it has serially ignored the legitimate requests for information from residents and local authorities.
Jessica Learmond-Criqui

Driverless cars are the future of travel

I FEAR the learned Christian Wolmar may have forgotten the dangers of trains when they first came into use during the 19th century [“Driverless cars are not the future”, August 3].

He mentions one of several incidents relating to malfunctioning driverless cars as if these negate the possible future benefits of autonomous vehicles. He forgets that this technology is constantly changing and evolving.

Mr Wolmar assumes a fear of technology among the public which is not borne out by the facts. There has been a wealth of technological innovation in many areas which people initially dislike but then enthusiastically adopt.

My question to him is whether he would prefer the development of disruptive technologies to altogether cease?
Merlin Merton

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