Poverty is shifting from inner to outer London, report finds, By Simon Rogers and Hélène Mulholland, April 11, 2012, The Guardian: “Outer London has seen rising levels of poverty while the number of poorer areas in central London is reducing, according to a new analysis of official deprivation data. Although the poorest places in the capital are still in the eastern centre of the city, there are fears that poverty is being pushed out into the suburbs amid evidence of a significant increase in deprived areas in the outer boroughs between 2004 and 2010…”
Tag: London
Housing Subsidies – Britain
London’s poor facing squeeze amid housing-benefit cuts, By Anthony Faiola, June 20, 2011, Washington Post: “The choice of the London A-list, St. John’s Wood is a neighborhood of ethereal wealth, its leafy avenues lined with the ample mansions of Paul McCartney, Ewan McGregor and Kate Moss. And yet, they share the most unlikely neighbors – the Kastrati family. Poor immigrants struggling to survive in one of the world’s most expensive cities, the family of four nevertheless lives in a sunny, two-bedroom flat in an enclave of urban privilege. Their benefactor: the British government, which covers 85 percent of their $3,600-a-month rent through welfare benefits giving tens of thousands of low-income earners access to even the best neighborhoods. But the clock on such subsidized London lifestyles is suddenly running out. The Conservative-led government is rolling out Britain’s most sweeping welfare reform since the 1940s, taking aim at the ballooning bills in cities such as London, where a few families receive as much as $160,000 a year to ensure economic diversity and quality housing for the poor in some of the priciest districts in the world. Yet as benefits are rolled back, academics are warning of a major side effect: an exodus of the poor from central London in numbers not seen since the demolition of soot-caked Dickensian slums in the 19th century…”