London. UK. When Boris Johnson came to power as Mayor of London back in 2008, one of the many unkept promises he made was not to turn London into, in his own words, a high-rise “Dubai on Thames”. His predecessor, Labourite Ken Livingstone, had already started this process. A friend of the property developers, Livingstone openly encouraged the building of high-rise buildings. He held private dinners with property developers, attended the massive property fair MIPIM in Cannes, and publicly announced that it was OK for developers to build as big and high as they wanted, as long as his administration received a tithe to build affordable housing (this “affordable “ housing failed to appear). Livingstone promised a city that was “Open, tolerant, affluent, socially and environmentally responsible, a beautiful city of which Londoners and Britain can be proud.” He talked of a million new trees, a hundred new or transformed public spaces.
Continue reading Johnson and “Dubai on Thames”Like this:
Like Loading...