We need communities for all... not just the lucky few

Published: 29 October, 2010

• HOW frightful! Those ghettos of the “successful and deserving” movers and shakers envisioned by MJ of N1 (Upmarket homes will attract movers and shakers we need, October 15).

Typically, the so-called movers and shakers who consider themselves and each other “successful and deserving” are anything but. Most have been just lucky, in that they have chanced into the position, on the backs of virtual careers and bank loans, whereby they can play the system to their own advantage. The system being that species of social engineering called global capitalism, which is rigged in favour of the lucky minority to the detriment of the majority.

Why are factories disused in the first place, when plenty of people are seeking affordable space to set up workshops, potentially providing real careers, jobs and apprenticeships? 

Well, because people such as movers and shakers consider land occupied by light industry – and even school playgrounds – to be undervalued commercially. 

And this is where the planning regulations are part of the problem: a factory is a factory and the owners should find themselves having to adjust rents downwards to whatever market levels happen to be economic for those premises to continue being used as such. 

Converting factories and light industrial premises into expensive luxury homes is part of the problem, not the cure.

MJ’s labelling, by implication, of those unable to afford the costs of living in designer-converted factories as “unsuccessful and undeserving” is offensive in the extreme. With many graduates now being unable to find jobs, we appear to need movers and shakers like we need a hole in the head.

What we actually need are healthy, vibrant, mixed communities alongside stable, local, mixed economies offering all kinds of jobs with decent pay for all of our young people – not just a few who happen to be lucky.

CAROLINE GOREING
Rosebery Avenue, EC1