Alpha City
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How London was bought and sold by the Super-Rich, and what it means for the rest of us Who owns London? In recent decades, it has fallen into the hands of the super-rich. It is today the essential ‘World City’ for High-Net-Worth Individuals and Ultra-High-Net-Worth Individuals. Compared to New York or Tokyo, the two cities that bear the closest comparison, it has the largest number of wealthy people per head of population. Taken as a whole, London is the epicentre of the world’s finance markets, an elite cultural hub, and a place to hide one’s wealth. Rowland Atkinson presents a history of the property boom economy, going back to the end of Empire. It tells the story of eager developers, sovereign wealth and grasping politicians, all paving the way for the wealthy colonisation of the cityscape. The consequences of this transformation of the capital for capital is the brutal expulsion of the urban poor, austerity, cuts, demolitions, and a catalogue of social injustices. This Faustian pact has resulted in the sale and destruction of public assets, while the rich turn a blind eye toward criminal money laundering to feather their own nests. Alpha City moves from gated communities and the mega-houses of the super-rich to the disturbing rise of evictions and displacements from the city. It shows how the consequences of widening inequality have an impact on the urban landscape.
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Alpha City
How the Super-RichCaptured London
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It gives some idea of the step change in the city’s economy, and its links to real estate, to know that in only the past decade (the alpha years of 2008–18) a further forty-four towers have been completed. The city has arguably been a late developer, but much more is to come, as we will soon see. London’s dramatic new skyline divides opinion between those who feel it speaks of a new confidence and see it as a mark of global success, and the many others who argue that the rampant reach skyward has destroyed the character of a once distinctive and beloved city.
London’s geographical centre does not lie at Buckingham Palace or the Houses of Parliament – symbols of the city’s regal and democratic power respectively. Any milestone or sign showing the distance to London terminates at the equestrian statue of the last absolute royal, Charles I, in Trafalgar Square. If we were to seek the city’s political heart we might look to Westminster, the traditional home of Parliament and the various ministries clustered along Whitehall, and to 10 Downing Street. We might also want to bring in the city’s thirty-two local governments and their role in planning and administering the capital, as well as the relatively new role of the mollusc-like City Hall, designed by a super-wealthy architect, and home of the city’s mayors since 2000. These places symbolise the democratic sources of regulation and management of the city, but are they the locus of its power today, or should we look elsewhere to understand what makes the modern capital tick?
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