It’s not that I disapprove of regeneration. Done the right way, it can be great for communities and provide decent, clean and appealing housing. Most of London’s regenerations are being done the wrong way.
I wrote about this for CityMetric:
Ten years ago, if you asked pretty much anyone living in social housing if they’d like to see their estate regenerated, it’s likely they would have said yes. New kitchens and bathrooms, new windows, lifts that work – what’s not to like?
And if you said that, actually, you wanted to knock the whole lot down and rebuild it, but that residents could live somewhere else for a while before returning to a spanking new flat, they’d probably reason that they were still getting a decent deal. Read more.