A wealthy nightclub owner creates a high-end apartment complex for a group of equally wealthy, attractive, fun-loving young people in their 20s and 30s. Residents are selected according to their perceived "coolness". City workers are banned. This may sound like a tedious television pitch, dreamed up to fill a scheduling hole on ITV7.
But this isn't a scripted reality set-up – it's real. Nick House, the owner of some of London's most photographed nightspots, wants the beautiful people who fall out of his clubs to come home and fall on to beds and sofas that occupy apartments he has sold them. House's housing will be designed to promote friendship among its wealthy residents, and there are plans for plenty of communal leisure spaces too.
The number of Londoners under 40 who don't work in finance and could afford to stump up £800,000 for a one-bed flat probably wouldn't fill a corner of the proposed pilates roof deck. But even if I were rich, and cool enough, to qualify, I'd still rather live in a cupboard above a chicken shop in Streatham. Living alongside people you socialise with begins to wear thin in your student days – and even then, you don't have to worry about bumping into them at the in-house deli or a "subterranean party room".
Communities are organic things that won't simply evolve by creating an upmarket halls of residence and forcing everyone to bond over their Amex Centurion cards. There are people who bemoan the loss of local spirit and miss the days when they knew the names of everyone who lived on their road – but I suspect that those in this demographic are, ironically, too old to live in House's apartments.
The scheme may seem silly, but it highlights a much more serious problem. The housing charity, Centrepoint, has warned that the lack of affordable housing for young people will hit crisis point by 2021.Their research suggests that 934,388 more properties are needed at sub-market rate – of those, 183,333 will be needed in London alone. In LSL Property Services' buy-to-let index, average rents in London have been increasing eight times faster than average wages. London needs more million-pound flats like it needs more branches of Angus Steakhouse.
Residents of Rushcroft Road in Brixton are facing eviction next week, as Lambeth council plans to sell the space to property developers such as Foxtons. According to speakers at last week's Occupy Foxtons rally, one resident facing eviction had lived in the area for 32 years. London's property developers aren't creating new, vibrant communities – they're tearing them down and replacing them with homogenised, sanitised spaces where real homes once stood.
House told the Evening Standard that his new development "has got to be a democratic environment", but it's going to lead to a less democratic London, in which the city turns into a giant, gated community with an admission fee beyond the means of most. It's happening in cities all over the UK. A minority of people might not balk at the price tag for "cool" neighbours and an on-site climbing wall, but they're not just spending their own money. They're paying with the homes and lives of people who are powerless against the economic forces that drive them from their own communities.
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