How the Pandemic Is Creating New Urban Wastelands
For decades, ordinary residents have been pushed out of cities like London and New York to make room for offices and luxury apartments. But the pandemic has massively reduced demand for these same locations — turning city centers into ghost towns, full of shiny new buildings that no one needs.
New housing tower blocks dominate the skyline above old low-rise traditional houses in London, England, United Kingdom. (Mike Kemp / In Pictures via Getty Images)
Occupying a three-mile stretch alongside the River Thames in south London is “VNEB.” Between Vauxhall and Battersea, via Nine Elms (hence the acronym), thousands of new apartments are being built, uninterrupted by the global pandemic. For once, the marketing hype about an “iconic” setting has a vague ring of truth: the gargantuan development includes the decommissioned Battersea Power Station. But a more accurate association is with Pink Floyd’s 1977 album Animals: its cover depicts a pig flying above the power station’s chimneys.
Announcing the British government’s “road map” out of our third COVID-19 lockdown, Boris Johnson said, “in a few short months . . . cities will be full of buzz.” Even for a prime minister who has turned vacuous optimism into a political philosophy, this sounded like desperate wishful thinking. VNEB, like numerous places in London and other cities, presents a vision of the urban future that the pandemic is fast turning into a mirage. Even an urban booster like professor Richard Florida has suggested that central business districts that “pack and stack office workers in skyscrapers” could be doomed. What Florida does not acknowledge is that since “mixed-use” became a planner’s mantra, most of these mega-developments include now-obsolete homes, shops, bars, restaurants, and gyms as well as obsolete offices.
The British government shows no sign of recognizing anything has changed. On March 3 it announced yet another package of subsidies to the private housing market, throwing a public lifeline to private developments such as VNEB. Like a gambling addict returning to the casino, Chancellor Rishi Sunak is placing a big bet on speculative property investment to refloat the country’s economy.
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