London calling

Ice skating at the Natural History Museum   

Covent Garden

Pimlico skies

London was dressed up and gung-ho for Christmas at the start of December. Ice skating outside the Natural History Museum, carols at Covent Garden, the sky crisscrossed with jet streamers and even the  MI5 building glowing like a nuclear power station as evening sneaked in. As always the contrast between rich and poor was stridently evoked. London seems like another country and 'London calling to faraway towns' seems like an apposite invitation to a foreign city with the British-born population now in a minority in this cosmopolitan crossroads of corporate governance and cultural pollination.

Undoubtedly this diversity makes London an exciting city but there is a bubble of international wealth that has colonised much of the city centre whilst the centrifuge of the housing market ditches the low-income households off to the outer suburbs or beyond. Crossing the roads in Knightsbridge involves dicing with Range Rovers, exotic Italian jobs, blacked-out limos and the odd Boris bike. We were the only lunchtime diners in the cafe not drinking champagne or wine. The Oyster card allowed us to escape Harrods and its wannabes and join the thronging streets of shoppers and office workers east of Regent Street, where service workers on less than a living wage and destitute characters exist in a parallel universe to their fellow citizens.

Some of the inner suburbs such as Brixton and Shoreditch seem to have found a niche in this game of chance and with their vibrant melange of cultures and provision of services that accommodate every need, they are attracting an energetic younger population that will nourish their regeneration. I doubt that Chelsea and Westminster will evolve in the same way, it has priced itself out of the UK economy as a virtual tax haven and is now the only borough with a declining population - is this the start of London falling?