{"id":5966,"date":"2026-08-25T23:11:15","date_gmt":"2026-08-25T23:11:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/?p=5966"},"modified":"2026-08-25T23:11:15","modified_gmt":"2026-08-25T23:11:15","slug":"london-lego-redevelopment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/?p=5966","title":{"rendered":"London Lego redevelopment"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thames sunset as seen from Woolwich<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We spent a good week in London this summer on our way to South America (more on that soon). While the city and some people here mean the world to me, I had felt a bit estranged during the last couple of visits. Part of that came from learning more about how cities work, and turning thus more critical of the place London had become since my idealized undergraduate days here in the early and mid-2000s. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

London has its own category<\/a> here, owing to several lengthy posts penned early on in the life of this blog. The ones I revisited in spirit this time are this Dockland walk<\/a> and this one on the ever-changing skyline of the City of London<\/a>. Mind you, this was 13 years ago, and a lot of the stuff written back then is still pertinent. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To me one of the absolute eye catchers this time is the redevelopment along the Elizabeth Line and the asymmetric and perverse value capture of this gigantic public investment project. The positive externalities accrue to a large degree to landowners and developers in the station area’s vicinities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

I am interested in this topic because I studied the Japanese example in quite some detail. “Transit-oriented development” was often private sector driven, in that vertically-integrated railway conglomerates built their railway lines and were in turn allowed to capture the land price appreciation via their real estate operations along the routes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

They used their strong balance sheets (and preferential credit) to finance these large projects hoping that their rail-adjacent real estate operations and shopping centers would generate enough profits to justify the initial expense. They helped proliferate Japan’s urban growth, and significantly eased the burden on public coffers. Japan has one of the most advanced railway systems in the world not least due to the mix of profitable public and private railways. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the UK, the developers get away with very little in the way of public good creation. A cursory glance at “Section 106” and the creative ways of Berkeley et al to satisfy these already weak regulations put in place to allow for some “land value capture” goes some way at explaining how UK developers are among the most profitable ones in the developed world. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their net profit margins are often in excess of 15%. Their social contributions are pre-tax expenses and a large part of them consist of discounts (over market price) they provide to councils when providing social or “affordable” housing (more on that below).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The more sinister effect these redevelopments have is on gentrification and segregation. I have been visiting Woolwich and staying here regularly since 2012. The area provides a case study par excellence on “new-build gentrification”, i.e., where the redevelopment of idle, formerly industrial land, has negative spillover effects on an adjacent, traditionally economically deprived area. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The spatial segregation between the two sides of the A205 has become more pronounced since the station opened. It’s visible in the socio-economic and ethnic mix of the people living on both sides of the divide. Taking the rush hour trains and seeing groups of people “sort” into either side of the road side makes this extremely obvious. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The redeveloped side–Royal Arsenal Riverside<\/a>–is an artificial enclave replete with its own cafes, cultural venues, and resident-exclusive amenities. It is devoid of any urban vitality, and a huge contrast to the other, much more lively side of Woolwich. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Berkeley managed to convince TfL to build a stop on the Elizabeth Line here in exchange for building the actual station. Berkeley then also received additional air rights, explaining the large residential towers built on top of the physical station, untypical for a location so far away from the city center.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More and more residential buildings are going up by the water and beyond. They will increase pressure on the infrastructure as well as intensify the gentrification processes described above. The average asking price of units here is way above what median local council households could ever structurally afford. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Affordable housing is often provided via shared ownership or discount market sales, still out of reach for most households. The very little truly affordable, i.e. social housing, often has separated entrances or different fobs granting access to fewer or none of the amenities (think “poor doors”). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And yet, redevelopment has now also ebbed across this A205 divide, threatening to accelerate gentrification in the less affluent parts of the area. From the Murky Depths<\/a><\/em> is a great blog that has covered a lot of the news in the area and has been my go-to source for information for a few years now. It highlights several of these newly planned developments in the Woolwich category I linked. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Especially interesting was this post<\/a> on the physical deterioration of public space investments, as well as the general dilapidation prevalent in the area. One has to wonder how this can happen. The post, also in the comments, gives us some ideas–how the public sector is good at coming up with solutions (also thanks to expensive consultants) but is very bad at maintaining these.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(One would be excused to wonder if this is also not part of some great scheme to see public spaces deteriorate in the yet-to-be-developed parts, only for some public-private-partnership to come to the rescue and take over these places within a package of sanitized, Lego-architecture, residential developments. After all, the pavements get cleaned regularly on the RAR side of Woolwich, but not 50 meters across the street.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Much of this plays out elsewhere in London (and the world, of course), but it is probably not as extreme as Woolwich in many other places. Taking the DLR from here to Stratford, you go past several of these generic looking new town centers, housing thousands of people in very similar looking buildings across the expanse that is the East End. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes, London needs new housing, but these punctual, developer driven, master-plan-less enclaves are fragmentary. They’re not transit-oriented development, they’re reactionary and without context. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The literary accompaniment during our stay this time fittingly was “London Falling” by Patrick Radden Keefe, a chilling account of the London of the super-rich in the center and the west primarily. However, the connections to the Docklands and the redevelopment boom over in the east are also clear when reading this gripping narrative of a boy’s tragic death. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite all these critical observations, I come now with kids in tow, and reconnect with this city through the eyes of my eight-year old as well. And London remains one of the best cities in the world, with amazing museums, playgrounds, urban farms, good food, friendly people, and of course friends and family. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Which is probably why I got worked up quite a bit this time about what I saw. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thames sunset as seen from Woolwich We spent a good week in London this summer on our way to South America (more on that soon). While the city and some people here mean the world to me, I had felt … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-architecture","category-london"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5966"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5966\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5974,"href":"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5966\/revisions\/5974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}