East End a Bright Side of Dark London Olympics

The Economist rips into London's plans for the 2012 Olympics, which it has been against from the get-go. But despite the events being what the paper sees as wasteful and expensive, there is some potential for a positive: the regeneration of London's East End.

Its task is to create a place where people will want to live, work and play in a part of town that people have been eager to escape, where jobs have been hard to come by and where welcoming, wide, green spaces are too rare. There are hopeful precedents in the new towns built after the second world war, the garden cities of a century ago and in the private estates built in west London in the 18th and 19th centuries.

There are voices calling for much more social housing in the Olympic Park. It is true that London is short of homes for poor people. But concentrated social housing goes hand in hand with joblessness and enduring poverty: too much of the first will condemn the area to too much of the second and third. To imitate the success of the new towns and garden cities, and to generate jobs and encourage prosperity, the park will need a mix of homes as well as a good swathe of greenery. Get this right, and the games might almost be worthwhile.

Field of dreams
The Economist
July 22, 2010

London 2012 A Long-Term Impact on City's East End?

This piece wonders whether the UK's £8-billion investment in London's 2012 Summer Olympics will have the intended effect of transforming the city's East End into a vibrant part of the metropolis.

While parts of East London have been transformed — as any visitor to the financial centre, Canary Warf or the 02 Concert Arena will testify — large parts remain huge pockets of poverty. Newham, where around 60 per cent of Olympic events will take place, is among the poorest — and most ethnically diverse — boroughs in the UK, according to the government indices of multiple deprivation, with high rates of joblessness, homelessness, child poverty and infant mortality. Around 15 per cent of adults lack employment, according to the Trust for London charity, while the rate of infant mortality stands at 7 in 1,000.

Can the Olympics turn East London to prosperity?
Business Line
July 20, 2010