ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the situation in London, as a city which is both highly sought-after as a destination for artists, and also as an extremely expensive place to live. As a global city, London is shaped by centre-periphery dynamics: in terms of the global economy, and also in its relationship to the rest of the country as a centre of political, economic, media and cultural power and attention. Recent reports from the Greater London Authority (GLA) Economics Unit have demonstrated the importance of the cost of housing in determining how people survive in London, and have acknowledged that rent has continued to increase in the recession. The tendency of some anti-gentrification campaigns both to focus on the rights of long-term residents rather than on more recent arrivals, and to also foreground the loss of the authentic character of neighbourhoods may have also made the artists feel there was no place for them.
