The oft-used advertisement — “If you lived here, you’d be home by now” — usually seen stretched across blocks of new high-rise flats overlooking commuter train lines, carries a cruel irony for the passengers who pass it every day.
Many of them would love to live there but cannot afford to. So they live outside the city and travel in each day.
Economically successful cities are growing rapidly and struggling to find housing for their swelling populations. At the same time some have seen an influx of the international rich, although this is said to benefit an area’s economy, according to research published last year by property analysts Ramidus Consulting. The average buyer of a ￡15m UK home, it said, spent ￡4m to ￡5m a year on goods and services in Britain. In total, Ramidus calculated, London’s super-rich added ￡4bn a year to the capital’s economy.