East Dulwich, the Notting Hill of the east?

[Jeremy]

I read an article on BBC News recently highlighting the plight of the poor, featuring a Welsh family with two unemployed parents. They had Sky TV, and bought 200 cigarettes plus a crate of beer every week. Unsurprisingly, I could not summon up much sympathy for this particular couple.

I don't necessarily agree that the underprivileged don't have access to quality education - in many cases, school is what you make of it, a child should be able to do well in an inner-city comprehensive if they have the ability, and support from their parents.

[Nicholas Spears]

DJKillaQueen Wrote:

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>> There used to a time when we had manual and

> unskilled jobs in abundance......provided for by

> industry with in house training and

> apprenticeships. Now we expect every person to

> have a fistfull of GSCE's just to work in

> McDonalds. A person even needs accreditation to be

> a labourer on a building site. This is

> disenfranchising exactly the kind of people who

> would have been served by un and semi-skilled

> industry previously. Those people are never going

> to find employment in creative industries run by

> middle class small business holders.

>

> The jobs market has changed, as we have lost

> industry to other parts of the world and filled

> our own labour markets with rules and regulations,

> but the needs of the labour market haven't,

> because people will always fall into different

> groups and there will always be a need for those

> kinds of jobs.

'There will always be a need for those kind of jobs'? I think you've got the job market the wrong way round. If particular jobs are no longer available, the people suitable for them can't go hankering after them. They need to be encouraged to do something else instead, that people will happily pay them for.

I'm sure highly skilled flint chisellers all lost their mammoth meat wages at the end of the stone age, when bronze and iron arrived, but it would have been madness to keep providing flint chiselling employment for those craftsmen, just because they 'had a need for those kinds of jobs'.

[DJKillaQueen]

Any term is going to be relative but let's put it this way. There is a growing number of people in the UK whose income is unable to meet basic living costs. Some of them are in full time work and low paid. Some of them are elderly and rely on a state pension. Some of them are long term unemployed and I'd defy anyone to manage on ?67 per week (the rate of JSA) for any length of time.

Obviously the measures for hardship today are very different to the measures we could use prior to the welfare state. But if the cost living is high enough, people become unable to pay for rent, pay for fuel and food in great enough numbers to talk of a 'poor' imo. This is happening in the UK. If a family have to live in less rooms than they need because it's all they can afford, there are consequences to that.

Gaps in rich and poor are relative and the real issue is when people become disenfranchised from the society they live within. And unemployment and hardship are good indicators of when that might reach unnacceptable, levels along with low wages.

Yes there is no doubt that some are spoilt by the welfare system (just as there are those who are spoilt by the bank of mum and dad) but those people aren't anywhere in the numbers the media would have us believe. Ask any of the exisitng charities. The demand for help with food (for both families and individuals) is rocketting. The numbers of those suffering from stress induced mental health problems is also increasing.

At the end of the day we need jobs....and a better range of jobs at that.

[maxxi]

re the OP - Isn't it Singapore?

[DJKillaQueen]

Good points motorbird. I do think we are hung up on a class system and all of the consequences of that. And I agree that education is a key in changing anything.

Whilst I agree Nicholas that the labour market changes, we do also have to recognise that some people are never going to be any good at exams or formal methods of schooling. That doesn't matter in a society that has a range of service sector and manufacturing jobs for example. But in a society where the vast majority of jobs on offer rely on paper qualifications its a disaster. In the past, apprenticeships were crucial to addressing that. Now, apprentices are required to attend college and pass exams. That's of no help to the young person who is no good at formal education. It is a fundamental shift that has taken place in the UK over the last two decades. We need to go back to accepting that learning by doing is enough for some people to learn a trade without all the additional bureaucracy that the UK seems to love. It stifles employers and it stifles potential employees.

[Fenton]

The problem is we have an over crowded market, with lots of people looking for work and not enough jobs. Employers have to decide between a qualification and no qualification, even at the minimum wage level. Who are you going to take??

Whilst I agree with minimum wage I can also see the pitfalls, especially in a global market competing against countries with no minimum wage.

If the service you require does not need a qualification, but costs you ?6 an hour, there is somebody in india that can do the same job for you for 50p an hour!

Germany has had an apprentiship system for years (a bloody good one too), and you have to go to technical college to get your eventual qualification. The result. Quality long term employees and quality products. This is as far as I'm concerned the UKs biggest failing. Once an industrial giant with the best engineering and quality in the world, now a place selling mediocre goods. Maybe not in the high tech industries, but would you buy a mass produced car made by a UK company? Forgot they don't exist any more.

[motorbird83]

Jeremy, I agree with you but I am making a slightly different point. I think being in an environment in which low expectations are the norm (from school and family) significantly influences the outcomes of the children born into those environments. I think it influences the quality of education, how children approach education and work, plan for their future etc. Changing that environment in its entirety is in my view, the most effective way of increasing social mobility and breaking generational underachievement?XI have met a great number of working class people much more naturally intelligent than the people I went to university with but in part due to lack of parental guidance and low expectations from their community and schools never lived up to their potential. I am not saying that it??s impossible to be a success if you come from a disadvantaged background but rather that it would require a young person to have extraordinary vision and drive and therefore is not an even playing field. Many of the successful people I have met are not really that exceptional but rather have been groomed and trained for success and their entire lives have assumed they would be successful. Just look at the improving quality of education in Dulwich??s local state primaries as evidence of this as the parents and area has become more middle class.

DJKillaQueen: I definitely agree that traditional schooling is not necessary to successfully carryout many jobs (though some form of accreditation following even an apprenticeship does seem worth arranging). I am not sure we have a shortage of semi or unskilled workers though?XI could be wrong, I honestly have no idea. Even though unemployment is increasing, the private sector is growing, just not enough to absorb the layoffs in the public sector and all the new graduates?Xparticularly as people are working longer. Once the public sector cuts are finally complete, the unemployment rate will slowly come down (no comfort to those out of work now I know). What is needed is targeted training to develop the skills that the current economy needs by looking at what sectors are growing and consulting the business community about what skills they need in the workforce. Spending more money on targeted training schemes for lower skilled workers would do much more to regenerate low-income areas than only providing benefits.

Anyway, OP, East Dulwich is great and is increasingly attracting people who 10 years ago could have afforded to live in the West End but now are starting moving to the suburbs of London so they can have a balanced quality of life or because they are totally priced out. ED perhaps is starting to have the socioeconomic make-up of Notting Hill in the late 1990s but with a slower pace of life inherent to the suburbs?Xit comes with learning to wait 15 min for a train ??.

[DJKillaQueen]

Even with a minimum wage in place, a million plus people in full time employment need benefits to pay part of their rent. We can never compete with any ecomomy with a lower cost of living than ourselves. Low wages are already being subsidised by tax payers. Removing the minimum wage won't change or help any of that. We are locked into a vicious circle that will break at some point.

Totally agree about germany though.

[jimmyay]

the character of ED ( and environs - this isn't just confined to ED but to Herne Hill, Brockley, Forest Hill, Crystal Palace, Nunhead ) has changed a fair bit over the 7 years i've lived locally. There has been family overspill from areas that are out of reach in W London - Fulham /Clapham arejust no longer the first obvious choice to the 20 something first timers or those with young families as it was in the 90s and early 00s. Things have definitely moved east and that reflects London more generally , with more people working in the Wharf, East London creatives, the Shoreditch effect etc all starting to have an impact on this part of town. Yes there is much oveexcited estate agent nonsense spouted, but the trend is certainly recogniseable.

I wouldnt want it to become like Notting Hill round here - i think it's very unlikely anyway. But i can see a day when, say, Forest Hill is more Hampstead-ised than it is now , as old time retiring couples who bought their semis for ?130k in 1995 sell up to incomers for ?800k who think they have found a bargain ....lol!

[dulwichgirl2]

The poster above on social mobility hit it. It is not a question of intellect but family support and interest, ditto teachers, social expectations, fear of the stigma of unemployment - none these days, and teaching that mirrors what private schools are offering. Instead we have parents who have seen three generations of utter non achievers, teachers who weirdly weirdly weirdly sometimes do not care for social mobility, social expectations holding back children, welfare state encouraging dependency and a pathetic "modern" approach to manners, respect, learning and competition in some state schools the methods of which do a severe disservice to the very children they think they are helping.

Re where Ed is going- it is moving towards Sw6 in about 1998. If you think prices are high now, just wait....

[ibilly99]

There is madness in the market at the moment houses seem to be shifting within days of going on the market - 2 doors down a flat was put on the market on Monday and under offer two days later across the road the same thing on a house - is this a bubble about to burst or as dulwichgirl2 says just another ratchet up towards Clapham.

[benmorg]

ibilly99 Wrote:

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> There is madness in the market at the moment

> houses seem to be shifting within days of going on

> the market - 2 doors down a flat was put on the

> market on Monday and under offer two days later

> across the road the same thing on a house - is

> this a bubble about to burst or as dulwichgirl2

> says just another ratchet up towards Clapham.

I've heard similar - lots of buyer interest but very little stock, which means prices will lurch up in spring. I suspect it's happening across London and has more to do with the low base rate and QE (now happening in Europe too) making lending very cheap than any Notting Hill/Fulham effect. The new overground line might be a factor too.

[ibilly99]

Benmorg I suspect you're right there are siren voices on the citadel walls crying out at the madness of it all and I hope the optimists are right on this

[mrcee]

x

[bouffles]

Please god I hope that loads of West London types are not really coming here