VNEB

Vauxhall • Nine Elms • Battersea

VNEB - a planners neologism - runs adjacent to the Thames from Lambeth Bridge to Battersea. In a city desperately short of affordable housing, the visitor finds what we have been gifted by a sequence of c21st mediocrities is a lacklustre Dubai, a Ballardian landscape in which place has been substituted by property as investment, identity as consumer choice.

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Now then, let's get you up to speed on this hotbed of post-QE sloppy money, under resourced local government, vainglorious political ambition and global kleptocractic hidey-holes:

'Penthouses and poor doors: how Europe's 'biggest regeneration project' fell flat'
Oliver Wainwright, The Guardian, 2Feb21

Here's another good piece if you feel the need for "how, what, why?"

'Liberalise planning rules to fix a housing crisis – sounds logical, but it won't work.' -
Anna Minton, The Guardian, 6Jul21

The @ballymorehell Instagram account is a good source of despair and incredulity.

If only there were some rhyme or reason:
'Boris Johnson's dire legacy for London'
Rowan Moore, The Guardian, 10Apr16

Oh bum, who'd thunk
‘Every square inch monetised’ – is Battersea Power Station now a playground for the super rich?
Oliver Wainwright, The Guardian, 5Oct22

tl;dr

As they say in the parlance, it's a shitshow.
Still, VNEB has been shit for years, now it's just a different shade.