www.guardian.co.uk/society/patrick-butler-cuts-blog

I think this article is spot on and it's very very obvious to me as a person who returns to London every 2-3 years and New York likewise.

I can last about 2 weeks in New York now before i become bored with the homogenised 'safeness" (and it's not) of the place.

London is careering down that path as well.

I'm appalled when I return to Notting Hill where I lived for 20 years..Portobello Road is a tragedy with it's oh so smart boutiques that resembles a million other streets in the world. Kings Road where I worked for 12 years is unrecognisable.

When cities are no longer a great mix of every type of person who can interact with each other, creativity is stiffled. When young people can not afford to live in the centre of a great city- it's days are numbered.

Maggie started this disaster although I presume with good intentions..running down and selling off council housing. ( My good friend's dad still lives in the 'most expensive council house in London"..just off Kings Road and has resisted every attempt by relatives to make him buy the place.

Nu Labour were of course an utter disaster (one for you ITK ) but this current breed of Tories are just downright nasty, common, clueless, uninventive and hideously middle class.

I gave up on England when property developers were talked off as though they should be admired and they began to make TV shows about them. In my day it was a profession you didn't admit to.

Manhattan and London?

No real comparison. OK, some shows, shops and restaurants are the same - but the architecture, atmosphere and people are so different.

Most very well off people have homes in both cities because of the differences, not the similarities.

Even sport/events/entertainment in The Garden are so unlike the Wembley Arena.

And Manhattan is so small - only about 12 miles x 3; many other places in the world are much more like Manhattan, than London.

I disagree.

I've lived in Manhattan twice for 2 years at a time but it was over 20 years ago.

I've seen it change from being a place young people could stream into, live (maybe not very well) but it was a fascinating city full of creative people at a real street level.

That's gone now...the only people I still know have become obscenely rich or still live in rent controlled apartments (with landlords waiting for them to die).

This was brought home watching a great film about 80 yr old photographer Bill Cunningham who you would see around NY...works for Vogue etc but takes thousands of 'street' fashion & life snaps.

He's the last person living in a rent controlled flat in Carnegie Hall..when he goes so does the flat.

When I hear talk like that current in the UK...council houses are a 'privilege not a right' (utter bullshit which no previous Conservative or Labour politician said)..it's the beginning of massive change.