‘Tutti quegli appartamenti eleganti. È un parco giochi per i ricchi: Manchester si sta trasformando in Londra?
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/jul/20/manchester-turning-into-london-posh-apartments-playground-rich?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other
di kassiusx
27 commenti
> “It’s less like London and more global.”
Yes, the famously parochial and insular English city that is London.
This is what people were begging for, and now they’re moaning! You wanted a bit of London and now you’re doing the chippy northern routine about “southerners” now you’ve got it
All this newspaper does is complain. They can put a negative spin on absolutely anything. Why not just be happy that cities outside of London are expanding and more money is passing through the economy outside the M25.
And I say this as a born and bred Mancunian, now working as a doctor there
[deleted]
Oh no, not wealthy people polluting our cities again, with their fat wallets and fancy pants clothes….
Manchester has been a smaller, shitter London for a while now.
Most of the places in Manchester where these apartments have been built didn’t have anyone living there. It was waste ground and derelict warehouses and empty factory units.
The city centre had barely any residents back in the 90s, because no one wanted to live there. The rich avoided it and the poor had long since been shifted out to Ardwick and Crumpsall and Hulme.
Areas like Castlefield started becoming desirable places to live in the 2000s, and were the start of the city attempting to attract residents, meaning that the bars, restaurants and coffee shops wouldn’t be reliant only on commuting workers and people out for a night in town.
> So many influencers live in Colliers Yard, another high-rise cluster, that one on-site gym has designated hours for selfie-taking and content creation. An argument recently broke out on the residents’ WhatsApp group after an influencer did a photoshoot in the lift, blocking the doors with her shopping bags. One disgruntled tenant posted a screenshot and blamed her for the lifts always taking aeons to arrive. It all kicked off when the influencer’s boyfriend piped up to defend her. “That’s my girlfriend you’re talking about,” he said. “She’s everyone’s girlfriend for a fiver a month,” came the reply.
What I want to say will get my comment removed. Modern day sodom and gomorrah
Other than jealousy, why people have a problem with those posh apartments? It’s not that they buldozed any social houses to build them, in fact they have been mostly built on derelict land.
Those apartments and people living in them bring activity and money to the city, not to mention lots of tax revenues.
And I say it as someone who can’t afford to live there, but I’m happy to see the place getting better.
It shows that more people are becoming middle class and that’s a good thing. I’ll never understand why Guardian types hate social mobility.
Those uni grads have all got to live somewhere.
The centre of Manchester is an absolute zoo now, no idea why people would want to move there.
There was a TV programme about the redevelopment of Manchester City Centre at some point in the last 10 years. It might have been on BBC.
They had a woman looking for a million pound flat, from what I can remember she couldn’t find one as there were so few to choose from. She was moving in from Wilmslow or somewhere.
And then you had the priced out people, and what I remember about this was an estate agent saying they’re building all these flats (it might have been Salford, over the bridge from Spinningfields), but the only people that can afford them are earning £35-40k. Certainly not the mega rich!
all you need now is a government incentive to give those developers their money, by having another stamp duty holiday followed by high interest rates so it can get its money back.
Being a playground for the rich is only a bad thing if you want it to be.
It brings wealth, development, jobs, opportunities.
So many people in the UK are so blind to any improvement that comes their way, and they actively try to destroy it. For shame.
About 500 people used to live in Manchester City centre in the early 90s and it was a complete dump. Where all these skyscrapers & apartments are being built was on industrial wasteland & carparks.
What exactly is the problem here?
Everywhere is turning into a playground for the rich – and we just sit back and let it happen.
Manchester has a lot of rich footballers, football clubs, tech companies (peak which is backed by SoftBank), lots of e-commerce/fashion/ beauty companies (THG), influencers and major production hubs for bbc, itv and channel 4. These people will all want to live somewhere nice and go for nice dinners – I don’t get the big deal? It’s a nice city, surrounded by wild nature and close to some great beaches with loads to do.
Fundamentally it will only happen if some serious jobs move there and I mean London style 100k plus salaries. That’s what enables the rent in London because despite what Reddit says a lot of us here earn bank.
“why does London get all the investment”
Gets investment
“Nooo its like London”
Everything will eventually turn into London. Do people not know this? This is what globalisation causes.
I was in Manchester last week. Great city, great people. Hell, only yesterday had a bit of a Zoopla gander at properties in the city as it intrigued me so much. Northern quarter for 200k? Why am I still in London/Berlin?
Manchester is horrendously expensive. Oldham, 2 bed no garden or driveway. 1k. I wouldn’t mind paying it if I was closer tk the centre but that is ridiculous
Isn’t that what people wanted, Britain’s economy balanced away from London to other cities?
Are “the rich” really living in high-rise flats in Manchester? Some reasonably well paid people might be, but people who are are actually rich probably have nicer places to live.
Is turning into London a bad thing? London is one of the best cities in the world.
Im moving to Manchester soon from medway. I was surprised that the city is more expensive than where i live!
Of all the newspapers you’d expect to see this article in, you’d put money on The Guardian. Absolute class warrior snobs