Lewisham house prices rise with inner core

Via LondonLovesBusiness comes this interactive map of London, which shows how house prices have changed over the last three years, in each borough. No real surprises - but what it shows clearly is that the inner London boroughs are becoming increasingly expensive, both in absolute terms and relative to the outer suburbs, as the wealthy get displaced from central London by the super rich and move to the nicest spots further down the road.

It's a phenomenon discussed by Ben Rogers in The FT, who argues that we need to adapt by creating dense new urban centres beyond Zone 1:

We should raise our ambitions for areas beyond central London and create new places in the spirit of the West End. The Olympic Park, for which five new residential neighbourhoods are planned, presents a fantastic opportunity. It is well connected to central London and beautifully landscaped... 

We should be looking at intensifying the suburbs, which account for three-quarters of London’s footprint but fewer than half of its homes. Doubling the density of just 12 per cent of this footprint would meet London’s requirement for 400,000 new homes in the next 20 years.

As you can see from this map, population density in Brockley and Lewisham hardly changed at all between 2001-11 and remains comparatively low for inner London. The employment density map also confirms that South East London is a jobs desert. If we are to create 'new West Ends', the jobs will need to come too. Whether jobs are a cause or effect of greater density is an interesting question.