I've recently been watching some of comedian David Mitchell's work, and I was delighted to see he writes the occasional article.
I know this is a few years old, but it hearkens back to the debate about housing affordability, developers, and the renaming of streets. Essentially, a street name which is also a double entendre (Bell End), is accused of lowering housing prices. The article spent a long time describing the neighbourhood and history of the word, and this is written in a British context, but I've extracted some key points for your amusement:
Quote:
How Hitler could solve our housing crisis
David Mitchell - The Guardian
07/01/2018
"Thanks to the unhappy residents of Bell End, I’ve come up with a foolproof way to stop house prices soaring"
https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...housing-crisis
It’s unusually innocent not to realise Bell End sounds rude, but it’s perhaps even odder to live there for 40 years and still find it amusing. Chris Tranter must get a lot of value out of his fridge magnets. Surely, few long-term residents, even if they don’t mind the name, would have the sheer force of impish will to continue to find it funny.
Meanwhile, the name’s downsides are more tangible. The petition cites “children being bullied and teased at school” and residents also claim that it has a negative impact on property prices: a Bell End semi would apparently fetch £60,000 less than its equivalent on nearby Uplands Avenue. That’s quite an expensive joke. I don’t blame them for wanting the council to change it.
But it gives me an idea of how councils can use their naming powers to alleviate the current housing crisis – in particular, the ridiculous prices in London meaning that, for most people, the housing ladder is dangling hundreds of feet above their heads from the bottom of an oligarch’s money-laundering zeppelin.
Any political pressure on developers to build affordable housing is outweighed by the economic incentive to flog more luxury flats to the super-rich. But, if councils can name the streets, suddenly they have some power: “If you won’t build affordable housing, we have a way of making it affordable. Welcome to Nob-cheese Avenue, adjoining Hitler Lane. Go straight up Jimmy Savile’s Passage and you’re there.”
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