This is the exception not the norm. Most people don't live like this but i have to agree the prices for renting in London are completely crazy and don't even think about buying a house or getting a mortgage.
I really wish i could buy a house in London (renting it out wold pay for the mortgage and some other bits) but there's no way in hell any bank would give me the amount necessary.
Only rich people and the ones that got council housing will ever be able to live/work in London cheaply.
We arguably rich people have the funds necessary for living in London cheaply in the long therm.
If you buy the house you will never have to pay rent ever on the other hand if you rent you may rent for the rest of your life and adding up all the money you spend on rent over your life would more then pay for the house.
A typical house in London is worth about say £300000 an you're usuall rent for a house like that if you're lucky would be about $1200 but more like £1500 if you want to be realistic.
That means that if you rent for more then 21 years (if you're the luckiest guy in london and find one with a rent at £1200) you have already payed for the house (if we ignore inflation and other things).
Regardless in the long run purchasing the house is the way to go however very few banks a willing to give out that kind of money so only the people that are already rich can pull it off.
If you buy a house, you miss out on all the other things you could do with that money, eg earn a return on the bond market. (That's what economists call opportunity costs, and they are realy.)
So, rich people have enough resources to live in London, but not to live in London cheaply either.
You can not ignore inflation and yield of alternative investments for these kinds of arguments.
Free market! London housing!? The politicians are all getting second homes funded by the taxpayer. The banks went bust but got bailed out by the taxpayer. "Emergency" low interest rates for the last 5 years.
The UK / London housing market is anything BUT a free market.
I agree, and the banks should have been allowed to fail. There should not have been any bail out. But that's a completely different argument to the one of "is there cheap enough housing".
The Guardian is often extremely left-wing and by far the worst of the broadsheets at letting their opinion bleed through into their news pieces. Just different types of editors than the others. Doesn't mean the other broadsheets don't push agendas, it just that the reporting tends to be less emotional and the manipulation is subtler.
This does appear to come from the 'society' section though, which I think is more of a magazine section. Magazine sections tend to be opinion pieces.
Yes, a crisis.