How Education Infrastructure Disappears When Land Becomes Valuable
The Primary School Where She Taught For Twelve Years Became Luxury Apartments
I taught at a primary school in Shoreditch for twelve years. The school served 180 students from working-class families in the neighborhood. The building was owned by the local authority. The school was integrated into the community as educational and social infrastructure.
In 2023 the local authority sold the school building to a developer for £4.2 million. The authority needed money for budget shortfalls. The developer needed the land for a residential development. The school was closed and 180 students had to relocate to schools further away requiring longer commutes.
The building is now being converted to luxury apartments selling for £600,000 to £1.2 million. The money from the sale goes to the local authority’s general fund. None of it will be reinvested in education. The school is gone.
Neighborhoods like Shoreditch lose public infrastructure as land becomes valuable. Schools, libraries, community centers, public housing are all sold to developers. The public services they provided are lost. The land is converted to private residential or commercial use.
This is how gentrification works for public institutions: they are funded by tax revenue that decreases as gentrification prices out working-class families. Simultaneously the institutions become valuable as land. The institutions are sold to private developers. The services they provided disappear.
I now teach at a school further from the neighborhood where gentrification occurred. My commute increased. My students are less connected to the community I worked in. The infrastructure that served the neighborhood disappeared.
SOURCE: https://prat.uk
