Posted by Greg at July 23rd, 2006

This photo essay by Simon Wheatly (via Future Feeder) on ‘grime’ music and culture is both disturbing and thought-provoking. This kind of image is what we’d expect to see of apartment complexes in the developing world, certainly not in one of the developed world’s richest cities. This is London, UK, after recovering from Thatcherism and enjoying a decade of Labour rule:
Is this the world we want?

This is happening in our cities. We let it happen every time we cut funding for education and affordable housing, every time rent increases in safe neighbourhoods push people into ghettos, every time kids are taught lies about sex and drugs in their schools, and every time tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy take money from the public purse.

It’s time that liberal guilt turned into liberal outrage. This is not the future or present that we signed up for, but it’s the only one that the neo-cons seem to be able to deliver. It’s time to ask for more.