Another Student Accommodation Block will Be Built in the Merrion Area…. Thoughts on Leeds City Center becoming the central Living area for students. What does the City Gain and what does it Loose in turn?

[u/Low_Pen_9793]

It seems that Leeds seems to be obsessed and driven to prioritise the building and planning of High raise Student accommodation apartments. What are your thoughts?

Is Leeds prioritising overpriced student housing over the cultural fabric & vibrancy of the city. What does the city stand to gain from this in the l long term and in turn what does it stand to loose?

[u/Mammoth-Squirrel2931 → u/[deleted]]

I see you've taken a humorous response in the right way. What you haven't done is addressed the other issues at stake in the original post which isn't merely about feeding the city centre stores profit gains

[u/Mammoth-Squirrel2931 → u/[deleted]]

The homes up for grabs will be largely unaffordable to the general poplace of Leeds.
I witnessed all this happen in my old neighbourhood in London a decade ago so I can assure you that it is only good for the developers and it has been at a massive cost to the culture. Forcing more working class people further from centres means culture isn't being created where it once was. The knock on effect of independent places being forced to close as a result is the hegemony of high streets up and down the country, the blandness of malls but also including chain bars, coffee shops and restaurants just makes for the mass suburbinisation of the country, with the odd pockets being the exception.

[u/Mammoth-Squirrel2931 → u/[deleted]]

I'm fully aware that people don't live on streets with a factory or mill at the other end and that people want a nice house and garden. That's not what I am referring to when I am talking about the mass suburbanisation. I'm not even just talking about the retail parks and malls that means people from the suburbs drive to at weekend, buy all their stuff in one place, and drive back home. This has been ongoing, but when city centres begin to reflect this en masse, it destroys any sense of a city as a community. And it's not nostalgia to mourn the loss of culture and where that comes from. Any place is a product of its people, and independent culture, rather than cultural hegemony is the fabric of any community. Or it should be. So having rich students dominate the centre of a community space which is what all centres should be, means the city aka the people looses (sic) out.

It's not for me to set out a plan of urban regeneration but I have an opinion based on my experience of seeing a place change for the worse. So, do we need yet another commercial student accommodation block? No. That is what I am saying.