This is London: Life and Death in the World City by Ben Judah (2016-01-28) Hardcover – 1755

For someone who thinks they are familiar with London this is required reading. Not only does it explain the gradual changes in high street population over the last four decades, but it is a shocking revelation of what is going on behind doors in dilapidated council housing and neglected terraces as well as stylish houses and luxury flats that come with maids and chauffeurs. Russian millionaires guarding their lives, scared Arab boys, and exiled kings of faltering nations all live together in a swirling unreality. Drugs have displaced identity with a vague sense of global society.

We read this for book club, and found plenty to discuss. What I want to say, as a person who teaches immigrants in the US, is that this book is relentlessly negative and depressing, while my experience with immigrants to the US is that they are almost uniformly optimistic. So it's a little hard for me to tell whether that is a real difference between the US and UK immigrant experience, or whether the mood was colored by the interviewer/author himself.I felt that the book needed a stronger narrative structure, either following a single person through several stages of immigration and culture shock and adjustment, or talking to people who represent those stages. Or maybe even a geographic organizing principle. It felt random, maybe by intent. After a while, it got tedious.The book did help me understand why the UK voted for Brexit. On the other hand, London itself voted *against* Brexit, while the rural areas voted for it, so this doesn't really explain that fact at all.

This is a stark account of the immigrant under belly of London and gripping, interesting and pretty grim. I have lived in London for nearly half a century, worked in multi racial manufacturing, and know people of many races spread across the north, east, west and south of the city; and none of the London I know is anything like this. And that really is his point in writing it: to uncover what most Londoners don't see, don't understand. The situation of most of the immigrants he covers is pretty depressing, but also in most cases far better than what they would face at home. Hence their willingness to pay a high price to get to the UK. But the cumulative effect if read by someone from the UK provinces or from another country is grossly misleading. The title is inaccurate: this is not London. This is an overlooked desperately poor cross section, with a dash of equally depressing lives rich middle eastern globals and their Filipina maids. This is a book about the bottom 10% and should be labelled as such. And London has been drawing in rural poor for 500 years and their situation has usually been equally dire.When people in the US or in provincial England read the reviews of this book in the Daily Mail, they have all their worst prejudices confirmed. Ben Judah says he had to see it all for himself; which is worthy but he uses statistics very selectively to make his points and his picture is very unbalanced. Take education: his only reference to it is pretty dire schools where Asian girls are discouraged by their families from working hard at school and some references to gangs in schools. The reality is that over 60% of children in London schools go on to university and London exam results are better than any other region in the country. In the largely immigrant free West of England only 40% of children go on to university. And London has its share of Afro Carribbean and Asian Tiger Mums and Dads driving their kids performance. Asian girls and boys do far better than average working class white boys in school and in university, tragically for the latter. And yes there is crime but half the murder rate of Glasgow which has far fewer immigrants. And I pick these stats in a selective way just like the author but to provide some counter point to his relentless focus on the downside. Best if you go look at the stats yourselves.Some more stats: 60% of Londoners have university degrees. London generates nearly a quarter of UK GNP with one eighth of its population. 48% of UK growth since the 2008 Crash has been in London. And 55% of Londoners own their own homes, though this is falling because of high prices. And guess what: high prices mean someone can afford to buy the property and someone can afford to pay the rents.

If you are a high empathy person, this will be a challenging read. Ben embeds himself into several displaced communities in the underbelly of London and gives his impression of their outer and inner lives. Not pretty. And to think that it's likely to get worse. Makes you stop and think about what small thing you can do to make a difference -- the real payout here.

Residents and visitors almost inevitably have a view of London, which reflects their day to day experience. Judah provides insights that reveal a London that changed dramatically during the first years of the 21st century. This book should be a 'must read' for anyone wants to have a better understanding of one of the worlds most fascinating cities.

Harrowing and intense. Made the statistics on immigration look real and makes the causes of immigration as wistful as Dick Whittinton and his cat - full of impossible beliefs and total inability to get out of penury and crime. I left the uk 18 years ago and on my occasional returns to London , I sensed some of this change. Now I realise I saw only the tip of it. Is London beyond a melting pot now?

Hard to keep up with at times, but gives you an insight into who Londoners are now, not white Cockneys but different ethnicities. Good to read after the Brexit vote.

Engaging - some of it reads like a good work of fiction, while parts read like a newspaper report either way a great read!