Questão 64

London is a city ruled by money. The things that
make it special – the markets, pubs, high streets and
communities – are becoming unrecognisable. The
city is suffering a form of entropy whereby anything
[5] distinctive is converted into property value. Can the
capital save itself?

London is without question the most popular city
for investors,” says Gavin Sung of the international
property agents Savills. “There is a trust factor. It
[10] has a strong government, a great legal system, the
currency is relatively safe. It has a really nice lifestyle”.
There are parks, museums and nice houses. Its arts
of hedonism are reaching unprecedented levels: its
restaurants get better or at least more ambitious and
[15] its bars offer cocktails previously unknown to man. In
some ways, the city has never been better. It has a
buzz. Its population keeps growing and investment
keeps ______, both signs of its desirability. As its
mayor likes to boast: “London is to the billionaire as
[20] the jungles of Sumatra are to the orangutans. It is their
natural habitat.”

At the same time, to use a commonly heard phrase,
the city is eating itself. Most obviously, its provision of
housing is failing to ______ its popularity, with effects
[25] on price that breed bizarre reactions at the top end
of the market and misery at the bottom. Thousands
are being forced to leave London because their local
authorities can’t find them homes and people on \middle
incomes can’t acquire a place where anyone would
[30] want to raise a family.

There are also effects beyond housing, although often
driven by residential property prices. The spaces for
work that are an essential part of the city’s economy
are being squeezed, its high streets diminished, its
[35] pubs and other everyday places closing. It is suffering
a form of entropy whereby the distinctive or special is
converted into property values. Its essential qualities,
which are that it was not polarised on the basis
of income, and that its best places were common
[40] property, are being eroded. (…)

This would matter less if the city were making new
places with the qualities of those now packaged up
and commodified – if the supply of good stuff _____
expanding – but it _____ not. Although the cranes
[45] swing, much of the new living zones now _____ created
range from the ho-hum to the outright catastrophic. The
skyline _____ plundered for profit, but without creating
towers to be proud of or making new neighbourhoods
with any positive qualities whatsoever. If London is an
[50] enormous party, millions of people are on the wrong
side of its velvet rope.

In the rest of Britain, a common view of London is
that it is a parasitic monster or, as Alex Salmond
put it, quoting Tony Travers of the London School of
[55] Economics: “The dark $\star$ of the economy, inexorably
sucking $\in$ resources, people and energy. Nobody quite
knows how to control it.” Both the SNP and Ukip can
be seen as anti-London parties, as expressions of a
feeling that national decisions are made $\in$ the capital,
[60] by the capital, for the capital. Those Scots who want
independence are less concerned about being part of
the same country as Middlesbrough or Ipswich than
they are about London. But these views overlook the
extent to which the city is feeding on its own.

Adapted from: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/ jun/28/london-the-city-that-ate-itself-rowan-moore

The word “eroded” (line 40) refers to