Manchester's mayoral election has crystallised into a referendum on a question the city has avoided for a decade: who actually benefits from its property boom? Candidates are being forced to confront the uncomfortable juxtaposition of gleaming towers in Deansgate and Ancoats against child poverty rates in Greater Manchester that sit above 30% in some boroughs, and a homelessness crisis that has grown even as institutional capital has poured into the region. For an electorate watching cranes multiply while food bank queues lengthen, the politics of property has become inseparable from the politics of poverty — and that has serious implications for anyone with capital deployed in the city.
Manchester's Housing Boom Meets Its Poverty Reckoning at the Ballot Box
As Manchester's skyline soars, its mayoral race exposes a widening gulf between glossy investment returns and grassroots housing hardship.
