This is Queen’s Freddie Mercury, on September 19, 1980.
这是皇后乐队的佛莱迪•摩克瑞 摄于1980年9月19日
and next to him is lead guitarist, Brian May
旁边是主吉他手布莱恩·梅
who in July 2021 returned home to
2021年7月 布莱恩返回伦敦肯辛顿
find his Kensington, London home flooded.
发现家被淹了
覆盖着黑色的污水 淤泥
He blamed “the basement building that has been plaguing this area for the past 10 years.”
他将此归咎于“过去10年来一直困扰该地区的地下室”
伦敦
From 2008 to 2019,
从2008年到2019年
7,328 basements were added to homes in London.
伦敦的住宅增设了7328个地下室
Basements not just for the rich. But the superrich.
地下室不仅是富人专属 更是巨富必备
All of these dots represent private, underground swimming pools…
地图上这些点代表的是私人地下游泳池
and cinemas… and wine cellars.
电影院及酒窖
Click to London’s top luxury realtors, sort by price,
选中伦敦顶级房产经纪人 将其下房屋按价格排序
and you’ll find underwater playgrounds, and theatres.
你就能看到水下游乐场和电影院
Homes like this 25 million pound one with two basement levels,
像这样价值2500万英镑的住宅有两层地下室
including a bar… and spa.
包括一个酒吧和SPA
London’s elite are building underground lairs.
伦敦的精英们正在建造地下隐居所
So it’s an interesting kind of conflict between these different very, very wealthy people.
所以 这形成了不同富豪之间一种有趣的冲突
Or as we said, I think in one paper, we say
就像我们在一篇文章中说的
it’s a conflict between the haves and the have yachts.
这是富人和有与巨富之间的冲突
富人与巨富
I’m professor Roger Burrows and I’m professor of cities
我是Roger Burrows教授
in the School of Architecture, Planning, and Landscape at Newcastle University.
是纽卡斯尔大学建筑 规划和景观学院城市学教授
But I’m not an architect, nor am I a planner.
但我不是建筑师 也不是规划师
I’m essentially a sociologist and a statistician.
我本质上是一个社会学家和统计学家
Do you remember how y’all got the idea though?
还记得你们是怎么想到这个主意的吗？
Was it literally just, you’re walking down the street,
是不是当你走在街上
you see a ton of construction trucks all the time,
经常看到许多的施工卡车
and you wonder “Why is there always construction on this street?”
你会想“为什么这条街总在施工?”
And then you say, “Oh, I bet they’re making a basement.”
然后你说 “哦 他们肯定在修地下室”
Exactly. We were doing a case study of four or five different neighborhoods in London
完全正确 我们对伦敦四五个不同的社区做了一个案例研究
and we were interviewing residents about what was happening in the neighborhood.
我们采访当地居民 询问社区情况
We would notice as we were doing this,
采访时我们也注意到
the streets with five or six of these excavations going on at the same time
街道上同时有五 六个地方在开挖
with lorries moving up and down.
卡车在街上来来回回
And indeed the people that we’re interviewing really just wanted to talk about it
实际上 被采访人也确实想谈谈这件事
because they felt that their neighborhood was being ruined
因为他们觉得自己的社区被毁了
Each borough in London has a planning commission
伦敦的每个行政区都有一个规划委员会
where people have to submit renovation plans.
人们必须向它提交改造计划
Burrows and his coauthors searched every application and found all the basements.
Burrows和他的合著者查找了每一份申请 找到了所有的地下室
And then mapped them.
然后绘制了地图
Mostly it’s concentrated around the great parks
它们主要集中在海德公园 肯辛顿
around Hyde Park, Kensington, Chelsea and Hammersmith and Fulham.
切尔西 汉默史密斯和富勒姆等大公园周围
Brian May’s house, in Kensington, had an original half-underground floor.
原来布莱恩·梅在肯辛顿的房子只有半层地下室
Suddenly, his neighbors were all building basements of an entirely different scale.
突然间 他的邻居们都在建造规模完全不同的地下室
A well-off neighborhood became extremely well-off.
一个富裕的社区 如今富得流油
Transnational elites were literally burying millions and millions of dollars in the ground.
跨国精英们简直把数百万美元埋在了地下
So, this isn’t as much of a thing in America.
这在美国并不常见
Do you have a sense why that is?
你知道这是为什么吗？
Is it the historic codes in London?
是由于伦敦的历史法典吗？
You can’t really change the outside appearance of a property.
你不能真正改变房屋的外观
You can’t build a loft and you can’t extend at the back.
你不能建造阁楼 你也不能往后延伸
But because of the freehold laws, you own all of the land under the property,
但是由于土地保有制 你拥有房屋下的所有土地
so you can burrow down.
所以你可以往下挖
A lot of it is also geological.
很多情况还要看地质条件
New York is another kind of world city
纽约是另一种你可能期望
where you might expect these things to be occurring.
建地下室的世界城市
That happened a little bit in Brooklyn
布鲁克林的一些住户就建过
but you’re literally trying to mine a rock.
但这相当于在凿岩石
The great thing about London is, of course, it’s clay.
当然 伦敦的好处是地下是泥土
So it’s very easy to dig down and generate these spaces.
所以很容易往下挖掘出这些空间
Burrows and his coauthors mapped standard, large, and mega-basements.
Burrows和他的合著者绘制了标准、大型和超大型地下室的地图
What we call mega basements are three stories or more.
我们所说的超大型地下室是三层或三层以上
Or, two stories, but which extend beyond the envelope.
或两层但是超出了围护结构
We find 118 of those and they’re on a ginormous scale.
我们发现了118个这样规模巨大的地下室
This map shows their concentration in wealthy neighborhoods.
地图显示它们集中在富人社区
The combination of incredible wealth and inflexible exteriors
令人难以置信的财富和禁止改造的外观
led to massive basement builds.
导致了大规模的地下室建设
Wine cellars, gyms, art galleries,
酒窖 健身房 艺术画廊
ballrooms, panic rooms, gun stores.
舞厅 避难室 枪支商店
In the late 1800s, a ship owner named Charles Booth
19世纪末 一位名叫查尔斯·布斯的船主
started tracking inequality in London,
开始追踪伦敦的不平等状况
a gradient that he mapped, from wealth to poverty,
他通过广泛的调查绘制了
compiled through extensive surveys.
从富裕到贫穷的梯度图
There is now a clear, what we call, basement belt in London
现在伦敦有片清晰的被我们称为地下室带的区域
concentrated within particular neighborhoods in particular streets.
集中在特定的街区和特定的街道
So I think it is a physical manifestation of gross wealth inequality.
所以我认为这是财富不平等的外在表现
In the mid 2010s, London boroughs began to curb permits for multilevel basements
在2010年代中期 像皇后乐队的Brian May一样的居民
because of resident concerns,
表达了自己的担忧
like those of Queen’s Brian May’s.
伦敦各区开始限制多层地下室的建造许可
The consequences are more than just flooding.
建地下室的后果不仅仅是房子被淹
Deep digging can cause structural collapses.
深挖还会导致结构坍塌
But basement construction hasn’t stopped completely.
但地下室建造并没有完全停止
Gianluca Vialli was one of the best Italian strikers in the 1980s and 90s.
吉安卢卡·维亚利是20世纪80年代和90年代意大利最好的前锋之一
When he moved to London in 1996,
当他1996年搬到伦敦
his legend only grew as he moved into management.
进入管理层后 他变得更加传奇
He helped lead Italy to win the Euro 2020 final.
他带领意大利队赢得了2020年欧洲杯决赛
In 2020, he appeared in the lower right corner of a video conference stream
2020年 他出现在视频会议流的右下角
begging the Kensington and Chelsea Applications committee
在经受过先前施工的干扰后
not to let his neighbors expand their basements,
他肯求肯辛顿和切尔西申请委员会
after he’d lived through earlier construction.
不要让他的邻居扩建地下室
噪音污染和空气污染让人无法忍受
我恳求你们不要批准他们那样做

除非把周围其他人的生活变成一场噩梦 否则他们无法建成
Today, his neighbor’s house is for sale.
今天他邻居的房子要卖了
It’s lavish. There’s also one major selling point:
房子是奢华的 还有一个主要的卖点:
the planning board has granted permission for a basement excavation.
规划委员会批准了地下室的开挖