There’s a strange gap opening up in York — the kind you only notice if you’re paying attention to children growing up here. My son is ten. Many of his friends are around the same age. They run around York exactly as we’d hope: confident, curious, settled in their streets, their schools, their small rituals. They know the alleyways, shops where the owner knows them and which sells the best snacks. They have no sense that the next chapters of their lives might take place somewhere else. Why would they? They’re being brought up in York. York is meant to be their future.
As a parent it’s becoming harder to believe that promise still holds. The way the housing system is shifting, it’s entirely possible that today’s ten-year-olds could grow into adults who love this city but can’t live in it. They could end up visitors to their own hometown — the place that educated them, shaped them, gave them their grounding — because the ladder they assume they’ll climb has quietly lost its bottom rungs that have slowly rotted away.
None of this has been explained to them as yet and nor should it be. But as adults we can see what’s happening and can we help change the trajectory back before its too late?
The Loaded Dice
The rental market in York as well as around the UK works like a test you can’t pass. Families pay rents higher than equivalent mortgages, but unless they arrive with a substantial deposit, they’re routinely overlooked. It’s hard not to notice the contradiction — people already paying the higher rate are excluded from the lower one because they can’t match the lump-sum entry requirement. You can see the clamber on local Facebook groups of young families trying to find a place to call home within their budget.
The dice is loaded and not subtly. Those with assets build more assets. Those without are paying ‘economic rent’ — money handed over not for improvement, but for access. Investors can make money in their sleep — renters lie awake doing the maths.
This isn’t a moral judgement — just a description of the imbalance. Some property owners aren’t aware of the wider impact, others seem fully tuned into the moment and treat houses as pieces in a portfolio-building exercise. Either way, the result is the same — the next generation of York residents gets edged further away from the possibility of living independently in their hometown.
A City Built for Flow, Not Foundations
A growing number of properties have become investment stock, short-term letting opportunities or assets that circulate through markets rather than through families. None of this is illegal or unusual — it’s simply how the system has evolved. But from the standpoint of residents, especially young people, it’s reshaping York into somewhere harder to remain part of.
The research I’ve helped on with Outside Influence makes it clear that access to a home isn’t an occasional problem — it’s becoming the default. Some families are having to experience life from one temporary arrangement to another. Council teams are having to ‘book’ short-term lets (and possibly the market rates) to keep people from falling through the cracks. Long-term rentals are disappearing faster than they can be replaced. All of this creates instability — a feeling that home is temporary, even when lives are rooted. Children growing up in this environment are being prepared for a future that their city might not let them access.
The Middleman Observation
If you zoom out slightly, York’s housing market begins to look like a system mediated by people who aren’t necessarily part of the community they influence. It’s not about villains — just the mechanics of modern investment. My observation, not an accusation, is that developers increasingly operate as middlemen for external capital. They present opportunities, refine designs to suit returns and hand completed buildings to buyers who may never visit the city except to check a portfolio’s performance.
Meanwhile, residents — the ones who keep the place going day-to-day — are stuck negotiating for scraps of availability or chasing the last few affordable corners of the map. This is where the metaphor of “keys” becomes more than poetic. Buildings designed for short-term stays come with keycodes on phones, not keys in pockets. They’re built for turnover — not community stability. And if enough of a city is shaped around this model, the people who once held the keys — literally and figuratively — find themselves reduced to guests.
The Ten-Year-Old Test
Imagine telling a ten-year-old that in a decade they may not be able to live in the city that raised them. Imagine explaining that despite their school, their friends, their youth groups, their early jobs and evening walks through familiar streets, the future waiting for them is somewhere else because the economic model of the city now prioritises extraction over continuity.
We don’t tell them because it’s a ridiculous disheartening notion but the system tells them anyway. Quietly. Through pricing. Through availability. Through the simple maths of what they will and won’t be able to afford.
York risks becoming a place that invests in its young people for the first eighteen years, then exports them for the rest of their lives. The city funds their education, nurtures their confidence, develops their talents — only for the benefits of that investment to be realised somewhere else. It’s such a sad and bad return for everyone.
What We Stand to Lose
If the next generation leaves, York loses more than just residents. It loses continuity. It loses the knowledge that gets passed between neighbours. It loses the “I know someone who can help” thread that holds communities together. It loses the future stewards of its culture, its volunteer networks, its civic life. With the irony being that the city would still invest heavily in welcoming visitors — while pushing out the very people who once kept and do keep the place running.
Local organisations like SASH Yorkshire are becoming more important as the city moves forwards. They catch young people at the point where the system has already failed them — offering stability where the market offers none. They don’t fix the larger problem, but they stop lives from falling off the edge of it. It’s a reminder that resilience in this city hasn’t disappeared; it’s just under strain.
Rebalancing the Future
Intergenerational housing models used across parts of Europe show a different way forward — homes that deliberately mix ages, ensure continuity and keep care reciprocal rather than outsourced. If York continues pricing out its younger adults, who exactly will be caring for us in decades to come? The carers, nurses and key workers we rely on can’t all live in Selby or further afield.
Beyond the immediate social care work, we’re also entering an era shaped by technologies like AI. This isn’t about robots taking over — it’s about the steady erosion of service jobs, the compression of income opportunities, and the widening gap between people who can adapt to emerging industries and those who can’t because housing costs swallow every chance to retrain. AI may create opportunities, but only if young people can afford to stay here long enough to access them. York can’t prepare for the future while pricing out the people who are its future.
None of this is about shutting doors or blaming individuals. It’s about asking whether York is prepared to retain the people it raised. Whether the city wants its ten-year-olds — the ones running around carefree today — to be able to find a foothold here as adults. Whether the future York is building is one young people can feasibly step into.
There is hope in the parts of York that are still being designed or have been built — including the major central site near the station. It could be extraordinary, if the city chooses ambition over convenience. And there is proof York can get this right — projects like YorSpace at Lowfields in Acomb show that a dream of resident-led housing is not a fantasy — it works, it gives opportunity to communities and it keeps value circulating locally.
York doesn’t lack imagination or creativity. It just needs to decide who that imagination is for — as the people that York need the most may be the first to go. A city is only as strong as the residents it keeps — the ones who stay long enough to remember how it was, care enough to shape how it becomes and stable enough to pass it on.
Homelessness Inequality Local Community Social Commentary Tourism
Who Holds the Keys to the City?
There’s a strange gap opening up in York — the kind you only notice if you’re paying attention to children growing up here. My son is ten. Many of his friends are around the same age. They run around York exactly as we’d hope: confident, curious, settled in their streets, their schools, their small rituals. They know the alleyways, shops where the owner knows them and which sells the best snacks. They have no sense that the next chapters of their lives might take place somewhere else. Why would they? They’re being brought up in York. York is meant to be their future.
As a parent it’s becoming harder to believe that promise still holds. The way the housing system is shifting, it’s entirely possible that today’s ten-year-olds could grow into adults who love this city but can’t live in it. They could end up visitors to their own hometown — the place that educated them, shaped them, gave them their grounding — because the ladder they assume they’ll climb has quietly lost its bottom rungs that have slowly rotted away.
None of this has been explained to them as yet and nor should it be. But as adults we can see what’s happening and can we help change the trajectory back before its too late?
The Loaded Dice
The rental market in York as well as around the UK works like a test you can’t pass. Families pay rents higher than equivalent mortgages, but unless they arrive with a substantial deposit, they’re routinely overlooked. It’s hard not to notice the contradiction — people already paying the higher rate are excluded from the lower one because they can’t match the lump-sum entry requirement. You can see the clamber on local Facebook groups of young families trying to find a place to call home within their budget.
The dice is loaded and not subtly. Those with assets build more assets. Those without are paying ‘economic rent’ — money handed over not for improvement, but for access. Investors can make money in their sleep — renters lie awake doing the maths.
This isn’t a moral judgement — just a description of the imbalance. Some property owners aren’t aware of the wider impact, others seem fully tuned into the moment and treat houses as pieces in a portfolio-building exercise. Either way, the result is the same — the next generation of York residents gets edged further away from the possibility of living independently in their hometown.
A City Built for Flow, Not Foundations
A growing number of properties have become investment stock, short-term letting opportunities or assets that circulate through markets rather than through families. None of this is illegal or unusual — it’s simply how the system has evolved. But from the standpoint of residents, especially young people, it’s reshaping York into somewhere harder to remain part of.
The research I’ve helped on with Outside Influence makes it clear that access to a home isn’t an occasional problem — it’s becoming the default. Some families are having to experience life from one temporary arrangement to another. Council teams are having to ‘book’ short-term lets (and possibly the market rates) to keep people from falling through the cracks. Long-term rentals are disappearing faster than they can be replaced. All of this creates instability — a feeling that home is temporary, even when lives are rooted. Children growing up in this environment are being prepared for a future that their city might not let them access.
The Middleman Observation
If you zoom out slightly, York’s housing market begins to look like a system mediated by people who aren’t necessarily part of the community they influence. It’s not about villains — just the mechanics of modern investment. My observation, not an accusation, is that developers increasingly operate as middlemen for external capital. They present opportunities, refine designs to suit returns and hand completed buildings to buyers who may never visit the city except to check a portfolio’s performance.
Meanwhile, residents — the ones who keep the place going day-to-day — are stuck negotiating for scraps of availability or chasing the last few affordable corners of the map. This is where the metaphor of “keys” becomes more than poetic. Buildings designed for short-term stays come with keycodes on phones, not keys in pockets. They’re built for turnover — not community stability. And if enough of a city is shaped around this model, the people who once held the keys — literally and figuratively — find themselves reduced to guests.
The Ten-Year-Old Test
Imagine telling a ten-year-old that in a decade they may not be able to live in the city that raised them. Imagine explaining that despite their school, their friends, their youth groups, their early jobs and evening walks through familiar streets, the future waiting for them is somewhere else because the economic model of the city now prioritises extraction over continuity.
We don’t tell them because it’s a ridiculous disheartening notion but the system tells them anyway. Quietly. Through pricing. Through availability. Through the simple maths of what they will and won’t be able to afford.
York risks becoming a place that invests in its young people for the first eighteen years, then exports them for the rest of their lives. The city funds their education, nurtures their confidence, develops their talents — only for the benefits of that investment to be realised somewhere else. It’s such a sad and bad return for everyone.
What We Stand to Lose
If the next generation leaves, York loses more than just residents. It loses continuity. It loses the knowledge that gets passed between neighbours. It loses the “I know someone who can help” thread that holds communities together. It loses the future stewards of its culture, its volunteer networks, its civic life. With the irony being that the city would still invest heavily in welcoming visitors — while pushing out the very people who once kept and do keep the place running.
Local organisations like SASH Yorkshire are becoming more important as the city moves forwards. They catch young people at the point where the system has already failed them — offering stability where the market offers none. They don’t fix the larger problem, but they stop lives from falling off the edge of it. It’s a reminder that resilience in this city hasn’t disappeared; it’s just under strain.
Rebalancing the Future
Intergenerational housing models used across parts of Europe show a different way forward — homes that deliberately mix ages, ensure continuity and keep care reciprocal rather than outsourced. If York continues pricing out its younger adults, who exactly will be caring for us in decades to come? The carers, nurses and key workers we rely on can’t all live in Selby or further afield.
Beyond the immediate social care work, we’re also entering an era shaped by technologies like AI. This isn’t about robots taking over — it’s about the steady erosion of service jobs, the compression of income opportunities, and the widening gap between people who can adapt to emerging industries and those who can’t because housing costs swallow every chance to retrain. AI may create opportunities, but only if young people can afford to stay here long enough to access them. York can’t prepare for the future while pricing out the people who are its future.
None of this is about shutting doors or blaming individuals. It’s about asking whether York is prepared to retain the people it raised. Whether the city wants its ten-year-olds — the ones running around carefree today — to be able to find a foothold here as adults. Whether the future York is building is one young people can feasibly step into.
There is hope in the parts of York that are still being designed or have been built — including the major central site near the station. It could be extraordinary, if the city chooses ambition over convenience. And there is proof York can get this right — projects like YorSpace at Lowfields in Acomb show that a dream of resident-led housing is not a fantasy — it works, it gives opportunity to communities and it keeps value circulating locally.
York doesn’t lack imagination or creativity. It just needs to decide who that imagination is for — as the people that York need the most may be the first to go. A city is only as strong as the residents it keeps — the ones who stay long enough to remember how it was, care enough to shape how it becomes and stable enough to pass it on.