High-Rise by JG Ballard

I had to drive around the Battersea Power Station development recently. It’s impressive, very futuristic, in a retro kind of way. A long way from derelict hole it was for so long.

The scale and isolated nature of the site, the way it’s cut off from everything around it, puts me in mind of High-Rise by JG Ballard. It’s a pocket of ultra-wealth that makes a wealthy part of south London feel poorer.

When society eventually collapses, this place, these people, will first pull up the drawbridge, cut itself off from everyone, then go feral just as they do in High-Rise.

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