“Powerhouse London beats New York to become the best city in the world” blared the headline following PricewaterhouseCooper’s 2014 annual index of 20 major international cities. According to the index, London, for the first time, claimed the top spot as a center for business, finance and culture in "Cities of Opportunity."

But with more than a quarter of Londoners living in poverty, according to the BBC, who exactly is the British capital a "City of Opportunity" for?

One easy answer is the tech companies, of course. London’s Tech City, also known as Silicon Roundabout, is a cluster of technology companies nestled predominantly in East London. Many tech bigwigs reside here, including Google, Facebook, Cisco and Intel.

In 2010, Prime Minister David Cameron announced plans to accelerate growth in the tech cluster. At the time there were 85 start-ups in the area. In 2012, the figure stood at 5,000. After San Francisco and New York, London’s Tech City represents the third largest technology start-up center in the world.

But the rapid growth of the Tech City cluster has been met with criticism – even from high quarters. James Dyson, founder of the British-based vacuum manufacturer Dyson, criticized the British government for pumping money into schemes that attract international buyers to the area who are ultimately driving up rent.

A "Marketing Gimmick"

The start-up cluster has also been referred to as a "marketing gimmick," given its distance from giant Heathrow Airport and, therefore, its location on the "wrong side" of London. Instead, Tech City and its many multinational players rest uncomfortably close to some of the poorest neighborhoods in Britain. Bordering communities with extreme levels of child poverty and youth unemployment, it thus represents London’s burgeoning wealth inequality.

Take Shoreditch, for example. This inner city district in East London has long been known for high levels of poverty, gang violence and shootings. But overcrowding among both the white and immigrant populations has led to a housing shortage in Shoreditch, where landlords now sit on fat profits as rental prices continue to soar.

Walk down Shoreditch’s streets today past the trendy bars, boutiques and offices where well-heeled residents boast accents from around the world, and much of the area’s social problems remain cloaked from the onlooker’s eye. If, on the other hand, you meander further into Shoreditch you'll greet some of the UK’s poorest. According to Wired magazine, as many as 40% of residents in Shoreditch are classed as NEET – not in education, employment or training.

Unconvinced that the talent they require lies on their doorstep, Silicon Roundabout’s corporate clusters are instead happy to pay out obscene salaries to appoint workers from overseas. But with the cost of rent soaring, and residents standing little chance of employment amid global competition, how can East London’s "ordinary folk" realistically compete?

"Inequality Valley"

To understand the inequality escalating through London’s Tech City, one has only to look across the Atlantic and the American continent to the San Francisco Bay Area, where Silicon Valley has become the global hotspot in tech versus inequality.

In May, Occupy.com reporter Joseph Mayton wrote about growing anger in San Francisco after a recent lawsuit alleged that tech companies were violating state law. According to a lawsuit filed by a coalition of housing, labor and activist groups, Google buses that pick up employees at public bus stops were bypassing laws prohibiting non-public transportation vehicles from using city-funded bus stops.

The lawsuit came on the heels of San Francisco’s "deal" struck with Google and other Silicon Valley companies enabling them to have access to more than 200 bus stops for a cost of $1 per stop. The increased traffic congestion, overbearing buses on small city streets, and rising rental costs have angered many in San Francisco, leading to activist action.

As Mayton wrote, the conflict marked the increasing tensions over inequality simmering between San Francisco’s average workers and the city’s tech employees. So stark has the disparity become that America's most expensive city and its Silicon Valley environs have been aptly renamed "Inequality Valley."

One Rule for Us – And Another for the Rest of Them

Similar violations that disproportionately reward the tech elite have been pinned on Tech City in London. Now, questions are even beginning to be asked whether London could become a separate City State.

As Mayton chronicled in a separate piece entitled Follow the Money", technology and politics are becoming ever more intertwined. As high tech becomes the new business establishment, it may no longer be far fetched to imagine Tech City achieving its own legislative status.

The irony, of course, can't be missed: As London is commended as an economic powerhouse, a "City of Opportunity," a "center for innovation" and an "urban getaway," the capital itself is awash with poverty. As of October 2013, the unemployment rate in London was 7% higher than the England average.

A report compiled by the New Policy Institute revealed that 28% of people in London are now in poverty. And of the 20 English local authorities with the highest levels of unemployment, seven are in London.

Abetting the startling levels of London poverty are the soaring costs of rent. Even at the lower end of the housing market, renting property in London is now twice as high as the England average. The arrival and growth of Tech City has been directly linked to London’s escalating rental costs. Even Juliette Morgan, head of property for Tech City UK, admits that higher rents were “an unintended consequence of East London’s tech success.”

A Native Population Pushed Out

Occupy.com recently spoke to a vicar who has lived in East London for the last 25 years – and who talked about the trend of East Enders slowly moving out of the area.

“The East End, as with London as a whole, has become much younger since we moved there over 25 years ago," said the vicar, who wished to remain unnamed. "Seventy percent of London is reckoned to be under 40. More urban professionals have moved into the area and indigenous East Enders over the years have moved out into Essex.”

And “the change in the demographic of the population is leading to an upgrade in the appearance of the area,” the vicar added.

Further west, tax breaks for Twitter and Google buses for privileged tech workers have sparked a new movement for urban economic rights. And as state-of-the-art, glass-fronted buildings belonging to some of the biggest, richest tech firms in the world cast a shadow over child poverty, unemployment and a lack of opportunity in nearby neighborhoods of London, it’s fair to say it won’t be long before the "City of Opportunity's" less privileged residents follow their Californian counterparts and begin to take matters into their own hands.

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