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Good, bad, neutral - Discuss. What problems does it cause? What benefits does it have? Should we focus on London or expand other cities?

There's been a few articles and what seems like a half decent program about "London vs Everyone Else" on the BBC recently.

Casting my mind back to A level geography, we had a module about cities, population and resources, etc. Was noted that in most developed countries, the biggest city was twice the size of the second biggest, thrice the size of the third biggest, and so on, and in developing countries, there was a "Prime City" which was massively bigger than the next biggest, and the UK stood out as an anomaly in which a developed country has a capital which smashes the next biggest cities.

For example, the UK (from this list:

1. London: 8.2m
2. Birmingham Area (inc. Wolverhampton, Sandwell, Dudley, Solihull, Walsall): 2.2m
3. Greater Manchester (inc. Salford, Tameside, Trafford, Stockport, Bury, Oldham): 1.7m
4. Liverpool: 830k
5. Leeds: 750k

Compared to Germany:

1. Berlin: 3.3m
2. Hamburg: 1.6m
3. Munich: 831k
4. Cologne: 594k
5. Frankfurt: 532k

and the US:

1. New York: 8.3m
2. LA: 3.8m
3. Chicago: 2.7m
4. Houston: 2.1m
5. Philadelphia: 1.5m

Obviously the German and US lists much closer resembles what's expected of the developed world. Also interesting reading that the German cities balance each other out by specialising in certain industries.

A major point of contention in one of the articles I read was the cost of HS2 (projected to be around £80bn) to get people to London marginally quicker compared to the cost of High Speed Rail between Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds and Hull (might've been sheffield) could be implemented for around £1bn, and allow commuting between those cities within minutes.

I'm not one for giving big companies tax breaks, but I do think it's time governments start giving incentives for people to branch out from London.

garethom wrote:A major point of contention in one of the articles I read was the cost of HS2 (projected to be around £80bn) to get people to London marginally quicker compared to the cost of High Speed Rail between Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds and Hull (might've been sheffield) could be implemented for around £1bn, and allow commuting between those cities within minutes.

Is it because of the amount of banking related business that takes place in London is worth more to the economy than work done elsewhere?

True what they say, poliricians don't really care about people at the coal face

(i don't really know enough about economics)
Young people are soon going to be priced out of london completeley soon anyway so i expect other cities to grow and become more attractive to development, due to 'cool' areas developing in the next few years (happening in manchester and salford now)

on the otherhand 1 in 6 ppl live in london and it generates 22% of the country's GDP

wub wrote:

garethom wrote:A major point of contention in one of the articles I read was the cost of HS2 (projected to be around £80bn) to get people to London marginally quicker compared to the cost of High Speed Rail between Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds and Hull (might've been sheffield) could be implemented for around £1bn, and allow commuting between those cities within minutes.

Is it because of the amount of banking related business that takes place in London is worth more to the economy than work done elsewhere?

if that project happened instead of HS2 would more banking etc. be set up in those places?

As I said in the UKIP thread the high speed rail thing is a votespinner it won't go past Brum imo

DJoe wrote:

wub wrote:

garethom wrote:A major point of contention in one of the articles I read was the cost of HS2 (projected to be around £80bn) to get people to London marginally quicker compared to the cost of High Speed Rail between Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds and Hull (might've been sheffield) could be implemented for around £1bn, and allow commuting between those cities within minutes.

Is it because of the amount of banking related business that takes place in London is worth more to the economy than work done elsewhere?

if that project happened instead of HS2 would more banking etc. be set up in those places?

Other than none of those locations having a stock exchange (not sure if that's a factor for banks?) there's no reason they couldn't relocate there.


Could also develop a decent wi-fi setup on trains to assist further with business. This would work even between London for HS2. Doubt people would give a shit so much about the trains taking so long if they could get decent connectivity on the way to and from.

wub wrote:

garethom wrote:A major point of contention in one of the articles I read was the cost of HS2 (projected to be around £80bn) to get people to London marginally quicker compared to the cost of High Speed Rail between Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds and Hull (might've been sheffield) could be implemented for around £1bn, and allow commuting between those cities within minutes.

Is it because of the amount of banking related business that takes place in London is worth more to the economy than work done elsewhere?

Almost no doubt. My point is that with the right sort of investment and effort elsewhere, then some that business could take place in say Manchester or Bristol.

I've been reading stuff recently about plans for a Liverpool-Manchester-Leeds conurbation to rival london. cant find it now tho

DJoe wrote:I've been reading stuff recently about plans for a Liverpool-Manchester-Leeds conurbation to rival london. cant find it now tho

That's more of an inevitability though, surely? Same with the gradual expansion of the Eastern seaboard in the US eventually merging to become one megalopolis .

There was a pretty interesting program recently that talked about this. Apparently one of the previous attempts to move jobs round the country resulted in the Birds custard factory in Birmingham being closed.

I think we need to be careful, I do think we need jobs where there are people and I think technology should help facilitate this but we should also consider whether the type of capital investment needed to move those jobs is value when considering the future implications. For example if we build a big office block in Liverpool we need to ensure that we are using the big office block when people are able to work from home. I expect working populations to become more fluid as we adopt the technology that enables it.

wub wrote:

DJoe wrote:I've been reading stuff recently about plans for a Liverpool-Manchester-Leeds conurbation to rival london. cant find it now tho

That's more of an inevitability though, surely? Same with the gradual expansion of the Eastern seaboard in the US eventually merging to become one megalopolis .

involves the removal of green-belts and a big improvement to the trans-penine express though. not exactly a new thing when you think about it though. Manchester built on cotton transported via canals from Liverpool (slavetrade etc.) and then the Leeds-Liverpool canal

DJoe wrote:on the otherhand 1 in 6 ppl live in london and it generates 22% of the country's GDP

Closer to 1 in 8, and is that because of or the cause of London centrism?

DJoe wrote:

wub wrote:

DJoe wrote:I've been reading stuff recently about plans for a Liverpool-Manchester-Leeds conurbation to rival london. cant find it now tho

That's more of an inevitability though, surely? Same with the gradual expansion of the Eastern seaboard in the US eventually merging to become one megalopolis .

involves the removal of green-belts and a big improvement to the trans-penine express though. not exactly a new thing when you think about it though. Manchester built on cotton transported via canals from Liverpool (slavetrade etc.) and then the Leeds-Liverpool canal

Is that still a hot button though? I remember the town I grew up in was green belt overshoot that built up following tax incentives to get companies to base there.

Taking the megalopolis idea a bit further, if the current northern sprawl was to expand into itself;

- Greater London (Larger Urban Zone) - London and surrounding urban area of South East England (14 million).

- Chain of large towns in Northern England and English Midlands - Blackpool (261,088), Preston (335,000), Blackburn (136,655), Burnley (149,796), Liverpool (1,365,900), Warrington (158,195), Manchester (2,629,400), Leeds (2,161,200), Sheffield (1,299,400), Chesterfield (100,879), Mansfield (158,114), Nottingham (666,358), Derby (236,738), Leicester (441,213), Nuneaton (132,236), Coventry (336,452), Birmingham (2,284,093), Telford (138,241), The Potteries (362,403) - Total (13,283,000).

I really think a government scheme to try and get specialist cities would be beneficial (and not in manufacturing, which is pretty redundant now, I guess). For example, London can keep the banks, Birmingham specialises in IT, Manchester in technology, Bristol in retail, whatever. Keeps everybody a little more in check, means the government has more interest in spending a bit more time and money around the country rather than in one very specific area.

Would that not cause an issue of relocation for people though? Say you've got a tech job in London and you have to relocate to Manchester? (for example)

Not like we'd be rigidly enforcing that all tech companies move to another city, but give tax breaks/incentives to companies to move there in the future, or for new tech companies to set up there.

People have to relocate for work all the time.

Or employers that have tech and IT and finance wings would be expected to locate where?

I think a soft specialisation in certain areas is okay, where regions emerge as centres of IT or tech but not when it's foisted upon them

scspkr99 wrote:Or employers that have tech and IT and finance wings would be expected to locate where?

I think a soft specialisation in certain areas is okay, where regions emerge as centres of IT or tech but not when it's foisted upon them

Not pretending I have all the answers man, I ain't got a clue, just generally thinking out loud!

I do think that it'd be good if areas developed specialisation organically, but it won't happen whilst London has the natural draw due to reputation, resources and investment, etc.