When we look at strategies followed by the UK’s metropolitan mayors, we see plans that take the polycentric urban areasand seek to impose a single centre model, the opposite of the successful model
I think that agglomeration used to matter a great deal. Take the arts. Hollywood used to all be in Hollywood, including all the studios. It was useful to be there because transport and communication were expensive and if you were making a film you wanted editors, set designers, camera people, so you tapped into where they were. The Adventures of Robin Hood was shot around Pasadena, with the woods doubling as Sherwood Forest.
Once you had better travel and communication, agglomeration mattered a whole lot less. The financing, production, writing might be in California, but huge films like Marvel movies are global projects. Often shot in Canada or Wales. Digital effects teams in London, New Zealand, New York. They shot a bit of Avengers Endgame in Durham Cathedral, which is not a problem today. Get a UK unit, fly the actors out, hire a few locals as extras. Then send the file over the internet.
It always grates when I read thinktank types talking about this sort of thing, because none of them work in the production of the arts, software, manufacturing. They think London is magic land without ever considering what impact government being based there has on job creation, and that the only model that works, and should be applied to other places is London, even though there are very successful businesses that are highly distributed operations. I had to do some work with a French translator this week. She's great. Lives about 100 miles from me. All done with email, a few phone calls. She could be in North Yorkshire.
So far urbanisation according to some British local governments consists of dividing up existing cities into ghettos where ‘everything’ is reachable within 15 minutes. Nowhere are there any plans to build the additional amenities so that ‘everything’ will be in 15 minutes reach. It is, along with ‘Urban Low Emission Zones’ just a cover for getting people used to not having cars. Everyone sane now understands EVs are no alternative to ICE vehicles, because range issues aside, there won’t be enough raw material to make the batteries, there are no plans to increase electricity generating output, no plans to provide the increased grid infrastructure to carry and distribute the load. And of course most people cannot afford them. Of course the planning rules, ‘carbon neutral’ building regulations, flooding the Country with millions of immigrants, too low interest rates and inflation have all led to a housing supply shortage and higher prices. As for productivity: Britain’s low productivity is exclusively due to an over-supply of cheap, low skill labour - see immigration.
Because other European Countries do not have similar levels of immigration. Pre-Brexit Britain got a huge number of immigrants from the East European Countries partly because of the language but also France and Germany put quotas in place so as not to be flooded - Britain got the flood instead. In fact the complaint about Brexit was how much of this cheap labour was now missing. In France and Germany with their strict labour regulations, immigrants end up on welfare, because minimum wage and other requirements mean their labour is not worth the cost. They do not then enter the labour supply to provide an oversupply of cheap labour. Britain also takes in large numbers of legal immigrants from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh many qualify because of family connexions. Then Britain is a cul-de-sac down which the immigrants arriving on the Continent via Greece, Italy or East Europe from North Africa and places like Syria are funnelled so we end up with a superabundance of uneducated, unskilled labour. Put together these factors have a far greater effect in Britain than Continental Countries. All that aside. If there were not an oversupplied labour market, Britain would become more productive as businesses would be forced to improve labour productivity or go bust.
I think that agglomeration used to matter a great deal. Take the arts. Hollywood used to all be in Hollywood, including all the studios. It was useful to be there because transport and communication were expensive and if you were making a film you wanted editors, set designers, camera people, so you tapped into where they were. The Adventures of Robin Hood was shot around Pasadena, with the woods doubling as Sherwood Forest.
Once you had better travel and communication, agglomeration mattered a whole lot less. The financing, production, writing might be in California, but huge films like Marvel movies are global projects. Often shot in Canada or Wales. Digital effects teams in London, New Zealand, New York. They shot a bit of Avengers Endgame in Durham Cathedral, which is not a problem today. Get a UK unit, fly the actors out, hire a few locals as extras. Then send the file over the internet.
It always grates when I read thinktank types talking about this sort of thing, because none of them work in the production of the arts, software, manufacturing. They think London is magic land without ever considering what impact government being based there has on job creation, and that the only model that works, and should be applied to other places is London, even though there are very successful businesses that are highly distributed operations. I had to do some work with a French translator this week. She's great. Lives about 100 miles from me. All done with email, a few phone calls. She could be in North Yorkshire.
Whole chunks of *The Shape of Water* were filmed in the gents loos at Bradford City Hall.
So far urbanisation according to some British local governments consists of dividing up existing cities into ghettos where ‘everything’ is reachable within 15 minutes. Nowhere are there any plans to build the additional amenities so that ‘everything’ will be in 15 minutes reach. It is, along with ‘Urban Low Emission Zones’ just a cover for getting people used to not having cars. Everyone sane now understands EVs are no alternative to ICE vehicles, because range issues aside, there won’t be enough raw material to make the batteries, there are no plans to increase electricity generating output, no plans to provide the increased grid infrastructure to carry and distribute the load. And of course most people cannot afford them. Of course the planning rules, ‘carbon neutral’ building regulations, flooding the Country with millions of immigrants, too low interest rates and inflation have all led to a housing supply shortage and higher prices. As for productivity: Britain’s low productivity is exclusively due to an over-supply of cheap, low skill labour - see immigration.
'As for productivity: Britain’s low productivity is exclusively due to an over-supply of cheap, low skill labour - see immigration.'
Then why is it so much lower than other developed European economies with similar characteristics and similar levels of migration?
Because other European Countries do not have similar levels of immigration. Pre-Brexit Britain got a huge number of immigrants from the East European Countries partly because of the language but also France and Germany put quotas in place so as not to be flooded - Britain got the flood instead. In fact the complaint about Brexit was how much of this cheap labour was now missing. In France and Germany with their strict labour regulations, immigrants end up on welfare, because minimum wage and other requirements mean their labour is not worth the cost. They do not then enter the labour supply to provide an oversupply of cheap labour. Britain also takes in large numbers of legal immigrants from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh many qualify because of family connexions. Then Britain is a cul-de-sac down which the immigrants arriving on the Continent via Greece, Italy or East Europe from North Africa and places like Syria are funnelled so we end up with a superabundance of uneducated, unskilled labour. Put together these factors have a far greater effect in Britain than Continental Countries. All that aside. If there were not an oversupplied labour market, Britain would become more productive as businesses would be forced to improve labour productivity or go bust.