Would London be challenged if there was a merge

[Rock Savage]

Originally Posted by Babaloo

.........but the point I am making is that cities rise and wane. Only Paris is eternal. If London were to lose its financial markets it would be on skid row before you could say bankers are more important than car assembly workers.

Indeed much of London is still run down and depressingly dreary if you know where to look. This, of course, can be said of all large cities.

Exactly.

During the Second World War, one of the things that kept this country going was that it had many large and diverse thriving cities. Nowadays, with everything centred so much on London, one bomb could literally disable the whole country! Not that that is something anyone would wish to think about, God forbid.

As you say, cities rise and wane. If London lost its financial markets (and there is a real fear that this may happen with new regulation) then the whole country could be in deep do do.

It was once said about Liverpool that it was "a port, a great support, but ominously only a port". Those prophetic words could equally apply to London. Hence why every effort is made to sustain London as a financial capital at all costs. It is one reason why the government treads so carefully around the issue of interfering with bankers pay etc. For fear that they go elsewhere.

Many parts of London are indeed run down. However, people do have a tendency not to look at the shit on their shoes when there are diamonds in their eyes.

[Babaloo]

Liverpool needs closer links with Marseille.

It, too, is on the supposed 'wrong side of Europe' and yet it's still more or less one of the top 5 ports in Europe. How did it manage this?

In the time that we have been fannying around talking about Merseytram - it has built two tram lines. How did it manage this?

[John Williams]

Marseilles, is on the edge of a large sea facing Africa. It has to do well.

[Tony Sebo]

Originally Posted by Rock Savage

Good post, but far too sensible for most planners!

and about 70 years too late. We now ned to look at how we put a proper city back together, as the old one has now largely gone!

[JohnnyLeigh]

Good point about Marseille Babs, and I liked your liverpool-marseille suggestion on the other thread.

[Babaloo]

I'm going to Marseille next month so I'll take a few pics and maybe start a Liverpool - Marseille thread to explore similarities/differences, and how each city deals with being part of an over-centralised state.

[TheFly]

We do have it worse here though..like Paris, London dominates but then..... the historical ties of empire, London has it's own ports..shipping and air ..London has been the world's largest city for a long time and only since the war has it been surpassed.
We also have the class structure and lack of true democracy.

If we are in a democracy, why have you not got a mayor, since you and I want one?

We live in a ruling class dominated society, with a fiddled election system, when logically PR is the best system.

The Marseille issue, does miss the point that by train, Marseille is linked to Lisburn, Oslo and Moscow.


By train, we are linked to not a lot!

What is needed is city councillors to see the above, and then work around it. If a developer wants to come on board and build a huge rail freight terminal (Peel at Carrington) then just do it.

None of us can knock these investments back.

[Babaloo]

If we live in a democracy why can't we elect members of the House of Lords and why can't we choose who gets to be queen?

Sounds more like 'Ruritania' than a modern European state.

[TheFly]

As time goes by I get to think this more and more.

We are just oiks to the Oxbridge elite/landed gentry and will remain ever so unless we demand change...it would just mean voting Lib/Dem and i cannot stand their drivel!

[John Williams]

The Lords is scheduled to be democratic . This Queen should be the last. We should stop playing fairy tales.