London's Population is now 8.2 million according to the 2011 Census

[Octoman]

If we have a London centric model then we have to have London centric policies. It is exactly this that it alienating other parts of the country. With Scotland already going for independence and other parts of the country getting increasingly vocal about having their own assembly do we really want to stick to this path?

IMO, if London is to function correctly even at its current size let alone larger it needs substantial transport upgrades with ultimately an RER type commuter service. This sort of investment will have to be at the expense of other regional projects and will further reinforce the relative attraction of London. I really cant see the sense in that.

Ultimately it would be great to decentralise power away from Westminster into a more federal type structure. But that is unlikely to happen any time soon. In the meantime, chucking everything at a single region of the UK in the hope the rest of the country will sit back in grattitude as 'London leads the way' is a risky strategy.

[potto]

Originally Posted by Octoman

I think some people's idea of the future is for us to all be living in some kind of Borg cube

Isn't that the popular satirical image of the suburban dwelling? I guess you cant see beyond the faux freedom of having a fence.

[mouldss@hotmail.co.u]

Quote The British Caymans is now ranked as the fifth largest financial centre in the world, behind only London, Tokyo, New York and Frankfurt.



Only a poulation of 58,000

No need for slums in London

[i_like_concrete]

Oh god, if the regions and cities wanted more power, why did they reject it when offered it in referendums?

I don't disagree that we should do it, but I do disagree that anyone in England actually gives a stuff, local politicians want more power... SHOCK! But turns out their populations aren't particularly bothered and Westminster aren't all that keen on shaking up local government when there is no political capital to be made from it.

[kerouac1848]

You don't even need to go as far as federalism (although I’d personally like that), a few changes could see London taking up more of the burden itself, freeing up cash that comes via grants to be spent on other regions. It wouldn't even need to be that radical, such as cities keeping a slice of VAT income.

The amount London raises in Business Rates is slightly higher than what central government transfers annually in grants to Tfl. Give this, or a replacement, to Tfl to fund upgrades and expansions, it's likely businesses would except that rather than rates disappearing into a pot distributed to councils, or authorities using it to fund services on residents. It's more transparent as well. That's little justification in the current method, it's just about control of the purse strings.

[potto]

Originally Posted by cnapan

Tokyo streets may have fewer PM10 particulates than London, but that has nothing to do with the size of London or Tokyo, and everything to do with the use of Diesel for public transport in London.

Interlaken in Switzerland is a fraction of the size of London and has almost no PM10 pollution. So bigger doesn't mean 'less pollution' as you seem to be arguing.

And while Tokyo can avoid the use of black taxis, it can't avoid the desire for people to consume, live in a home and move about, all being things which in a larger city are more problematic.

All things being equal, making a city larger simply forces the inhabitants to make do with more crush, smaller living spaces and more pollution.

Life in London would not qualitatively better for its inhabitants were the city 3 times bigger. London offers far more than many larger cities purely because of its historical role as a centre of empire and because of its unusually diverse mix of people.

All of this is sort of missing the point anyway. The problem on earth isn't the size of the biggest cities. It's the number of people there are. I blame the parents.

So if a city solves a particular issue then it is nothing to do with its population size.

Brilliant, now re-read your hysterical first posting in this thread.


Secondly what is this "making" cities larger? You and Octoman with your pseudo libertarianism! Really just a bunch of rural conservatives living off the cream of London yet terrified by it!

People currently want to live in London which is why its population is growing!

So you accommodate it and deal with it. Trying to move people to other cities was tried at vast expense before and it just created miserable towns without an identity.

Sure let other cities in the UK find a niche but that is nothing to with London's population size.

[Octoman]

We tried to shift people into soulless new towns designed by talentless planners.

I am not talking about forced relocation but skewing government policy to encourage business to locate elsewhere. Through tax breaks for example.

I get accused of living in fear of London depite having worked here for over 15 years. All I fear is having to cope with yet more grotty stinky people cramming themselves onto our overcrowded tranport system while they go about doing whatever they do in their pointless lives. The real fear seems to be from zone 1 stalwarts who think they are surrounded by some kind of wilderness populated with savages. There is life outside of London you know and it is pretty good. Everything is about striking a balance.

Want to solve transport overcrowding, congestion etc? Allow a a few million people to migrate away from London. Job done.

[SE9]

Top 10 boroughs by growth:

1. Tower Hamlets
2001 population: 201,100
2011 population: 254,100
Change: +53,000
Growth: 26.4%
Density: 13,000 / km

2. Newham
2001 population: 249,400
2011 population: 308,000
Change: +58,000
Growth: 23.5%
Density: 8,500 / km

3. Hackney
2001 population: 207,200
2011 population: 246,300
Change: +39,000
Growth: 18.9%
Density: 13,000 / km

4. Hounslow
2001 population: 201,100
2011 population: 254,000
Change: +38,000
Growth: 17.6%
Density: 4,500 / km

5. Greenwich
2001 population: 217,500
2011 population: 254,600
Change: +37,100
Growth: 17.1%
Density: 5,400 / km

6. Waltham Forest
2001 population: 222,000
2011 population: 258,200
Change: +36,200
Growth: 16.3%
Density: 6,700 / km

7. Brent
2001 population: 269,600
2011 population: 311,200
Change: +41,600
Growth: 15.4%
Density: 7,200 / km

8. Redbridge
2001 population: 222,000
2011 population: 258,200
Change: +37,100
Growth: 15.3%
Density: 4,900 / km

9. Haringey
2001 population: 269,600
2011 population: 311,200
Change: +33,600
Growth: 15.2%
Density: 8,600 / km

10. Islington
2001 population: 179,400
2011 population: 206,100
Change: +26,700
Growth: 14.9%
Density: 14,000 / km

[SE9]

Originally Posted by Octoman

We tried to shift people into soulless new towns designed by talentless planners.

I am not talking about forced relocation but skewing government policy to encourage business to locate elsewhere. Through tax breaks for example.

I get accused of living in fear of London depite having worked here for over 15 years. All I fear is having to cope with yet more grotty stinky people cramming themselves onto our overcrowded tranport system while they go about doing whatever they do in their pointless lives. The real fear seems to be from zone 1 stalwarts who think they are surrounded by some kind of wilderness populated with savages. There is life outside of London you know and it is pretty good. Everything is about striking a balance.

Want to solve transport overcrowding, congestion etc? Allow a a few million people to migrate away from London. Job done.

Depopulating London by a few million would be disastrous on multiple levels.

[kerouac1848]

Originally Posted by Octoman

We tried to shift people into soulless new towns designed by talentless planners.

I am not talking about forced relocation but skewing government policy to encourage business to locate elsewhere. Through tax breaks for example.

I get accused of living in fear of London depite having worked here for over 15 years. All I fear is having to cope with yet more grotty stinky people cramming themselves onto our overcrowded tranport system while they go about doing whatever they do in their pointless lives. The real fear seems to be from zone 1 stalwarts who think they are surrounded by some kind of wilderness populated with savages. There is life outside of London you know and it is pretty good. Everything is about striking a balance.

Want to solve transport overcrowding, congestion etc? Allow a a few million people to migrate away from London. Job done.

But we tried that already. For decades after WWII governments' tried to take the heat off London and build up industry elsewhere, barriers were placed in central London with respect to office builds for example. All that happened was those businesses which could move did so to another part of the SE, or they just stayed put or stagnated. In the 80s tons of 'enterprise zones' under the label Urban Development Corporation and the like were established all over the country designed to pull in private finance and armed with tax-breaks, yet it was perhaps the LDDC which was most successful, ironically.

You also still haven't grasped that the transport problems we face today are as much a result of policies from before as population growth. London got its first automatic tube line in the late 60s. Fast-forward 40 years and just one other line had been upgraded. All this tube investment should have happened between the 70s and early 90s over a longer period with better pacing. Now it's gotten to be point where we've had to shut down half the network most weekends so we can get technology 50 years old implemented. This is a legacy of refusing to invest in maintaining the capital’s and SE's transport network.

The risk is that there is no guarantee business will relocate elsewhere in the UK if you try to freeze London and plough in money elsewhere. A non-British firm may decide to put its operations in Amsterdam instead of B'ham, the market is not British anymore it's European. We may then get in a situation like today where a future government has to give London a 'feast' of investment after previous ones created a 'famine'. Something clearly has to be done but your approach has already been shown to be a complete failure and we need a new vision for other British cities based on them control and obtaining a greater share of their resources.

[mouldss@hotmail.co.u]

Top of the list Tower Hamlets is suffering from one of the highest levels of unemployment in the country and the Population rises by 26% is that good economics or what.

[i_like_concrete]

Originally Posted by Octoman

I am not talking about forced relocation but skewing government policy to encourage business to locate elsewhere. Through tax breaks for example.

Tax breaks won't make much of a difference as it is already much cheaper to set up a business outside of London.

I get accused of living in fear of London depite having worked here for over 15 years.

Worked not lived.

The real fear seems to be from zone 1 stalwarts who think they are surrounded by some kind of wilderness populated with savages.

Oh, really?

All I fear is having to cope with yet more grotty stinky people cramming themselves onto our overcrowded tranport system while they go about doing whatever they do in their pointless lives.

You pathetic idiot.

There is life outside of London you know and it is pretty good. Everything is about striking a balance.

If you represent what life is like outside London, then please stay there, for the love of London.

Want to solve transport overcrowding, congestion etc? Allow a a few million people to migrate away from London. Job done.

Who is stopping them?

[ill tonkso]

Calling octoman a pathetic idiot is doing.nothing for your argument. I happen to agree with him, we have plenty of space in our other cities, they just need the transport investment. Look at the Metrolink and what has done to make Manchester more attractive to businesses. Our current Londoncentric attitude is just driving the costs of living in London up and up. The south east is so expensive to live in compared to the rest of the UK. Successive government policies have caused the UK to shift to a Londoncentric economy when in the past it was far more balanced, we were better off for it. Why can't Birmingham or Manchester be great too? The lack of transport investment. Metrolink should have been done decades ago (in other countries, a metro area the size if Portsmouths would have a network that size), Birmingham should have a subway. These cities aren't the wastelands many see to think they are, the government has Just neglected them.

[DodgyEye]

Originally Posted by ill tonkso

Calling octoman a pathetic idiot is doing.nothing for your argument. <snip>

I disagree. Anyone who thinks that London's population is increased by "grotty stinky people" with "pointless lives" deserves to be called a pathetic idiot.

[Octoman]

You have to have a decent income to enjoy London. Or you have to be young and not care about living in poor quality accomodation. There is something very pointless about people living out their lives in crap accomodation barely able to afford London's offerings. If you live in some grot hole in London then you are not experiencing London. You may as well be somewhere else. A london shit hole = a birmingham shit hole = Manchester shit hole. Except expensive.

And yes, people generally stink on public transport. The tube has a uniquely repulsive odour on a warm day. No better or worse than any other city but there all the same.

There is no reason for this situation to persist. At the very least, there is no reason for it to get worse. Government policy needs to change.

Originally Posted by kerouac1848

The risk is that there is no guarantee business will relocate elsewhere in the UK if you try to freeze London and plough in money elsewhere. A non-British firm may decide to put its operations in Amsterdam instead of B'ham, the market is not British anymore it's European. We may then get in a situation like today where a future government has to give London a 'feast' of investment after previous ones created a 'famine'. Something clearly has to be done but your approach has already been shown to be a complete failure and we need a new vision for other British cities based on them control and obtaining a greater share of their resources.

This is the point though. i dont think we should drive out business. I'm not suggesting we increase taxes on London business or restrict development. I am suggesting we make other places a more attractive alternative. Foreign companies who choose Britain may well still choose London but with the right incentives they may be encouraged to other parts of the UK. Surely the average Joe would be better of living in a nice environment and able to afford to enjoy themselves than living in grot in some backwater of London doing some kind of non job just to meet their inflated rent?

The last attempts at decentralisation were badly managed. Just as pretty much half the urban development was. But we havent given up trying to imrove our urban realms so why give up trying to ease the population and cost pressures?

[larven]

I don't think high populations densities are a problem per se. It's up to the individual whether or not they want to live in that environment. I had a mate who gave up a decent job to move down to London in an effort to get onto stockbroking, he was 31 at the time and had no previous experience in that industry. Last time I visited him he was living in some shoe box in Twickenham, had to park his car 15 minutes walk away and could only afford to go out once a month. He also had a mate from home who moved to London (Canary Wharf) several years before he did, perversely he saw less of him when he followed him down to the capital. None of this would be my bag but each to their own.

Government certainly doesn't have to perpetuate the situation by contiuing to focus resources on growing London and the South East, nor should it be an obstacle in the free flow of people and trade. If more people want to live in London then they should be able to, other options exist elsewhere and it would be nice if these areas got a bit more investment so they could become a more attractive alternative to the capital for a greater proportion of business and people.

[ill tonkso]

However, public transport investment has been heavilly weighted in favour of London. Manchester has an entire abandoned terminus station comparible in size to Fenchurch Street or Marylebone just sat there rotting ffs!! Birmingham has lines into the city sat unused, lines across the metropolis sat there unused, as do Liverpool and Leeds. Leeds has absolutely no Metro of any description, I mean what the hell!? Leeds in other countries would have an Underground!

[kerouac1848]

Originally Posted by Octoman

This is the point though. i dont think we should drive out business. I'm not suggesting we increase taxes on London business or restrict development. I am suggesting we make other places a more attractive alternative. Foreign companies who choose Britain may well still choose London but with the right incentives they may be encouraged to other parts of the UK. Surely the average Joe would be better of living in a nice environment and able to afford to enjoy themselves than living in grot in some backwater of London doing some kind of non job just to meet their inflated rent?

There are incentives though, land is cheaper, wages for the same job are, outside of the public sector, lower. Rents are lower for staff. Despite this many companies choose to put up with the costs of London, especially international firms. Cost isn't the only factor, you'd have to replicate what makes London successful and the only one you really can for sure is infrastructure for transport. However, that's no silver bullet, Marseille has a 2-line metro network, trams, buses and heavy rail, all under one authority as well as a port on the Med. International business still gravitate towards Paris and its satellites by-and-large, that’s where most of the operations remain. Leeds has been arguably as successful in attracting business as Manchester despite a lack of decent transport. Does Bristol have better intra-city PT compared to Newcastle? Which one has the stronger local economy?

The last attempts at decentralisation were badly managed. Just as pretty much half the urban development was. But we havent given up trying to imrove our urban realms so why give up trying to ease the population and cost pressures?

We shouldn’t, but your ideas sound spookily similar to past attempts and they got us nowhere. Government can – and should – give cities more power, more fiscal autonomy, greater ability to leverage finance today for developments tomorrow, tax breaks here and there, planning relaxations and some straight up capital, but that is not close to a guarantee of inward investment and there is no inevitably residents will even except it. Really, Liverpool to Leeds should act as one economic block but there is no local appetite for that, no desire to lose an airport or certain businesses to rival even if that helps over the long-run.

[geogregor]

Originally Posted by Octoman

Government policy needs to change.
I am suggesting we make other places a more attractive alternative. Foreign companies who choose Britain may well still choose London but with the right incentives they may be encouraged to other parts of the UK.

Ok, so what are the right incentives? More tax breaks for big business and its fat cats, so they can decamp to, for example, Carlisle?

Surely the average Joe would be better of living in a nice environment and able to afford to enjoy themselves than living in grot in some backwater of London doing some kind of non job just to meet their inflated rent?

Maybe average Joe should be able to decide himself where he wants to live?

[i_like_concrete]

Originally Posted by ill tonkso

Calling octoman a pathetic idiot is doing.nothing for your argument. I happen to agree with him, we have plenty of space in our other cities, they just need the transport investment. Look at the Metrolink and what has done to make Manchester more attractive to businesses. Our current Londoncentric attitude is just driving the costs of living in London up and up. The south east is so expensive to live in compared to the rest of the UK. Successive government policies have caused the UK to shift to a Londoncentric economy when in the past it was far more balanced, we were better off for it. Why can't Birmingham or Manchester be great too? The lack of transport investment. Metrolink should have been done decades ago (in other countries, a metro area the size if Portsmouths would have a network that size), Birmingham should have a subway. These cities aren't the wastelands many see to think they are, the government has Just neglected them.

How on earth you ever ever became a moderator is beyond me.