Thanks James. From a UK perspective Cambridge is an interesting case study here. I think GDP growth there is understated and is nearer 10% ; how they open up planning (green belt?) and continue to build infrastructure (cross rail?) there will be interesting. Manchester also interesting with a powerful local government, consolidating universities and financial initiatives like Bruntwood providing some financial scale. As a fellow Northerner I agree that transport for Leeds, Sheffield , Liverpool etc is the first critical issue. See you up there (or Kings X or Green Park!)
Hi James. Your point of view on distributing/circulating Power and Capital from big cities towards other regions must be followed up by;
a fair local ownership to Resources, local social entrepeneurship and local innovation with the goal of environmental & Microbiome Control air, soil and Oceans. Only then can a robust sustainability be selected for and regulated/controlled at essentially all scales in time/Space except those buried in system noise
James, thanks for sharing your thoughts on the issue of super cities dominance in the world economies. On the national level policies that incentivize home ownership proved to be costly and inefficient. It's time to put money from UKs Help to buy schemes into public education or affordable housing construction. It's interesting to see how the global experiment in remote work due to COVID-19 concerns will impact the future of work. I'm particularly intrigued how second tier cities like Austin in US and Cambridge in UK will take their fare share of business from the established players. I hope the proper incentives like in Lisbon, Portugal will create a positive force for business growth in the area.
Fascinating stuff, all the more so from the vantage of Austin, Texas. From productivity in UK cities to the success of Singapore's housing policy to the helpful links on micromobility you've not only cracked a few codes but offered up a small but dense suite of code-cracking tools. Thanks. David Judson
The question of how and why to devolve power from dominant cities feels most relevant in a Europe or US context where we assume certain constraints that may not apply in other parts of the world or at some point in the future. The inability to house more people in or move more people through a city are byproducts of particular cultures that privilege private goods over public. The Singapore and Copenhagen examples illustrate that these are, at least in theory, mutable. The fruits of innovation can clearly be more evenly spread, either through redistributing it or by cultivating it in new places. The questions this article prompted in my mind:
If you are optimizing for some sort of evolution of culture or technology within a region, are you better off trying to spread more widely the capacity to evolve, or to resolve the obstacles (i.e. commuting, housing) that are preventing that capacity from further concentrating?
Are planners asking this same question in Shanghai, Mumbai, Mexico City, and Lagos?
Hi James. Great article. We met a while back via Central Research Laboratory in Hayes, West London. We're now evolving the business to be a network of innovation hubs in key cities outside central london www.plusx.space (Manchester and Birmingham next) in order to make the most of the resident talent. What would it take for Balderton to come and visit the talented entrepreneurs in Brighton, for instance?
Thanks James. From a UK perspective Cambridge is an interesting case study here. I think GDP growth there is understated and is nearer 10% ; how they open up planning (green belt?) and continue to build infrastructure (cross rail?) there will be interesting. Manchester also interesting with a powerful local government, consolidating universities and financial initiatives like Bruntwood providing some financial scale. As a fellow Northerner I agree that transport for Leeds, Sheffield , Liverpool etc is the first critical issue. See you up there (or Kings X or Green Park!)
Hi James. Your point of view on distributing/circulating Power and Capital from big cities towards other regions must be followed up by;
a fair local ownership to Resources, local social entrepeneurship and local innovation with the goal of environmental & Microbiome Control air, soil and Oceans. Only then can a robust sustainability be selected for and regulated/controlled at essentially all scales in time/Space except those buried in system noise
James, thanks for sharing your thoughts on the issue of super cities dominance in the world economies. On the national level policies that incentivize home ownership proved to be costly and inefficient. It's time to put money from UKs Help to buy schemes into public education or affordable housing construction. It's interesting to see how the global experiment in remote work due to COVID-19 concerns will impact the future of work. I'm particularly intrigued how second tier cities like Austin in US and Cambridge in UK will take their fare share of business from the established players. I hope the proper incentives like in Lisbon, Portugal will create a positive force for business growth in the area.
Fascinating stuff, all the more so from the vantage of Austin, Texas. From productivity in UK cities to the success of Singapore's housing policy to the helpful links on micromobility you've not only cracked a few codes but offered up a small but dense suite of code-cracking tools. Thanks. David Judson
The question of how and why to devolve power from dominant cities feels most relevant in a Europe or US context where we assume certain constraints that may not apply in other parts of the world or at some point in the future. The inability to house more people in or move more people through a city are byproducts of particular cultures that privilege private goods over public. The Singapore and Copenhagen examples illustrate that these are, at least in theory, mutable. The fruits of innovation can clearly be more evenly spread, either through redistributing it or by cultivating it in new places. The questions this article prompted in my mind:
If you are optimizing for some sort of evolution of culture or technology within a region, are you better off trying to spread more widely the capacity to evolve, or to resolve the obstacles (i.e. commuting, housing) that are preventing that capacity from further concentrating?
Are planners asking this same question in Shanghai, Mumbai, Mexico City, and Lagos?
Hi James. Great article. We met a while back via Central Research Laboratory in Hayes, West London. We're now evolving the business to be a network of innovation hubs in key cities outside central london www.plusx.space (Manchester and Birmingham next) in order to make the most of the resident talent. What would it take for Balderton to come and visit the talented entrepreneurs in Brighton, for instance?