Date: 2025-08-21 Page is: DBtxt003.php txt00010945
Economics
Super-cities
London versus the rest / The sustainability of super-cities
Super-cities
London versus the rest / The sustainability of super-cities
Original article: http://www.politicsforum.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=73&t=158813
Peter Burgess COMMENTARY
Peter Burgess
Posted Sat 04 Oct 2014, 02:07
I have been considering this a lot recently. London is unique from any other sprawling metropolis in that it is not only the capital of the UK, or capital of Europe, but has now essentially regained its position as the World’s Capital, fuelled by the destructive policies of Thatcher that impoverished and dragged out the cloth from underneath the industries of the North of England and Wales amongst other places, which simultaneously led to the creation of a more service, finance-based economy focussed in the South East of England.
The expansion of the European Union and the rise of New Labour with their freedom of movement and neoliberal outlook meant that working class foreigners and rich foreigners alike have flocked to England, and specifically London, for work opportunities and for a lax tax regime. It’s not only other people from the rest of the EU that park their cars and cash in London, it’s Russian business tycoons, it’s upper class Indians, it's Persian Gulf Arab royalty and so on…
With this thread I want to get at how can a nation with such lopsided development sustain itself and hope to survive in the long run, when the vast majority of national (and indeed international) wealth is flowing into just one of its many cities? The cost of living in London is often more than double provincial cities in the rest of the UK, the Mayor of London has quite possibly more say in what goes on than anybody else in the UK’s internal politics, transport funding for London far exceeds that of anywhere else, and it’s telling for its purpose that the HS2 rail project will begin in London and then work its way upwards, first to Birmingham and then the cities of the North. The sensible thing to do would just be to create a proper Northern transport hub, then maybe connect that to Scotland and get London to fuck off.
Boris Johnson is calling for a London visa to attract the best and brightest of the business world, and it begs the question: what about the rest of the UK? What about the talent that is already here in the rest of the UK, isn’t rich and can’t afford to move to London? Everything in this nation is centred in the capital: parliament, finance (which London can keep), the vast majority of everything culture and music (many underground music artists that I know of relocate there once they can afford the rent because the best opportunities for real career advancement are in London), anything to do with innovation has been hauled off to the South East, all of the major newspapers and media, the list goes on. This is in contrast to other countries that have more equal national representation or federal systems of governance, such as Germany, where there are cultural centres in Hamburg, Munich and Berlin, publishing is in Cologne, and so on. Boris also claims something to the effect that London's growth inducing capabilities 'trickle down' to the rest of the country in the documentaries listed at the bottom, which is clearly flatly false to anybody that lives outside the South East, since the rise of London has correlated with the demise of everywhere else.
It would be bitingly ironic but also gloomy for London to collapse under its own fat weight, as this article concludes:
Simon Kelner for The Independent wrote: While the inflow of wealth to our capital city is clearly good news in the short term for the country's economy, I can't help but wonder how sustainable this all is. What happens if the super-rich take their Lamborghinis and their investment portfolios elsewhere? We'll be left with a capital dressed up for the wealthy, out of reach for the rest of us, and provincial cities like Hull stripped bare.
It doesn't help that people like Jim O'Neill are suggesting a 'super-city of the North', what they might perhaps call Manpool, the merging of Manchester and Liverpool. In my mind, only Londoners could come up with that idea and support it, in thinking that what the North of England really needs is London just up there. That'll solve all their problems. More London, higher property prices, more soulless international capitalism, higher costs of living. Brighter future. Better tomorrow. Smiles all around. The idea of Manpool is really just nothing short of an abomination, it would be like trying to merge France and Austria into one; why don't Londoners just be done with it, decide everything for the rest of the UK and call the new agglomeration 'Cesspool'?
Furthermore, London is Mordor.
In all seriousness though, what is the solution? It is a shame when all foreigners know about England is the existence of London. I like the idea of federalisation more than devolution, perhaps instead of endlessly devolving to the counties whose borders have been changed (1851 > 1998) innumerable times and that nobody feels any strong connection to, federalise upon groups of historic counties which have considerable overlap in social economics and tradition? This would bypass any structural possibility that different regions would be 'more equal than others', however, most regional representation campaigns seem to be arguing for a devo-max solution.
Chris Blackhurst for The Independent wrote: It’s not because I’m sentimental about the North that I believe it needs devolved powers
It had to happen, of course. No sooner does Scotland give Westminster the heebie-jeebies in a close-run referendum, extracting further concessions in the process, than a drive is launched for devolution for the north of England.
Called simply Campaign for the North, and chaired by former Tory MP Harold Elletson, it wants Devo Max along the lines secured by Scotland for the six traditional counties of Northumberland, Durham, Lancashire, Yorkshire, Westmorland and Cumberland.
I’m all for it. If I think of the characteristics that define the Scottish push for independence, they can all be applied to the North. Put simply, the North is a different country from the rest of England.
Independence is not on the agenda but in terms of geography, heritage, language, history, culture and economy the North remains a place apart. I can say this as a Northerner. But I’m not one of those types who wax nostalgically about flat caps and whippets.
That’s not to say I am not fond of it or its people. Their directness can be breathtaking, their humour cutting.
[...]
Campaign for the North commissioned a study on the benefits of devolution from a group of experts. Their conclusion: “The North would contain a population of over 15m people, roughly the same size as Bavaria or North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany… It would have an administration of its own, determined to set about improving its trans-Pennine infrastructure, investing in education and supporting the development of the industries of the future within its borders.”
Amid the calls for an English Parliament, what is being lost is the fact that England already has devolution. London is treated as a separate entity, with its own mayor, with many of the powers currently afforded to the first ministers in Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. Boris and the country leaders have the ability to take decisions on infrastructure, economic development, and education.
Regionalisation then, is not such an innovation where England is concerned. It’s got one, in London; it must have another, in the North.
For anybody that is interested, there was also a small documentary series produced earlier this year, Mind the Gap: London Versus the Rest that can be watched here and here. Not much is offered in the way of narration (the concept of agglomeration economics is constantly offered up to justify the dominance of the capital and its position), and the North of England is summed up and completed by the presenter with his short visit to a grim outpost with a dilapidated old Industrial Revolution era mill to demonstrate the failure of the North and its previous manufacturing capabilities and how London is the future, but it does touch on some important issues such as social cleansing, gentrification, and the unsustainability of London's ever-expanding transport infrastructure plus its ever-expanding commuter belt. It also features an idiot that bafflingly commutes by train from Stockport (slightly south of Manchester) to London every week and back again to, amongst other things, discuss meerkats with yuppies in marketing conferences.
This problem, it seems, despite that London is a strong outlier due to the varying enabling factors that make it a desirable place to be for the mega-rich, can be extrapolated to other places. How far can the idea of 'the city' go? Is it a good thing at all that massive numbers of people are crammed into one space, and that the poor are constantly being priced out of that place? With so much wealth and refinement, a city like London loses grit, and it seems it has done.
Thoughts?
Noob [+] User avatar
85% Corrupt
Post Sat 04 Oct 2014, 02:07 I have been considering this a lot recently. London is unique from any other sprawling metropolis in that it is not only the capital of the UK, or capital of Europe, but has now essentially regained its position as the World’s Capital, fuelled by the destructive policies of Thatcher that impoverished and dragged out the cloth from underneath the industries of the North of England and Wales amongst other places, which simultaneously led to the creation of a more service, finance-based economy focussed in the South East of England.
The expansion of the European Union and the rise of New Labour with their freedom of movement and neoliberal outlook meant that working class foreigners and rich foreigners alike have flocked to England, and specifically London, for work opportunities and for a lax tax regime. It’s not only other people from the rest of the EU that park their cars and cash in London, it’s Russian business tycoons, it’s upper class Indians, it's Persian Gulf Arab royalty and so on…
With this thread I want to get at how can a nation with such lopsided development sustain itself and hope to survive in the long run, when the vast majority of national (and indeed international) wealth is flowing into just one of its many cities? The cost of living in London is often more than double provincial cities in the rest of the UK, the Mayor of London has quite possibly more say in what goes on than anybody else in the UK’s internal politics, transport funding for London far exceeds that of anywhere else, and it’s telling for its purpose that the HS2 rail project will begin in London and then work its way upwards, first to Birmingham and then the cities of the North. The sensible thing to do would just be to create a proper Northern transport hub, then maybe connect that to Scotland and get London to fuck off.
Boris Johnson is calling for a London visa to attract the best and brightest of the business world, and it begs the question: what about the rest of the UK? What about the talent that is already here in the rest of the UK, isn’t rich and can’t afford to move to London? Everything in this nation is centred in the capital: parliament, finance (which London can keep), the vast majority of everything culture and music (many underground music artists that I know of relocate there once they can afford the rent because the best opportunities for real career advancement are in London), anything to do with innovation has been hauled off to the South East, all of the major newspapers and media, the list goes on. This is in contrast to other countries that have more equal national representation or federal systems of governance, such as Germany, where there are cultural centres in Hamburg, Munich and Berlin, publishing is in Cologne, and so on. Boris also claims something to the effect that London's growth inducing capabilities 'trickle down' to the rest of the country in the documentaries listed at the bottom, which is clearly flatly false to anybody that lives outside the South East, since the rise of London has correlated with the demise of everywhere else.
It would be bitingly ironic but also gloomy for London to collapse under its own fat weight, as this article concludes:
Simon Kelner for The Independent wrote:
While the inflow of wealth to our capital city is clearly good news in the short term for the country's economy, I can't help but wonder how sustainable this all is. What happens if the super-rich take their Lamborghinis and their investment portfolios elsewhere? We'll be left with a capital dressed up for the wealthy, out of reach for the rest of us, and provincial cities like Hull stripped bare.It doesn't help that people like Jim O'Neill are suggesting a 'super-city of the North', what they might perhaps call Manpool, the merging of Manchester and Liverpool. In my mind, only Londoners could come up with that idea and support it, in thinking that what the North of England really needs is London just up there. That'll solve all their problems. More London, higher property prices, more soulless international capitalism, higher costs of living. Brighter future. Better tomorrow. Smiles all around. The idea of Manpool is really just nothing short of an abomination, it would be like trying to merge France and Austria into one; why don't Londoners just be done with it, decide everything for the rest of the UK and call the new agglomeration 'Cesspool'?
Furthermore, London is Mordor.
In all seriousness though, what is the solution? It is a shame when all foreigners know about England is the existence of London. I like the idea of federalisation more than devolution, perhaps instead of endlessly devolving to the counties whose borders have been changed (1851 > 1998) innumerable times and that nobody feels any strong connection to, federalise upon groups of historic counties which have considerable overlap in social economics and tradition? This would bypass any structural possibility that different regions would be 'more equal than others', however, most regional representation campaigns seem to be arguing for a devo-max solution.
Chris Blackhurst for The Independent wrote: It’s not because I’m sentimental about the North that I believe it needs devolved powers
It had to happen, of course. No sooner does Scotland give Westminster the heebie-jeebies in a close-run referendum, extracting further concessions in the process, than a drive is launched for devolution for the north of England.
Called simply Campaign for the North, and chaired by former Tory MP Harold Elletson, it wants Devo Max along the lines secured by Scotland for the six traditional counties of Northumberland, Durham, Lancashire, Yorkshire, Westmorland and Cumberland.
I’m all for it. If I think of the characteristics that define the Scottish push for independence, they can all be applied to the North. Put simply, the North is a different country from the rest of England.
Independence is not on the agenda but in terms of geography, heritage, language, history, culture and economy the North remains a place apart. I can say this as a Northerner. But I’m not one of those types who wax nostalgically about flat caps and whippets.
That’s not to say I am not fond of it or its people. Their directness can be breathtaking, their humour cutting.
[...]
Campaign for the North commissioned a study on the benefits of devolution from a group of experts. Their conclusion: “The North would contain a population of over 15m people, roughly the same size as Bavaria or North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany… It would have an administration of its own, determined to set about improving its trans-Pennine infrastructure, investing in education and supporting the development of the industries of the future within its borders.”
Amid the calls for an English Parliament, what is being lost is the fact that England already has devolution. London is treated as a separate entity, with its own mayor, with many of the powers currently afforded to the first ministers in Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. Boris and the country leaders have the ability to take decisions on infrastructure, economic development, and education.
Regionalisation then, is not such an innovation where England is concerned. It’s got one, in London; it must have another, in the North.
For anybody that is interested, there was also a small documentary series produced earlier this year, Mind the Gap: London Versus the Rest that can be watched here and here. Not much is offered in the way of narration (the concept of agglomeration economics is constantly offered up to justify the dominance of the capital and its position), and the North of England is summed up and completed by the presenter with his short visit to a grim outpost with a dilapidated old Industrial Revolution era mill to demonstrate the failure of the North and its previous manufacturing capabilities and how London is the future, but it does touch on some important issues such as social cleansing, gentrification, and the unsustainability of London's ever-expanding transport infrastructure plus its ever-expanding commuter belt. It also features an idiot that bafflingly commutes by train from Stockport (slightly south of Manchester) to London every week and back again to, amongst other things, discuss meerkats with yuppies in marketing conferences.
This problem, it seems, despite that London is a strong outlier due to the varying enabling factors that make it a desirable place to be for the mega-rich, can be extrapolated to other places. How far can the idea of 'the city' go? Is it a good thing at all that massive numbers of people are crammed into one space, and that the poor are constantly being priced out of that place? With so much wealth and refinement, a city like London loses grit, and it seems it has done.
Thoughts?
wiseraphael [+] User avatar Red Card
Post Mon 06 Oct 2014, 02:49 'fuelled by the destructive policies of Thatcher that impoverished and dragged out the cloth from underneath the industries of the North of England and Wales amongst other places, which simultaneously led to the creation of a more service, finance-based economy focussed in the South East of England.' Rather amused by this section....you're either too young to remember or you were living in La-La land at the time. The old industries were already finished by the time Maggie came to power...outdated practices, over-strong Unions, strikes every ten minutes, outdated working practices, wages far outstripping production, 26% inflation, the country going bust and having to go to the IMF for a loan etc etc. 'The sick man of Europe'. I know ...I was in the textile trade and saw what was happening, which is why I started to abandon Manchester and sourced abroad, whose mills could supply on time to the correct specification and at a reasonable price. Didn't the Wilson government close down more coal mines than Thatcher? Please don't use the sainted Margaret as the excuse for the complete collapse of British Industry during the 60s and 70s. Perhaps it all happened because 100 years of Socialism had taught the British that the world owed them a living and they didn't actually have to work for it! Noob [+] User avatar 85% Corrupt
Post Mon 06 Oct 2014, 08:33 Thanks for the reply. Actually, I wasn't even around during that era, which however doesn't mean that I can't look back and analyse events as they happened for what they were. Also, your 'sainted' Margaret Thatcher ought to have been snatched by her victims, put into a large potato sack in a white van bound for the North of England, her mouth filled with stale potatoes then taped shut, then burnt at the stake with the help of a violent, flammable concoction of chemicals for the witch that she was; bullets ought to have been put through all of her joints and finally through her wretched skull once the screaming petered out. Perhaps instead of pulling out the cloth from underneath Northern industry, privatising everything that the eye could see, hollowing everything out, leaving everything to rot, laying off workers en-masse and expecting the market to correct itself in order that everything may fall into place (into the abyss); the concept of neoliberal economics should never have been adopted in the first place, industry shouldn't have been privatised but instead nationalised and workers should have been given training in in-demand industries and repurposed. Everything that she did with regards to the internal politics of this nation, specifically everything relating to the North of England, was botched. wiseraphael wrote: Perhaps it all happened because 100 years of Socialism had taught the British that the world owed them a living and they didn't actually have to work for it! Yes, British people, those magnificent scroungers, renowned worldwide for their laziness and inability to work. Also, Socialism began in the 1880's according to you? Super neat stuff. The British Empire obviously afforded the United Kingdom a great amount of wealth, but the word 'socialism' actually resembles nothing of the system that ever existed in this country; the wealth that existed was not really shared in any meaningful way. The chaos that existed in the post-war period, I would say, was because of the decline of the Empire, not because of what you call 'socialism'. Of course, the bitch decided to destroy half of the country in order to put everything right in reasserting the right of the rich to shit violently all over the poor. wiseraphael wrote: I was in the textile trade and saw what was happening, which is why I started to abandon Manchester and sourced abroad, whose mills could supply on time to the correct specification and at a reasonable price. You must have been rewarded generously for your treason. Anyway, this thread is not specifically about Thatcher, so please skim up and down the original text that I wrote until you find something interesting that can be discussed on-topic. wiseraphael [+] User avatar Red Card
Post Mon 06 Oct 2014, 11:26 i won't bother to reply to your total mis-representation of history...after all, I was running a business at the time and paying taxes...you weren't even around....suggest you stop repeating cliches and ask people who were around at that time. Treason? Just surviving and not relying on the good old British worker to be able to feed my family! Anyway...I couldn't get supplied in Britain...in the 60s and 70s British manufacturing was appalling. If you can't get food at your local restaurant...you go somewhere else! By the way....London is the centre of the world in so many ways, not just financial. I fail to see what 'grit' it is losing. Noob [+] User avatar 85% Corrupt
Post Mon 06 Oct 2014, 12:18 wiseraphael wrote: suggest you stop repeating cliches and ask people who were around at that time. Where do you think I got this version of history from? I got it from the generation that came before me, real working class Northerners who despise the things that were done to them, the damage that was inflicted on their lives and jobs, people who had a very difficult time getting up from off their knees, and indeed stories of those who couldn't bear it any longer and ended it all for themselves. These are not cliches. wiseraphael wrote: Treason? Just surviving and not relying on the good old British worker to be able to feed my family! Apologies, it was a joke - I suppose it is an issue with the wider structure of society, and indeed one middle class person often can't do much to change that. Without a doubt though, Thatcher was a traitor and she should definitely have been shot whilst she was still waddling around. wiseraphael wrote: By the way....London is the centre of the world in so many ways, not just financial. I fail to see what 'grit' it is losing. Yes, I know. That's the problem - the whole point of this thread. I mentioned that it was the cultural, musical, media, print and political centre of the UK, of Europe, and probably now of the whole world. If working class people are being cleansed from London to make way for the international class of mega-rich, London is losing grit. A good amount of grit is a good thing. When everything is clustered into one place, that is bad for everybody that is not in that place. I don't actually want to move to London, I like the North of England just fine, and I want the best for my region. Northerners generally keep to themselves, we like to do our own thing and we couldn't give a toss about what happens elsewhere, but when London and the South East are gaining at our expense, that's a problem that needs to be rectified. charliechalk [+] User avatar
Post Mon 20 Oct 2014, 00:30 Great posts, even Vince cable says London is a giant suction machine ducking the life out of the rest of the UK, and we have the privilege of paying for it too as London is heavily subsidised. If you were Scottish you would support independence, we want to break free from this and rebalance our economy, but they are desperate to keep us. Noob [+] User avatar 85% Corrupt
Post Mon 20 Oct 2014, 04:02 Well, I don't support independence for the North of England (which is in a way more precarious position than Scotland - there is a massive democratic deficit here and we don't have devolution like Scotland does), so why would I support independence for Scotland? If Scotland was able to get itself a referendum on its independence, everywhere else ('Northumbria', 'Mercia', 'Wessex', along with Wales and Scotland) should be able to force federalisation on the political class of this country. That would absolutely be sufficient in allowing large regions (as opposed to individual counties) to control their own destinies, so I don't think it's necessary to break up the country, and I've said as much when the topic came up here. I might also add that an English parliament would be a horrendous idea and would entrench the North-South divide. Where will this English parliament be? Well, it would probably be in London of all places; England (London) already has its own devolution in the form of London's mayor. The only people that support such an idea are English chauvinists that have antipathy for Scottish people (it goes both ways) and want to stop Scottish people from going to English universities without paying the full fees and all sorts of other nonsense. Breaking Britain into pieces would make the constituent states of the British Isles weaker, England would be overtaken by an even more rabid neoliberalism, Scotland would become irrelevant, and there would essentially be a race to the bottom between England and Scotland borne out of petty mutual antipathy (the SNP wanted to increase immigration levels for instance if they were to achieve independence - what a bizarre goal). So when I say all of this, don't conflate these opinions with the ones that you may have seen in the 'No campaign'. I despised that campaign as much as I did the 'Yes campaign', the toffs that populate the corridors of power in this country in London are despicable and I can see why Scots wanted and still want to take a turn away from that in the first place. The most important thing however, is to ask: what would Scotland have achieved by declaring independence? Well, not a whole lot. The Queen would still have been Scotland's head of state, Alex Salmond wanted to trade UK integration for EU integration (£ > €, London > Brussels), and because of this Scotland would more than likely have had less independence than it started out with. I'm not against some sort of European supranational union (I am against the one that exists today), but I would say that dividing countries into smaller parts would automatically increase the power of the EU neoliberal bureaucracy, which would of course be a net loss for Britain. This is the solution as far as I can see, a federal Britain (I didn't produce these maps): ImageImage charliechalk [+] User avatar
Post Mon 20 Oct 2014, 04:24 Scotland isn't and never will be a region no more than England is. We will be leaving sooner or later. Tbh, I couldn't care less about democratic deficits and lack of devolution in the north of England that's your country your problem you sort it out. All this federal uk nonsense is just a sop to retain English control and preeminence. The natural and eventual state of the British isles is an independent Scotland, wales and England and a united Ireland. If it wasn't for English imperialism and aggression that would have been the state of things all along. And we need to increase immigration in Scotland as we have a demographic timebomb to deal with and that's how you deal with it. Wanting to make decisions which benefit your economy is bizarre indeed. And Scotland irrelevant? Irrelevant to what? Is Norway relevant? Switzerland? Not really but they're considerably richer and better places to live than the UK. How colonial to worry about 'relevance', we in Scotland are actually more worried about child poverty. Can 'relevance' help tackle that? Last edited by The Clockwork Rat on Mon 27 Oct 2014, 00:53, edited 2 times in total. Reason: Rule 2 violation removed. Posts merged. Noob [+] User avatar 85% Corrupt
Post Mon 20 Oct 2014, 04:29 You just sound upset, and you won't be leaving at all. England is not one country. If that's the opinion of the Scots who voted for independence to stick it to those terrible English sods, I can only say with glee that it was great to have those aspirations crash into the ground. Your comments also rest upon the assumption that Scotland is a victim of horrible England's megalomania. Actually, Scotland was and has been a willing participant in British imperialism since the Union of England and Scotland. Petty isolationism won't get you anywhere and it definitely will fail. The best solution for the British Isles would be one federal state, with the eventual inclusion of Ireland. charliechalk wrote: And we need to increase immigration in Scotland as we have a demographic timebomb to deal with and that's how you deal with it you ignorant little Englander. Wanting to make decisions which benefit your economy is bizarre indeed, if you're an ignorant little racist. Yes, a Scottish liberal like yourself would definitely consider me a racist. I take it as a badge of honour, in fact. I shouldn't even need to address your absurd comments about me being a 'little Englander', when you are the one that is advocating that Scotland close itself off from the rest of the world. I don't know if you're aware or not, but British people can breed by themselves without the help of anybody else and have been doing that excellently for thousands of years, so foreigners don't need to do that for us. charliechalk wrote: And Scotland irrelevant? Irrelevant to what? Is Norway relevant? Switzerland? Not really but they're considerably richer and better places to live than the UK. How colonial to worry about 'relevance', we in Scotland are actually more worried about child poverty. Can 'relevance' help tackle that? Feel free to pack up and move to Norway or Switzerland then. Those countries definitely are irrelevant in international relations, unlike the UK which has a seat at the UN Security Council and nuclear weapons to defend itself. It is a wonder how Westminster even thought of allowing a referendum in the first place, that insular Scots who want to stick it to the English would be allowed their own country. No chance. charliecalk wrote: How colonial to worry about 'relevance', we in Scotland are actually more worried about child poverty. This is irrelevant to everything. charliechalk wrote: And less independence? You're an idiot. I can't believe I'm even replying. Feel free to stop replying then, and feel free to also stop frothing at the mouth. Ombrageux [+] Smart 20-Something User avatar
Post Mon 20 Oct 2014, 04:45 You raise a very important issue and ongoing trend. I have been meaning to write about it. I would not say London is the World Capital but it is certainly one of the top nodes of global plutocracy and of globalization, which also include Silicon Valley-Hollywood, New York and Washington DC, with Paris-Berlin-Brussels forming secondary nodes (although taken together they are somewhat about equivalent to a major Anglo node). Singapore is a major non-Western node. We see in all these nodes of globalization: 1) The development of an exceptionally rich and influential super-elite attached to particular institutions (film industry, social media/tech giants, military-industrial complex, finance, traditional politics, the EU, the congregation of oligarchs from the world over). 2) The rapid physical displacement of the traditional national population by non-Europeans, often both at base and elite level: London is majority non-English, California is majority non-White, Brussels in majority non-native Belgian, etc. 3) Each ethnic group largely self-segregates into particular neighborhoods. Each ethnic group performs differently on average criminally, socially, educationally and economically. The result is an emerging - not enforced by law, which in fact tries (and fails) to discourage this! - caste system or 'pigmentocracy' with Jews, East (and some South) Asians and some Whites at the top, then other Whites, then Arabs/Hispanics, then Blacks/Amerindians (there is some variation by country). 4) These trends explain the massive inequality we see in these nodes of globalization which, despite being hyper-rich (often the richest regions in the country or even continent, as with London, Paris, Brussels), also tend to have massive poverty in the ghettos and emerging precariat and often substantial unemployment (in Brussels: 20%!). 5) The elite institutions - Western media, financial institutions, military-industrial complex, The Hill, Silicon valley companies, EU institutions, etc, etc - are extremely unrepresentative of the broader population. Liberal news media will be overwhelmingly white (Jews/Gentiles) but will harass other industries and small towns for not having full minority representation. Silicon Valley companies will be typically 1/3 non-White (mainly Asians) but will still face media harassment and potential lawsuits for not employing blacks/Hispanics/women (unfortunately the proportion of black/Hispanic/female STEM graduates is far lower than their percentage of population, so if these companies were perfectly meritocratic, we would still get these unequal outcomes). The unequal, segregated and hypocritical nature of these globalist nodes will grow and gradually become the norm throughout Western nations as a whole. This will lead to a lot of unease and cognitive dissonance as the dogma of equality goes up against the fact of differing group performances and self-segregation. The State will clumsily, sometimes with huge effort, act to socially engineer equal outcomes and integration, the media will ruthlessly propagandize and suppress science/dissenters to uphold the official ideology, and scapegoats' careers and reputations will be periodically ruined to take the blame for the inevitable failures. Politics will become more ethnicized and elites will become richer, deracinated and disconnected from traditional mechanisms for democratic accountability. Assuming no collapse or nationalist backlash, politics will probably come to resemble those of Mexico and Latin America, electoral competition between parties with wishy-washy ideologies and democratic/equalist lies, while the real power will be held by the oligarchs and ethnic groups who control those parties (I believe Mexico/Brazil's presidents have all been white?). This, as far as I can see, is our future assuming no change of course. I'd say it's rather regrettable and unhappy on the whole. To answer your question directly: I don't think it is good for 'the UK' although maybe an argument could be made that one should try to get the best rank one can in the international globalist pecking order, but I would rather we change the game altogether! Because it seems to me the end-point of globalism is there won't even be a British (or English/Scottish/etc) nation in any meaningful sense other than administrative. Image 'To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize.' charliechalk [+] User avatar
Post Mon 20 Oct 2014, 05:24 Wow. Just wow. We will leave cause people like you are as foreign as Japanese and we can't be governed by you anymore. The most disgusting scare campaign in history was all that barely held our vile archaic union together in the most pyrrhic of victories. We can hold another one almost at will given the SNP own politics in Scotland now and have a mandate for a referendum every time they win a majority, what will save your imperialist dream next time? Heisenberg [+] User avatar Absolutely Corrupt
Post Mon 20 Oct 2014, 05:55 Poor, innocent, oppressed Scotland. The English 'foreigners' just can't stop terrorising and bullying you, can they? I think calling the No campaign 'the most disgusting scare campaign in history' is a bit of a stretch, to be honest. It displays an astonishing lack of awareness of the world in general. For a truly 'disgusting' scare campaign, look at how many other countries have responded to secessionist movements. HINT: it usually doesn't involve granting a free, binding vote which only requires a simple majority to pass, held almost entirely on the SNP's own terms, in open defiance of the UK constitution. 'In the little moment that remains to us between the crisis and the catastrophe, we may as well drink a glass of champagne.' - Paul Claudel charliechalk [+] User avatar
Post Mon 20 Oct 2014, 06:16 The UK doesn't have a constitution and the Edinburgh agreement made it in defiance of nothing, the UK government had no choice but to grant a referendum or it would be opposing the Scottish nations internationally recognised and protected right to self determination, it was not an act of benevolence. The UK then embarked on the.most shameful suppression of democracy imaginable. You can live with your colonialist head stuck up your right wing racist.rectum as.long as you want, we will never forget what happened and will be leaving the UK to wallow in its bankrupt post industrial dystopia in the next 20 years maximum. blackjack21 [+] User avatar 92% Corrupt
Post Mon 20 Oct 2014, 07:15 Noob wrote: Perhaps instead of pulling out the cloth from underneath Northern industry, privatising everything that the eye could see, hollowing everything out, leaving everything to rot, laying off workers en-masse and expecting the market to correct itself in order that everything may fall into place (into the abyss); the concept of neoliberal economics should never have been adopted in the first place, industry shouldn't have been privatised but instead nationalised and workers should have been given training in in-demand industries and repurposed. Everything that she did with regards to the internal politics of this nation, specifically everything relating to the North of England, was botched. Uh... you don't need to nationalize something that's already nationalized. I have already laid out why this generally doesn't work. In capitalist economics, the natural trend toward inefficiency is because the capitalist tries to maximize profit by ensuring that Marginal Cost is equal to Marginal Revenue. The problem with labor is that they do the same thing with wages, trying to maximize wages rather than profits. Once you break the incentive to deliver quality goods, industry falls into disrepair quickly, whether the large-scale industries are in public or private hands. In the US, people blame GM and Firestone for pulling up the mass transit system in Los Angeles to make room for cars. Is the charge true? Yes. However, it is only partially true. The reality is that, like the Key System, in the San Francisco Bay Area, the unions extracted wages to the point where the mass transit corporations could not reinvest in infrastucture. Deferred maintenance began making the systems unsafe and unprofitable. So they began to abandon routes. GM and Firestone bought up the wreckage that was left, pulled up the tracks and paved the roads. GM and a few others were convicted of trying to monopolize the bus (read mass transit) industry. Fares more than doubled between 1945 and 1954 at a time of low inflation. So big evil GM did those types of things. Yet, GM had to be bailed out not 5 years ago for the umpteenth time. Do you remember Barack Obama bragging about how Osama bin Laden is dead, but GM is alive? It's an odd contrast when you get right down to it, expecially with the irony of ISIS. In actual fact, ISIS is alive and well and GM lives because of the US tax payer, not the consumer, and only because those labor union votes can deliver a presidential election in a swing state. Watch Karl Rove's coverage of the presidential election. They know down to the county and neighborhood what people believe and how they'll vote. A presidential election today is nothing more than a trillion dollar lottery ticket, so it was no problem for Obama to lie about Benghazi and it's no problem for CBS to put out a pro-Hillary show like Madame Secretary or NBC to put out a pro-Hillary show like State of Affairs. They expect a hansome financial reward for their early advertising for Hillary. Noob wrote: With this thread I want to get at how can a nation with such lopsided development sustain itself and hope to survive in the long run, when the vast majority of national (and indeed international) wealth is flowing into just one of its many cities? I do think you pose an interesting question here. Economic liberalism would not create a situation like London today. You said it yourself--the cost of living in other cities is half the cost of what it is in London. So London is not price competitive by definition. America is increasingly the same way. Washington, DC is utterly corrupt yet has the highest income in the nation with no multi-national corporations head-quartered there. America is more interesting, because historically its political capitals are in different locales from its financial and cultural capitals. Think of California? Does the first city that pops into your mind have the name Sacramento? If no, then you may begin to understand what I'm saying. New York would be the financial capital of the United States, not Washington, DC. The media capital is in Los Angeles. In the UK, it's all in London. In France, it's all in Paris. I think America developed with the intent of separation of powers, so its political capitals were always different from its economic and cultural capitals. That persisted into the Cold War, because you would have to nuke multiple cities to do real damage to America. In Europe, if you nuke London or Paris, you'd do extensive damage to the country. In the US, if you nuke Washington DC, the country would do just fine. It would be more wounded if Manhattan were hit though. Noob wrote: the wealth that existed was not really shared in any meaningful way. Wealth is never shared. If you want to see how liberals react to wealth re-distribution, watch the making of Exile on Mainstreet from the Rolling Stones. When you have a 93% upper bracket, the wealthy flee. That's what's happening in France right now. Noob wrote: Where do you think I got this version of history from? I got it from the generation that came before me, real working class Northerners who despise the things that were done to them, the damage that was inflicted on their lives and jobs, people who had a very difficult time getting up from off their knees, and indeed stories of those who couldn't bear it any longer and ended it all for themselves. These are not cliches. Dead men tell no tales. However, the Empire was already filled with cheap labor. It was exactly the sort of nationalism and monopolies that created the economic distortions in the first place. Labor unions did a lot of good for the working man, but they also began to operate so far outside of the laws of economics that they simply brought the nation to its knees. The same thing happened in the US. We make lots of Japanese cars in the United States, but the labor-union based producers constantly require taxpayer bailouts and owe their political allegiance to the Democratic party. charliechalk wrote: And we need to increase immigration in Scotland as we have a demographic timebomb to deal with and that's how you deal with it you ignorant little Englander. Wanting to make decisions which benefit your economy is bizarre indeed, if you're an ignorant little racist. Mass immigration kills indigenous culture. The reason that demographic time bomb exists is feminism, not racism. Feminism from the early 1900s has killed off the birth rate, and you cannot sustain the welfare system without a growing population. However, importing a population that doesn't believe in your welfare system in the first place will not solve your problem. Ombrageux wrote: Politics will become more ethnicized and elites will become richer, deracinated and disconnected from traditional mechanisms for democratic accountability. Assuming no collapse or nationalist backlash, politics will probably come to resemble those of Mexico and Latin America, electoral competition between parties with wishy-washy ideologies and democratic/equalist lies, while the real power will be held by the oligarchs and ethnic groups who control those parties (I believe Mexico/Brazil's presidents have all been white?). I think it's following Charles Murray's model pretty well--along IQ lines. Before feminism, people more or less married in their ethnic groups and women were generally looking to 'marry up.' So the nurse married the doctor, the legal secretary married the lawyer, and so on. This is no longer the norm. The doctor marries the doctor, the lawyer marries the lawyer, the working class people marry the working class people and so on. The people born into the welfare state do not reproduce in sufficient numbers to sustain the welfare state, and they need to import people AND put them on the dole to acculturate them to the welfare state in order to sustain the welfare state. I'm inclined to think this system will collapse not unlike the Roman Empire. 'The ice age is coming, the sun's zooming in' The Clash - London Calling Heisenberg [+] User avatar Absolutely Corrupt
Post Mon 20 Oct 2014, 07:46 charliechalk wrote: The UK doesn't have a constitution ...yes it does. It's an unwritten constitution, but it's still a constitution. And the key principle in the UK constitution is parliamentary sovereignty. Allowing a referendum to take precedence over parliament is a direct defiance of parliamentary sovereignty. charliechalk wrote: The UK then embarked on the.most shameful suppression of democracy imaginable. You see, this is the bit I have trouble with. Forgive me if I was asleep for the last three months or so, but I don't recall any 'suppression' of democracy. I remember a free democratic vote, as defined by the SNP's terms, that went against the Yes campaign. The Yes campaign promptly conceded defeat. But maybe I just missed all of the protesters gunned down in the streets, the ballot stuffing and voter intimidation that obviously happened in place of all that. charliechalk wrote: You can live with your colonialist head stuck up your right wing racist.rectum as.long as you want, we will never forget what happened and will be leaving the UK to wallow in its bankrupt post industrial dystopia in the next 20 years maximum. Charming. Just a quick tip from an ignorant racist imperialist fascist Sith Lord: randomly hurling insults at people and acting like a spoiled child is not the done thing. This is not Celtic Park, so please keep the unnecessary abuse to a minimum. 'In the little moment that remains to us between the crisis and the catastrophe, we may as well drink a glass of champagne.' - Paul Claudel Noob [+] User avatar 85% Corrupt
Post Mon 20 Oct 2014, 07:47 Ombrageux wrote: I would not say London is the World Capital but it is certainly one of the top nodes of global plutocracy and of globalization, which also include Silicon Valley-Hollywood, New York and Washington DC, with Paris-Berlin-Brussels forming secondary nodes (although taken together they are somewhat about equivalent to a major Anglo node). Singapore is a major non-Western node. Yes, this seems to be a better model for analysing these trends. It's blatantly obvious to anybody with even topical understanding that having these super-cities with a small, compact elite and a large underclass for whom social mobility is near non-existent is a bad thing. What's more, if things turn sour, these elites can just hop to the next node without fuss or consequence for themselves, a privilege not afforded to the masses. All of these nodes, it seems, now lead back in part or whole to either London or New York, which is why we oddly get Malaysian property developers coming over from Singapore/Kuala Lumpur to invest in luxury high-rise flats and leisure spaces slap bang in the middle of London. Ombrageux wrote: The unequal, segregated and hypocritical nature of these globalist nodes will grow and gradually become the norm throughout Western nations as a whole. This will lead to a lot of unease and cognitive dissonance as the dogma of equality goes up against the fact of differing group performances and self-segregation. The State will clumsily, sometimes with huge effort, act to socially engineer equal outcomes and integration, the media will ruthlessly propagandize and suppress science/dissenters to uphold the official ideology, and scapegoats' careers and reputations will be periodically ruined to take the blame for the inevitable failures. Politics will become more ethnicized and elites will become richer, deracinated and disconnected from traditional mechanisms for democratic accountability. Assuming no collapse or nationalist backlash, politics will probably come to resemble those of Mexico and Latin America, electoral competition between parties with wishy-washy ideologies and democratic/equalist lies, while the real power will be held by the oligarchs and ethnic groups who control those parties (I believe Mexico/Brazil's presidents have all been white?). This, as far as I can see, is our future assuming no change of course. I'd say it's rather regrettable and unhappy on the whole. To answer your question directly: I don't think it is good for 'the UK' although maybe an argument could be made that one should try to get the best rank one can in the international globalist pecking order, but I would rather we change the game altogether! Because it seems to me the end-point of globalism is there won't even be a British (or English/Scottish/etc) nation in any meaningful sense other than administrative. My impression, at least with regards to Britain and Italy, is that (liberal) nationalists are turning to regionalism to channel their aspirations. If nation states are being demolished from the top down and morphed into something beyond recognition, people are automatically going to revert to regionalism in a bottom up manner to attempt to carry out their vision for their countries, in the process carving out new identities for themselves going into the future whilst revisiting their roots (Northumbrian, Mercian, Wessaxon - which don't need to declare independence and would exist alongside the existing British and European identities). Even American individualist Ralph Waldo Emerson had this to say: Ralph Waldo Emerson, 'English Traits' (1856) wrote: Again, as if to intensate the influences that are not of race, what we think of when we talk of English traits really narrows itself to a small district. It excludes Ireland, and Scotland, and Wales, and reduces itself at last to London, that is, to those who come and go thither. The portraits that hang on the walls in the Academy Exhibition at London, the figures in Punch's drawings of the public men, or of the club-houses, the prints in the shop-windows, are distinctive English, and not American, no, nor Scotch, nor Irish: but 'tis a very restricted nationality. As you go north into the manufacturing and agricultural districts, and to the population that never travels, as you go into Yorkshire, as you enter Scotland, the world's Englishman is no longer found. In Scotland, there is a rapid loss of all grandeur of mien and manners; a provincial eagerness and acuteness appear; the poverty of the country makes itself remarked, and a coarseness of manners; and, among the intellectual, is the insanity of dialectics. In Ireland, are the same climate and soil as in England, but less food, no right relation to the land, political dependence, small tenantry, and an inferior or misplaced race. The solution then would be to not grant special powers to metropolitan areas but to regions to (at least temporarily) deprive the cities of their disproportionate power over the countryside, and also not to grant special devolution powers that other regions do not have, as is the case with Wales, Scotland and London. Emphasising the importance of country living couldn't hurt, either. This wouldn't be a solution for every country, but it works reasonably well for the US and Germany (and I'll be the last person to fawn unnecessarily over Germany, but it was British planners who helped to restructure the country towards a federal system to ward off the supposed evils of German centralisation), so I think it can work in Britain, as well, and while we're at it we could replace the House of Lords with a House of Regions for regional representatives in Parliament. __________ charliechalk wrote: We will leave cause people like you are as foreign as Japanese and we can't be governed by you anymore. The question of Scottish independence has been put to bed for a whole generation now that the referendum is over and done with. Scotland isn't going anywhere. On the other hand, if liberals like you want to pack up and leave Britain, go for it. Nobody is stopping you. You have made it already abundantly clear that you do not care about your fellow Britons with silliness such as this: charliechalk wrote: Tbh, I couldn't care less about democratic deficits and lack of devolution in the north of England that's your country your problem you sort it out. All this federal uk nonsense is just a sop to retain English control and preeminence. and this, to Heisenberg (and this is likely your message to anybody that lives in England in general): charliechalk wrote: You can live with your colonialist head stuck up your right wing racist.rectum as.long as you want, we will never forget what happened and will be leaving the UK to wallow in its bankrupt post industrial dystopia in the next 20 years maximum. And so I have no time for you. If you would like to make a meaningful contribution for the topic at hand, which is about but not specifically limited to: centralisation, London, the EU, the effects of globalisation on cities and nations, regionalism and devo-max solutions for groupings of historical counties leading to country-wide federalism in the UK, please do so. However, if you want to sob about poor oppressed Scotland take it to another thread and don't turn this one into a Scotland shitfest because I don't give a flying moose shit about your conception of democracy or your petty insular attitude. Thank you. __________ blackjack21 wrote: I do think you pose an interesting question here. Economic liberalism would not create a situation like London today. You said it yourself--the cost of living in other cities is half the cost of what it is in London. So London is not price competitive by definition. America is increasingly the same way. Washington, DC is utterly corrupt yet has the highest income in the nation with no multi-national corporations head-quartered there. Economic liberalism and neoliberalism with a tinge of centralisation has created the sprawling mess that is London today. It was under Thatcher with her free market economics/perfect competition/small government that London was allowed to dramatically expand in size. Regional (central) planning with regional development banks is the way forward and it doesn't have to be inefficient at all. Public companies in Germany buck the trend/theory, I think. blackjack21 wrote: I think America developed with the intent of separation of powers, so it's political capitals were always different from its economic and cultural capitals. That persisted into the Cold War, because you would have to nuke multiple cities to do real damage to America. In Europe, if you nuke London or Paris, you'd do extensive damage to the country. In the US, if you nuke Washington DC, the country would do just fine. It would be more wounded if Manhattan were hit though. The difference is federalism/centralisation. Centralisation in a very large country like the US wouldn't work. Similarly, it won't work in any sort of European Federation. blackjack21 wrote: Wealth is never shared. If you want to see how liberals react to wealth re-distribution, watch the making of Exile on Mainstreet from the Rolling Stones. When you have a 93% upper bracket, the wealthy flee. That's what's happening in France right now. Great countries can be and have been built without liberals. Brutal measures could be put into place to prevent people from taking off and leaving with all of their cash bags, if it ultimately came to that. If that means that the London Stock Exchange takes a hit, that's fine by me. Ombrageux [+] Smart 20-Something User avatar
Post Mon 20 Oct 2014, 12:11 That's an interesting point on regionalism. It kind of resembles American secessionism/'States' Rights' agitation in certain ways. In Padania, Flanders and (in its own way) Scotland too, there is resentment towards the central authorities, especially on distributional issues, and in the case of Padania/Flanders also about immigration. I am not sure if regionalism - without outright sovereignty and ethno-nationalism - is an adequate solution. Eventually, Flanders, Mercia, Occitania, Padania and Bavaria will - both independently and through the spread of the capital - suffer the same fate of Balkanization/globalization as Brussels, London, Paris, Rome and Berlin. Kleinstaat ethno-nationalism I actually think is doable (if not necessarily optimal), as Switzerland and Finland show that small nations can indeed be free in the face of large empires. The former region/new State would be pointless if (as in Scotland) it is not run by ethno-nationalists. In some cases the process of separation could be very messy: Once Europeans become a minority in the U.S., the UK and France, there will be a temptation for Whites to secede as did Croats and Slovenes from Serb-dominated Yugoslavia. The costs of secession may not necessarily worth the gains of sovereignty: Few things are as damaging as civil war. Ideally, I would hope however that we can save our historic Nation-States. After all France is 1,500 years old. England is only a little younger. And I hate the idea of outright ceding strips of territory to create African Republics on European soil! I would rather today's Europeans be worthy of Leonidas, Scipio Africanus, Charles Martel, El Cid, Godfrey of Bouillon, Vlad Țepeș, Ivan III and Jan Sobieski who fought for Europeans to have a home: Hold the line and, when that fails, reconquer. Last edited by Ombrageux on Mon 20 Oct 2014, 15:23, edited 1 time in total. Image 'To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize.' Heisenberg [+] User avatar Absolutely Corrupt
Post Mon 20 Oct 2014, 13:34 To be honest, I've always felt that the idea of regionalism in Britain is too contrived to work. In a country like Ireland, for instance, you have four historical provinces, which have retained (somewhat) separate identities for centuries. The same is true of the various states in Germany, or the regions of Italy, which were until relatively recently separate political entities. Mercia, Wessex and Northumbria, though, haven't meant anything real in more than a millennium. On top of that, there's the simple reality that Britain has always been a centralised state, and has become centralised more or less organically. Then, there's the fact that the UK works on the fundamental idea of parliamentary sovereignty (i.e. constitutionally, the decisions of the assemblies could be overridden at will). Taking all of this into account, the regional assemblies start to look doomed to fail. Now, this isn't to say that there is a major problem with London dominating the country in the way it does. But that seems to me to be a function of short-sighted economic policy and laziness from successive governments. You can invest in the North, and in Wales, without necessarily creating separate federal states to do it. It just requires long-term planning and a fundamental shift in mindset away from 'what is good for the City is good for all of us'. 'In the little moment that remains to us between the crisis and the catastrophe, we may as well drink a glass of champagne.' - Paul Claudel Noob [+] User avatar 85% Corrupt
Post Mon 20 Oct 2014, 14:31 Ombrageux wrote: Ideally, I would hope however that we can save our historic Nation-States. After all France is 1,500 years old. England is only a little younger. And I hate the idea of outright ceding strips of territory to create African Republics on Europe soil! I would rather Europeans be worthy of Leonidas, Scipio Africanus, Charles Martel, El Cid, Godfrey of Bouillon, Vlad Țepeș, Ivan III and Jan Sobieski: Hold the line and, when that fails, reconquer. Agreed. Nationalists need to start somewhere though, and in the case of England there is no sufficient nationalist party; even if there were, it would likely be lampooned quickly after its formation given the present political environment in Britain. The fact of the matter is that London (and its massive commuter belt) increasingly does not resemble any other city in England let alone the towns, so I think essentially we need to take one step backwards in order to move forwards on the question of English (or any other European) identity. The disparities between the North of England and the South East of England are immense; the disparities between North-Central Italy and Southern Italy are immense and ultimately they are growing. It is a risky option and a narrow tightrope to be walking to pedal regionalism when it all could just collapse into petty insularism and leave European nation states open to exploitation/balkanisation, but are there other viable routes?
I have noticed a few minor political movements here springing up that are unfortunately calling for a 'Left-wing, anti-war, pro-republican, independent Free North', this movement and others like it supported Scottish independence - it's absolute bunk. Hopefully these left-liberal varieties won't get far.
How does one go about creating an ethno-nationalist state in the first place, basically? Needs and methods would presumably differ from country to country.
Addressing both of you here:
Ombrageux wrote: I am not sure if regionalism - without outright sovereignty and ethno-nationalism - is an adequate solution. Eventually, Flanders, Mercia, Occitania, Padania and Bavaria will - both independently and through the spread of the capital - suffer the same fate of Balkanization/globalization as Brussels, London, Paris, Rome and Berlin. Kleinstaat ethno-nationalism I actually think is doable (if not necessarily optimal), as Switzerland and Finland show that small nations can indeed be free in the face of large empires.
Heisenberg wrote: To be honest, I've always felt that the idea of regionalism in Britain is too contrived to work. In a country like Ireland, for instance, you have four historical provinces, which have retained (somewhat) separate identities for centuries. The same is true of the various states in Germany, or the regions of Italy, which were until relatively recently separate political entities. Mercia, Wessex and Northumbria, though, haven't meant anything real in more than a millennium.
These things are true. The aim with the regionalist political movements that have been springing up in Britain is to federalise/decentralise on the basis of strong regions that can act independently, though. The mythology of Northumbria being the 'kingdom of Norseman Eric Bloodaxe' and so on isn't about travelling back in time, but rather it creates a stepping stone for decentralisation; devolving to the counties, given their inefficiency, wouldn't help to achieve this.
The federal states created in Germany after the War (to ward off the evils of German centralisation) were largely perceived as meaningless and without reason after Prussia was dismantled and divided up into the West German states (East Germany remained centralised until the reunification of Germany), but they created a basis for decentralisation and nobody really questions their existence today. The federal states of Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia were then created in the East, and many of the people in these comparatively poorer regions feel disillusioned with their identity.
Discussing the issue of the reunification of Germany I think would be very pertinent here as well because of Germany's lopsided development, because London is just departing and flying away from the rest of the country.
Heisenberg wrote:
How do we make the shift away from that mindset, though? The problem is that young people disproportionately gravitate to the South East, and not many attempts are made to retain talent by the local regions. In my mind, everything just goes towards making London even fatter. What problems would arise if a unified regional Northern government were to raise its own taxes, for example, and invest using its own assets in regional infrastructure? The tax base is large and varied enough for that. Decky [+] User avatar Yellow Card (warning)
Now, this isn't to say that there is a major problem with London dominating the country in the way it does. But that seems to me to be a function of short-sighted economic policy and laziness from successive governments. You can invest in the North, and in Wales, without necessarily creating separate federal states to do it. It just requires long-term planning and a fundamental shift in mindset away from 'what is good for the City is good for all of us'.
Post Sun 02 Nov 2014, 03:28 I love Noob's picture. The entire south east is called Londonia. Anyway I would not support those borders, Mercia needs to be far bigger as it was in the eight century. The midlands is the only part of this country worth a damn anyway. Tamworth uber alles! Image » Next Page »