In article . com,
wrote:

I think I ought to answer this one, though I don't want this thread to go and
on like the 0207 phone No thread

Apart from cancer, the real world does not "run away". There are
always feedbacks which control. A large city has economies of scale,
but also diseconomies of scale, eg, it cannot pay for the transport
needed to be *unitedly* so big - it would confer no benefits to live
near others but never to travel to meet them. The extra costs are
offset by transport subsidies and "London weighting". Think of the
squeals if these were withdrawn and the real costs had to be paid!


Agreed - but the result wouldn't exactly be advantageous for the north,
as although it might find itself with more people wanting to live
there, it would also find itself in a country where the economy had
just crashed!


A) There is lots of economic theory saying that a viable business SHOULD
be able to raise capital. But "the business of London can't"!? Why not?


Because people need to be able to get to work. If public transport was
priced at cost, a significant slice of the population would suddenly be
unable to afford to commute - or would at least see their purchasing
power slashed. Do you really not think that the economy would take a
hit if all the businesses based in London suddenly couldn't find
employees? Or if suddenly several million people couldn't afford to buy
anything?

So the whole nation has become locked into a situation it can't get out of?!
Cold turkey treatment called for?



b You really do believe that London supports the whole economy. What
is this
"crash" you fear?

I don't believe London supports the whole economy, but I believe that
it is a hell of a big chunk of it. I refer you to this helpful and
informative webpage:

http://www.ryanair.com/dest/london_business.html

"London enjoys a powerful economy larger than many small countries and
comparable to that of Sweden, Belgium and Russia. It contributes nearly
20 percent of the United Kingdom's total GDP and has a work force in
the region of 3.5 million [I concede this point]... At the heart of
London's economy are the financial and business services, which
together employ about a third of the total Greater London workforce and
about three-quarters of people working in the City of London. With over
500 foreign banks, together with numerous insurance companies and other
business services, London is truly a leading international financial
centre."

Now, with all that in mind, do you really think that the British
economy would not be dented if London transport couldn't carry those
people to work? You're making an assumption that those companies would
relocate to Birmingham or Manchester, but there's no particular reason
they should choose those places over Paris or Frankfurt.



Apart that is from a stock-exchange "crash", I think the real economy
has
become too dependent on "the markets". And it is looked after by
governments
in a way that other industries are not, eg look at the way a pensions
insurance system is being set up, not only to safeguard pensionsers,
praiseworthy though that is, and that is how it is "sold", but also to
protect the pensions and financial services industry.

I've lost this one - are you for or against government intervention?

The simple fact seems to be that to provide pensions, the public are going to
have to save more money than the stock market can find good homes for. A
problem from any point of view. But they're going to try hard to make the
city do it.

The Government is very careful to protect the stock market. It is part of
the "shorttermism" for which British goverments are so rightly criticised.
The stock market can bring about a collapse in a few weeks, industrial
decline takes decades to have an effect, but at the end, stock markets can
only trade if there are profitable companies. The government was not so
careful to protect the Manchester cotton industry or Newcastle shipbuilding.
It let them go. In the very end it might have to let the stock markets go -
the exchange itself is going to be bought by a German or a French company.
And even apart from that, will outsourcing first make a shell of "The City"
and in the end take the whole lot away? I don't know if such discussion has
reached public discussion, but over a glass, planners will admit to being
worried by the possibility. I think the government would fight tooth and nail
to stop that happening.




I'm more than happy for Manchester to have a second runway, and
don't
know enough about the story to comment. My point was merely that I
don't see Manchester developing to the size of Heathrow because I
don't
think there are as many people who want to go there - even if you
leave
aside the higher population density in the south east, comparatively
few international travellers flying to the UK want to land in the
North. It's going to take more than an extra runway to change that.



I was at the Lowry gallery in Manchester last week, and plane after
plane
came over, one every two or three minutes, just like over Elephant and
Castle
where I used to wait for trains.

I'm going to leave this one now as I admit it's quite possible that
there's enough domestic demand to warrant that extra runway (though I
still maintain fewer people internationally want to travel to
Manchester than London). But the new airport at Heathrow is also about
expected future demand. Which links nicely to...

Why did you accept a position that you later had to abandon? I think it is
because London creates a bubble of information around itself. It is normal
for London sources to speak belittlingly of provincial matters, when
confronted with the facts such stances have to be given up. It is normal for
London to talk itself up. Ken Livingstone's office produced figures of
projected London population growth. The Guardian newspaper commented that
these figures were unlikely to be reached and they were really a lever to
screw more money out of the government. Despite this comment, these
projections have been accepted as somehow "official" and by frequent
quotation, they have become accepted. The Government and city don't seem very
willing to spend big money on Crossrail. They know the shaky basis of the
forecasts.



[snip]

But there are also examples of London being held back - the lack of
Crossrail after more than 20 years is a major example. I don't think
the pattern you identify is a prejudice against the north, I think
it's
a systematic underinvestment that has dogged this country since at
least the 1970s.

We're agreed on that. And you agree, as at least some of the publicity
for
Crossrail concedes, that it is not to serve existing traffic better,
but to
pull in NEW traffic.

I've not seen that in anything I've read - it's more that the demand is
expected to grow, and as it is the transport system can't cope with it,
so new infrastructure needs to be built to cope with it.

It's plainly the IMPLICATION of so much publicity. See also the above comment
of population projections for London. In "Britain's Railways" Directory for
2004 in the section on Crossrail it says

"Crossrail will support London's role in the UK economy ....[ie,
increase London's share of the National Cake ]

The key benefits are :-
* The transport capacity to cope with London's forecast population
and economic growth

* Increased rail capacity into London [ Note. NOT WITHIN London ]
More passenger journeys will be possible...........

What's your alternative? One of the reasons companies and people come
to London is because it's already a major centre. Those same people are
not going to suddenly want to move to Birmingham because there's a high
speed train to Leeds. We need investment nationally - without excluding
any area of the country. London represents almost 15% of the
population; so to my mind it should receive about 15% of the
investment. Is that so contraversial?

Of course London should get investment in rough proportion to its population.
(Investment comes in big lumps and can never be spread perfectly evenly.) I
accept that London.

Michael Bell

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