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garye · Posted: Thu Jul 27, 2006 11:40 am Post subject: The New Megalopolis

Got a link recently to an interesting article:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13528839/site/newsweek/from/ET

It doesn't say so in the text but the authors identified one of these "New Urban Corridors" as Glasgow-Edinburgh-Dundee.

Final paragraph poses some interesting thoughts too

"It's time for political and economic leadership to wake up to this new reality. It makes little sense to dwell on countries anymore, when the real engines of innovation and growth are the New Megas. Instead of technology helping to spread economic opportunity and lift many more boats, economic power is concentrating in a small number of key regions. If a backlash emerges, as seems likely, there's almost no telling what political shape it might take."

Personally think it bolsters the case for independence, with economic power in Edinburgh fostering our sole Megalopolis.

Aventinian · Posted: Thu Jul 27, 2006 4:34 pm Post subject:

I think it is good that some of Scotland's economy is moving a little more north (ie, the Dundee direction) than just the Glasgow-Edinburgh corridor.

While the idea of megalopolises having their own powers and authorities would probably benefit them, the reasons for wider planning is to prevent the neglect of other areas. If we concentrate too much on the Edeegow area then we are at risk of forgetting that anything exists outside of that - which is what many of the posters here criticise the London-SE area for.
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Morph · Posted: Thu Jul 27, 2006 4:46 pm Post subject:

I agree. Countries look after vast areas of diverse economic lands eg the main hubs Glasgow and Edinburgh, to fishing economies in the Isles. These are better looked after by one central government rather than indivdual cities, how far would these cities look after themselves also on purely economic terms or in a Greek style city state model?
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Cado · I Love 'Our Scotland' Joined: 14 May 2006 Posts: 283

This article just adds another perspective at the way we should look at things. The cities have always been the areas of major growth - thats why they turn from towns into cities. Being a city is evidence in itself of growth and success - why is Glasgow the city it is and not say, Renfew, Dumbarton etc.

Helensburgh is a good example - it grew in the Victorian age with the arrival of the train - it was a popular resort and weekend getaway amoungst the Glasgow. So in that day in age people with wealth/mobility were seeking to move out of the city to somewhere quieter.

Many of the small villages in the country grew up along side trading routes - many of the old Inns were staging posts for Carriages etc.

Livingston is quite popular amoungst many in the Professional sector because its halfway between Edinburgh and Glasgow.

I think what he is challanging was the concept that people should view cities as independent from what happens around them - ie Glasgow is seperate from Ayrshire, say. However a significant number of people who work in Glasgow city centre live outside Glasgow IMO - rather we should think of cities akin to regional centres but very much part of the surrounding area - with the spaces inbetween cities becoming denser as they fill.

There is a broader point to this that is relevent to Scotland - namely London. Broadly speaking - there SHOULD be a contant ebb and flow between cities/regions etc etc. As the cities become too expensive, people move out, the businesses move out to cheaper places - the cities continuing to act as the hub for all the 'high end' business etc.

But it is a feature of economics that things should want to balance out across areas - the fact that it isn't implies there are other forces working to prevent it. The UK is stuck with this concept of 'one' systems which everything is constrained by - there isn't anyway within this 'one' system of allowing things to balance - hence the reason everything gravitiates towards London - the bigger it gets the more it draws in.

As it stands (going with this chaps vision) - in x years time the UK will just be a massive subsiduary/suburb/region of London - one centre with everything radiating out from it - with Scotland being where it is we'll always be the worse off because we have no way ourself of adjusting things - were contrained by this 'one system' to fit all.

A few thoughts,

Avatar · Posted: Mon Jul 31, 2006 1:18 am Post subject:

I would like to see Scottish cities develop in a similar way to American cities - for example you have different cities for different things i.e new york, washington, las vegas, hollywood and san francisco - whereas in the UK currently everything is in London - I would certainly like to see a spreading of wealth and economy.
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Aventinian · Posted: Mon Jul 31, 2006 4:18 pm Post subject:

Morph · Posted: Tue Aug 01, 2006 1:35 am Post subject:

garye · Posted: Wed Aug 02, 2006 2:10 pm Post subject:

I think the underlying theme of the article is more that it isn’t individual cities that generate economic growth on their own its networks of cities or broader metropolitan regions.

As mentioned there aren’t any individual cities in Scotland that can compete with London but there’s a growing consensus that if Glasgow and Edinburgh co-operated more effectively and acted as a single metropolitan region then it would be an effective competitor on the international stage.

I agree with Cado as well though, where does the line get drawn. I commute from Ayrshire to Glasgow myself and in many ways you look at it and say yeah Ayrshire is part of that metropolitan region but in other ways I think it isn’t-especially once you get towards the south towards Galloway. There’s also the issue of whether places like Kilmarnock aim to be nothing more than dormitory commuter towns or employment centres in their own right (as historically it was). It’s probably an issue of getting the balance right and as also suggested not negleting other areas.

Blackleaf · Posted: Sun Jul 01, 2007 10:02 pm Post subject:

Dave Coull · Independentista Joined: 07 Nov 2006 Posts: 960

Some towns got big because they produced something. For instance, Bradford's textile mills, Stoke-on-Trent's potteries, Birmingham's engineering workshops, Sheffield's fine quality steel products, Glasgow's shipbuilding, and so on. Other towns got big because the king was there. London is one of those towns that got big because the king was there. By the beginning of modern times London was already big. The formation of the United Kingdom made it even bigger. Precisely BECAUSE it was the centre of government, it became the "centre" of the biggest free trade area in all of Europe, and the capital of the most highly centralised state in all of Europe. The growth of the British Empire made it also the centre of government of the biggest empire on Earth. Even after the Empire became the Commonwealth, London remained the centre of the Sterling area. The centre of the world empire remained a centre of world business out of sheer force of habit, because businessmen for the most part lack the imagination to do things differently. London remained a centre of world banking, a centre for the offices of multi-national companies, and all of this happened because, to begin with, the king was there. So the government was there. So all the companies who wanted to get contracts from the government were there. This process is continuing to this very day. Many, many billions of pounds of OUR money is being spent on glorifying London still further for the Olympics. Of course they will try to tell you it is for the benefit of all of us, but the truth is, the Olympics are for the benefit of London. I lived in London for twelve years, working as a bricklayer. That's a useful job, you might think. But what was I building? Sometimes it was office blocks for the millions of pen-pushing bureaucrats. Sometimes it was houses for the millions of pen-pushing bureaucrats. Sometimes it was houses for the people who provided services for the millions of pen-pushing bureaucrats. Hardly anybody at all in London actually PRODUCES anything at all. They are all there because the government is there. This entire mega city is just one great big pile of bureaucracy. Some idiot said no Scottish city can compare with London. Thank God for that, I say.

Dave Coull · Independentista Joined: 07 Nov 2006 Posts: 960

Avatar wrote "I would like to see Scottish cities develop in a similar way to American cities", and "in the UK currently everything is in London" - there are historical reasons why American cities developed differently from British cities. The most obvious reason of all is that the USA is the United States. And people always referred to it as a plural - they said "the United States are". It was only after the American Civil War that changed to a singular, "the United States is". When the US was first formed, these states were all very reluctant to concede power to any central body. Philadelphia was the most important city at that time, with New York a close second, but the states could not agree on either of these cities as capital. In the end they settled their arguments by creating an entirely new city as a capital, and the land it was built on was designated as a completely separate unit, the District of Columbia, so that none of the states could claim that THEY had the capital. The states being jealous of each other, and strongly opposed to any one city having too much power, made it possible for a lot of big cities to develop in the USA. In England, by contrast, London had been the capital since before William the Conqueror, and it was the capital of the most centralised state in all of Europe. With the Union of the Crowns in 1603 James the Sixth moved to London and the area dominated by the city became even bigger, then the Union of the Parliaments in 1707 made London bigger still, then the growth of the British Empire turned London into a world capital. But it was and remains the most useless city in the British Isles, and probably the most useless city on the entire planet. People go there from all over the world because that is where the jobs are, that is where the money is, that is where the power is. I'm not blaming them for doing this, after all I did exactly the same thing, and in the twelve years that I lived and worked in London I was one of the MAJORITY of Londoners, the ones who didn't come from London. I'm glad I got out after twelve years, but of course many people stay on year after year, telling themselves that they will go "home" one of these days (wherever in the world home happens to be), and their kids grow up there, and finally they realise they are never going to leave. Scotland acquiring its own parliament has made a wee bit of a dent in the massive dominance of London, but not really an awful lot of difference, after all there is the sheer inertia of many centuries of London-centralism. London is an unnaturally bloated city, it is an extremely corrupt city (after all, the only reason lots of businesses have their headquarters in London is so that they can get favours from government). Yes, Scottish independence will reduce the London bloat a bit, after all the city will no longer be the capital of quite such a big territory. Despite the fact that we here in Scotland are going to be subsidizing the London Olympics to the tune of many millions of pounds, at present many English people mistakenly believe that _they_ subsidize _us_. But when the truth of the matter finally sinks in, Londoners will come to realise the city will lose a little bit of its dominance with Scottish independence. Some of them will not like this, but maybe some will come to realise that the London bloat is environmentally unsustainable. Oh, by the way, this really ought to be obvious, but I'll say it anyway - while Edinburgh is the capital of Scotland, that is no reason why absolutely everything should be centralised there. The Northern Isles should have a considerable degree of autonomy. Some functions of government could and should be devolved to Glasgow, Dundee, Aberdeen, or Inverness.