Tag: britain

• In-person spending in Britain’s commuter towns

  As I understand it, there is now something called hybrid work. The way this works is that on some days you go into the office and on some days you work from home, or from some “third space” near to your home. As a result of this, there are now more people, at least for the time being, that seem to be willing to live further out from large urban centers. And this is reflected in the data that the Financial Times recently published in an article about “how the pandemic transformed Britain’s commuter towns“:

  

  In-person spending in the City of London has yet to fully recover. It remains below 2019 levels. Whereas a number of places that I am generally unfamiliar with (see chart) are now above where they were pre-pandemic. This, again, makes intuitive sense: more decentralization, more time at home, and less time in the City of London. Though we could also be seeing some low base effect here. Either way, my gut continues to be that a lot of people are still underestimating the stickiness of cities and the importance of in-person interactions.

  2022.11.07

• Two-up, two-down

  Feargus O’Sullivan is doing a series in CityLab right now on the “home designs” that define four European cities: London, Berlin, Amsterdam, and Paris. The first one is on London’s classic “two-up, two-down” design, which refers to a two storey home with a living room and kitchen on the ground floor and two bedrooms on the second. It’s a simple design, but one that has supposedly endured.

  O’Sullivan argues that for many, or perhaps most in Britain, this is what a “home” feels like. It’s grade-related and there are two floors. Indeed, only 14% of British people live in an apartment, compared to 57% in Germany (a majority). This percentage is much higher in London, with about 43% of people living in an apartment. But about 25% of the population still lives in some sort of attached house.

  Home equals house. And for us North Americans, this is of course relatable. But the Germany example is a reminder that this is not necessarily universal. Attitudes toward housing are cultural. And cultures can and do change. I am seeing that happen right now in Toronto. Some of us are becoming less like the British and more like the Germans.

  2020.01.11

• How London became the center of the world

  

  Some of you may want to debate the “center of the world” title (New York may be more deserving), but Laura Parker of National Geographic recently published a great essay describing the tremendous growth that London has seen over the last 30 years thanks to in part the deregulation of the financial services industry. Here is an excerpt:

  As the manufacturing industry splintered, the docks of what was once the world’s largest port fell victim to shipping modernization and closed. The death in 1965 of Winston Churchill, the great prime minister, marked “the last time that London would be the capital of the world,” the Observer noted. Population continued a downward slide, bottoming out at 6.7 million in 1988. By then London’s fortunes had changed with deregulation of the financial services industry, known as the Big Bang, along with the shift to electronic trading, which enabled London to rival Tokyo and New York. A new financial district rose on the ruins of the West India Docks on the Isle of Dogs, a marshy nub that juts into the Thames. Canary Wharf, as the district is called, became London’s first modern large-scale regeneration project.

  According to National Geographic, London’s population grew by about 1.2 million between 2006 and 2016. That’s a pretty incredible number and is why the city estimates that they need about 66,000 new housing units a year just to keep up the growth. Like many supply constrained big cities, they’re not meeting that target.

  For the full essay, click here. It comes packaged with some incredible photographs by Luca Locatelli.

  2018.11.28

• How the UK voted

  For some reason, I woke up extra early this morning, well before my alarm. As soon as I came to and noticed the time, I immediately reached for my phone to pull up Twitter and see what happened with the UK referendum. And frankly, I was shocked to see that they had voted to leave the EU. 

  Once I saw what had happened, I then went to my computer and started looking for maps of the voting results. 

  Here’s one from the Guardian:

  

  They also found that the best predictor of how people voted (with Scotland being a bit of an exception) was whether or not they had a degree. Residents with higher education were more likely to vote “remain.”

  

  Here’s another vote map from the Telegraph, broken down by 12 regions:

  

  According to these regions, only Northern Ireland, Scotland, and London voted to remain. If we get a bit more granular though, the map turns into this:

  

  Not surprisingly, it is London and other big cities (remain) vs. the rest of England (leave). Here’s another case of urban divide.

  2016.06.24

• Should I stay or should I go?

  

  I’m listening to The Foreign Desk this morning while I have my coffee. Steve Bloomfield is interviewing two different politicians: one who believes Britain should remain in the EU and one who believes Britain should leave the EU. 

  (Each interview is about 15 minutes short.)

  The back and forth is largely centered around two things: the economy and immigration. Will the British economy be better off in or out of the EU? And on the immigration front, will “in” translate into millions of Turks flooding into Britain should Turkey join the EU?

  For those of you who haven’t been following, Britain will be holding a referendum on June 23rd (2016) to decide whether they stay or go.

  My general view is that a strong economy should trump concerns over foreigners. But I don’t feel as if I know enough about this precise topic to take a firm position.

  Regardless, I very much enjoyed The Foreign Desk episode this morning and I would be open to discussing this issue in the comments below if any of you are also interested.

  2016.06.11

• The biggest international buyers of American homes

  A reader recently sent me a New York Times article talking about Chinese buyers flooding into the US residential real estate market. This is something that I’ve written about before, but I liked the “graphic” section called The Roots of China’s Real Estate Rush.

  Here are two of the graphs:

  

  The second chart shows you just how much more significant Chinese buyers are compared to the next biggest foreign customer of American homes: Canadians. And with the Canadian dollar where it is, it is no surprise that we are trending downwards. That doesn’t seem to be the case with the Chinese.

  2015.11.29