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The UK has typically had the highest levels of income inequality in Europe. A previous Prime Minister had been quoted 'A pound spent in Croydon is far more of
by ricardo81 3y ago
The UK has typically had the highest levels of income inequality in Europe.
A previous Prime Minister had been quoted 'A pound spent in Croydon is far more of value to the country than a pound spent in Strathclyde', Croydon being in London and Strathclyde being an administrative area in West Scotland that ceased to exist in 1975. The quote was from 2012.
WFH has allowed me to continue working from rural Scotland, to be honest I thought COVID would radically transform society's thinking and our requirement to be in high GDP areas for certain lines of work. Doesn't seem to have had quite the impact it was supposed to.
- louthy 3y agoAlthough Croydon is a London borough, it's quite far outside of central London, to the point that it doesn't really feel part of London. It's also quite a deprived area. So that quote is weird on a number of levels!
- comprev 3y agoPerhaps the intended message was "Both Croydon and Strathclyde are shit places, but Croydon is a little less shit. By spending that pound in Croydon we can hopefully avoid it becoming Strathclyde"
- ricardo81 3y agoI think his general idea was that money invested in London was of greater economic benefit to the whole country than investing the same amount elsewhere.
- Symbiote 3y agoThe average "Index of Multiple Deprivation" [1] for Croydon is about 14,000, where every area (of some equal population size) is ranked from 1 to 32,884. Very roughly average for England. Scotland isn't included, so I can't compare Strathclyde, but Blackpool's average is 5,900 — and includes 8 of the 10 most deprived places in the country. Only one bit of London (part of Haringey) makes the top 1000. Only 106 bits of London (out of 4685) make the top 10%. [1] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/english-indices-of-deprivation-2019 https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/english-indices-of-...
- HPsquared 3y agoScotland has the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation... Currently house-hunting at the moment, it's a great tool! https://simd.scot https://simd.scot
- parenthesis 3y agoAre you using it to avoid deprived areas, or to find them and hence cheap houses?
- HPsquared 3y agoNot sure... It's probably contributing to my analysis paralysis on the matter actually. Very interesting to look at though!
- ZephyrBlu 3y ago> I thought COVID would radically transform society's thinking and our requirement to be in high GDP areas for certain lines of work 1) Why did you think that? 2) Why do you assume that people are only in "high GDP areas" for work? Personally I moved from rural New Zealand to London and I work 100% remotely.
- ricardo81 3y agoBecause certain lines of work don't require physical presence but are skilled jobs. /added Also, I prefer a rural setting, no doubt others do too. Cost of living is lower also.
- ZephyrBlu 3y agoMost people really don't prefer a rural setting. People go to these "high GDP" places because there is a greater abundance of opportunities there. Relationships, friends, career, networks, etc. Even if you can work rurally due to remote work, you miss out on a lot by not being where other people are.
- midasuni 3y agoOf my close friends from uni days, only one lives in london, and that’s by choice (her job was moved from london to somewhere in Surrey well before covid so she was “reverse commuting” several times a week. The others live in a seaside town in devon, a Wiltshire village, a Shropshire village, and one lives in a small Derbyshire town.
- ZephyrBlu 3y agoLondon's population is still growing, and faster than the UK population. People want to be in cities, not just because there are more jobs there. Definitely dependent on demographics though. https://www.macrotrends.net/cities/22860/london/population https://www.macrotrends.net/cities/22860/london/population https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/GBR/united-kingdom/population-growth-rate https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/GBR/united-kingdom/pop...
- DrBazza 3y agoThat's how infrastructure projects are prioritised in the UK. Return on the pound. The south east returns something like 10x the investment versus the north of England. Just look at HS2 - everything north and north east of Birmingham has effectively been cancelled, leaving yet another "national" infrastructure project serving only London. This Government, or the previous one, or the previous one, ad nauseam, continually fail to invest in the north, and north east. In fact the last major national infrastructure in those regions would be the building of the motorways. (edit) And just look at the North East, Sedgefield had Labour PM Tony Blair, Hartlepool had MP and cabinet member Peter Mandelson, and yet the investment there during that 15 year period was negligible. It's a London-based Government thing, not a political thing. If you're not "close" to London, you're going to be poor by comparison. Bringing Newcastle closer to Leeds by faster road and rail, and hence York, Sheffield, Manchester, Liverpool and the Potteries, would hugely increase economic productivity in the North of England. I too hope that WFH will redistribute the wealth around the UK. I hate the fact that we have an idiotic adversarial political system. Which ever party is in power is invariably hamstrung by the opposition voting the other way just 'because', is pathetically childish. The best time to build infrastructure was yesterday.
- flir 3y agoThey're almost never hamstrung by the opposition voting against them. If they didn't have a majority, they wouldn't be the government. Right now the majority is, what, 80? They could pass anything they wanted.