Policy Exchange report in full - not so barmy but still pretty crazy

Update: Tim Leunig was talking about this report on the BBC London lunchtime news. He said that the "rationale" (i.e. their inductrial basis) behind cities in the north had "gone away". He was standing in London saying that. I'd like to see him say that in Manchester on North West regional television. While he may be right in a detached academic sense, if you ignore the invention of computer networking, he has the stark reality to answer. The North-West has 5.5% unemployment. London has 7.3% unemployment overall, plus a higher cost of living, traffic problems, schools shortages and, above all, a staggeringly high cost of housing. And let's be clear: the vast majority of jobs in London are in business services. Manufacturing is declining. So, if people are encouraged successfully to move from the north to London, the chances are that many of them will be travelling to an office to sit in front of a computer. They could do that in Manchester (or indeed their home in the north of England) via cabling which already exists!!!!!

By the way, the report does also say that there should be traffic of business the other way - ie. from London/South-East to the north.

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The Policy Exchange report "Cities Unlimited - making urban regeneration work" can be read in full here. It is perhaps well summed up by this passage from the executive summary:

There is no realistic prospect that our
regeneration towns and cities can converge
with London and the South East. There is,
however, a very real prospect of encouraging
significant numbers of people to move
from those towns to London and the
South East. We know that the capital and
its region are economic powerhouses that
can grow and create new high-skilled,
high-wage service sector hubs. At the same
time market mechanisms can be used to
induce some firms to move out of the
South East.

Whatever happened to encouraging high tech solutions - for example things like tele-working? The report alludes briefly to clusters of new industries in places like Manchester and Newcastle. But it's overall conclusion is rather depressing, if, in the overall sense, reflecting an overwhelming south-east-centric economic pull. What I would like to see is a defiance of this "pull" and the shifting of certain functions out of London and the south east. For example. the Liberal Democrat proposal to move civil service functions out of London and the South East has much to recommend it.

It really is daft to be moving people into the already over-crowded and hyper-house priced South-East (although I acknowledge the report demonstrates ways unused land can be used in London) when they could be staying where they are and using computer networks to connect with the South East and the rest of the world. Big corporations are now so spread out across the world that geography has become meaningless. You can have a conference call with people from Hungary, Ireland, Scotland, England, Australia, India, US etc etc with networked "virtual conference rooms" - and you don't even think about where people are.

What I would like to see is more encouragement of this type of working than what seems to be a very old-fashioned attitude of moving people around the country. It's crazy.