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Will London Fall?
- royka118 9y agoNo, London will still be London. Why do people think that suddenly you might have to apply for a visa people will stop wanting to come and live in London?
- m_t 9y agoProbably because one of the reason people from the EU came to London and, in general, the UK, was because you didn't need a visa. Remove that possibility, then people will consider other places as well.
- royka118 9y agosure but the types of jobs on offer in London may not be on offer elsewhere.
- forgingahead 9y agoI highly doubt people keen on going to London would consider Brussels or Frankfurt an acceptable substitute.
- raverbashing 9y agoThe ones that won't bother to learn a different language certainly won't
- gpvos 9y agoDepends on where the jobs move to.
- Arizhel 9y agoBecause they don't live in London just because they like Big Ben; they go there for the jobs and the economy. With a hard Brexit, that all disappears because the only reason London is the economic powerhouse that it is is because of its position within the EU. When that disappears, the reason for all the banks to be there will also disappear, and the local economy will collapse. When that happens, people will be moving out in droves.
- dragonwriter 9y ago> With a hard Brexit, that all disappears because the only reason London is the economic powerhouse that it is is because of its position within the EU. This may be the only reason it has retained the role, but it had the role for a couple centuries before the EU, largely due to its historical position in the Empire and inertia. I don't think the essential connection of the role to the EU is universally accepted. Though we'll certainly see if it's true...
- Arizhel 9y agoThe Empire is long since dead and gone, and small has-been nations with little significant industry cannot retain world-leading status forever on inertia alone. Just look at Italy; where are they now? They make some great olive oil I guess, and a few really nice cars, but they're not the powerhouse they were 2000 years ago. The essential connection of the role to the EU may not be universally accepted, but it's also not universally accepted that the world is round or that humans visited the Moon. The EU countries are more prosperous economically for the same reason the US has been prosperous for a long time: having tons of different currencies and massive transaction overhead (customs, duties, different regulations to follow, etc.) every time you cross a border is bad for economies. North Korea is a good example of how a country does economically without significant trade.
- krona 9y agoThe French have been claiming the end of the City of London and Anglo-Saxon capitalism since the 16th century. Other than the outbreak of WWI, I can't think of a single example that had a material, long lasting effect on London as a center for global finance. Yes, London is at an inflection point. Then again, so is the EU, traditional commercial banking and global finance in general. Brexit pales in comparison to these things.
- demonshalo 9y agoI am unable to read this on mobile. Can anyone tl;dr plz?
- filoleg 9y agoLondoners voted against Brexit, yet Brexit happened. London will be in ruins now as a world capital, surely. That's quite literally the summary, if you normalize for all the musings and feel-good details.
- trendia 9y agoA careful reading of this article will show that the authore made absolutely zero objective, measurable predictions. e.g. the author doesn't say that the banking system will fail, or the stock market will crash, or that average incomes will fall relative to their continental counterparts.
- filoleg 9y agoOh yeah, definitely agreed, which is why I added "surely" at the end. It wasn't anything objective that the author claimed that he expects to fail, like banking, or stock market, or anything else, just his vague abstract notion of failure.
- barrkel 9y agoHowever, the mood of the piece accurately captured my ambivalence about continuing to live in London. I bought a house just before the election, but I'm finding it extremely hard to justify investing much in it because I can't really see a future for me in this country, if it continues to trend. It's not about plummeting stock markets or failing banking systems. It's about living with the uncertainty as to whether I'll still be welcome as a non-citizen. The moment the UK state starts to vary treatment on important things like entitlements or tax rates, I'm out of here - I'm not like some cow to be milked for the benefit of the natives. I reckon I'm 6 to 18 months away from leaving for someplace else.
- omurphyevans 9y ago
- tomtheelder 9y agoI honestly tried to read this but couldn't get past the format. The rapid changes of background/text when scrolling were incredibly jarring. This felt like a regular long form article made into an "interactive" (in quotes because there is no actual interaction) for the sake of it. Maybe this isn't a productive comment but the format ruined the article for me.
- kolbe 9y agoDon't worry. They applied the same over-stylized method to make up for lack of substance in their verbal content, too.
- brianwawok 9y agoDitto.
- trendia 9y agoIf you have Firefox, click on the "open book" (Reader mode) icon up near the address bar. It will extract the text and present it without the NYT layout / Javascript. These days I read practically all of my articles using Reader Mode. No ads, no scrolljacking, no popup videos.
- syntaxing 9y agoIF you're on desktop, I highly recommend using the reader view feature built into Firefox. Makes most of my reading experience so much better for most sites.
- 9y ago
- Dekken 9y agoyour site is bad and you should feel bad
- muninn_ 9y agoWill we ever have titles that aren't clickbait? Nicely designed site/story. But to put it simply: no. There's simply no reason that London will "fall". Yes the immigration with the EU will cause problems, and yes they will lose a lot of financial industry business but London will continue to exist, and prosper. People will still immigrate to the UK, and people will still live in London. The strength of the city lies not solely as it relates to the EU, but because it is the capitol, and largest city of a long and storied nation that is largely prosperous and innovative. I really wish we'd stop this whole Brexit == UK falls into the sea forever nonsense. Economic problems? Maybe. But prosperous people are innovative and responsive to change. Immigration is not the sole contributor to economic growth or innovation. If it was, than China, Japan, and many other countries would still be subsistence farming.
- omurphyevans 9y agoIt's not saying that. It's pointing our how London is very much the emblem of a modern, integrated, multicultural city, and this is bound to change. It doesn't say it'll fall into the sea. It wonders how such a city might change, most likely in directions opposed to its current identity.
- muninn_ 9y agoWhy is that considered "fall" then?
- shitgoose 9y agoweb site design is moronic. i couldn't get past the second paragraph. who in their mind designed and approved it???
- amiga-workbench 9y agoReader mode is essential on the modern web, everything has a crap signal to noise ratio.
- wyldfire 9y agoI sympathize that folks don't like the format how this story is presented. I don't think I am quite as irritated but I do not prefer all this activity while I scroll. I think it's great that NYT is experimenting new ways to capitalize on this medium and not merely just publishing their print stories on the web. ...but it's probably best for them to learn from this experiment and not repeat it.
- redsummer 9y agoLondon will fall just like Switzerland, Norway and Iceland have collapsed because they are not in the EU. The UK will become like Somalia. No wait, actually those 3 countries are in the top 5 countries to live in the world. Why do people wish for apocalypses?
- ecdavis 9y ago> Why do people wish for apocalypses? To validate ideology.
- grkvlt 9y agoSome people just want to watch the world burn?
- breatheoften 9y agoNot necessarily -- if I believe your actions make everyone but yourself worse off, it's not entirely unreasonable for me to choose an outcome where I'm a little worse off than I would be in order to ensure that your benefit is reduced or taken away. This outcome is common in situations where trust does not exist between parties -- my action might actually be required to motivate you to seek to rebuild trust. I can easily interpret your characterization of me with the phrase "wishing for the apocalypse" as you overstating the relative importance of your loss vs mine.
- ecdavis 9y agoIf the premise of the question is invalid then my answer is irrelevant.
- tartuffe78 9y agoWatching something is a spectacle, even if you know it's bad its still entertaining. This kind of article will get more traction than a dry analysis, "London will probably be fine".
- degenerate 9y ago"We shall have world government, whether or not we like it. The question is only whether world government will be achieved by consent or by conquest" [1] - Statement by Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) member James Warburg to The Senate Foreign Relations Committee on February 17th, 1950 [1] https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/James_Warburg_before_the_Subcommittee_on_Revision_of_the_United_Nations_Charter#We_shall_have_world_government https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/James_Warburg_before_the_Subc... To put it bluntly, (consolidated government === consolidated control). We will see the media 'attack' the brexit decision in every possible way. TPTB (the ones with the money who own most media) do not want sovereign states.
- socrates1998 9y agoI am not so sure that Brexit will have such a negative impact on Europe (and the world). I don't like the idea of these Super National organizations that politically and economically integrate people so tightly. Really it's more about having our global society so tightly integrated and efficient. It means power (economic and political) goes to a select few people who get better and better at holding on to it. These crazy large banks that are so freaking tightly integrated are the worse example. A crisis at one bank triggers a global meltdown. We don't want a global meltdown so we bail out the banks, making them bigger and more powerful, exacerbating the problem. The more tightly controlled everything is makes our system so fragile. If the UK is more separated economically from Europe, if one or the other has an economic crisis the separation will lead to less drastic economic crisis.
- voidz 9y agoThis is a well formed opinion. It shouldn't be downvoted; if people disagree there are better ways to express that than by downvoting it to fade out.
- rustynails 9y agoI apologise for going OT but you are right. This is a culture creeping into HN. Unpopular (but well thought) views are sometimes (too frequently) being down voted because people don't like it. This behaviour shuts down robust discussion and creates a conformist culture where "we are all individuals" (ala Monty Python). It is a fine line. Some postings cross the line, some are not value adding because they say nothing (eg. Me too). However, contrasting views (particularly well argued, potentially controversial views) are what really keeps HN so refreshing and thought provoking. It may be time for the owners to open up a discussion on use of votes again.
- raverbashing 9y agoIntegration has ups and downs Ups: moving in a cohesive direction. Like CO2 emission reduction I think there's a balance between independence and integration needed at all levels (global/"continental"/national/regional/municipal) that has to be found
- markbnj 9y agoLondon has been a "world capitol" ... meaning I guess that it has deserved that description as much as any other large city ... since at least the mid-17th century. Whatever affect brexit has on the UK economy and place in the European sphere I doubt it will fundamentally alter London's status.
- sambe 9y agoLots of people commenting to say "of course not, article is stupid". Ignoring the fact that the article doesn't really say it will, that view seems unnecessarily dismissive. At the very least, finance is massively important to London and many firms are considering their options. Of course, we don't know yet how that will play out. Having recently moved back after 10 years, the country seems massively behind the times in most ways. Everything is slower and less efficient than in Europe; more bureaucratic, worse technology & infrastructure. Half the service at twice the price and takes three weeks to do anything. I don't feel farming subsidies are going to cut it going forward.
- Boothroid 9y agoDepends on which part of Europe you are talking about. Europe is huge and diverse - kind of like the UK. Apart from your personal view, I doubt you can find the facts to back up your assertions. Example: France is famously mired in bureaucracy, with law that discourages scaling up a business beyond a certain size due to the tower of rules and regulations you have to comply with beyond that size. Another example: Crossrail, one of if not the largest infrastructure project in Europe just now, and it's in the UK. Takes three weeks to do anything? BT are crap, granted, but Amazon Prime takes care of many things I need the next day, and apart from getting a mortgage banking is pretty swift these days. Healthcare? I call the doctor and get a triage callback the same day, and often an appointment the same day, with nothing paid. I remember telling colleagues in the Netherlands that we paid nothing, which punctured their idea of superiority a little given their compulsory health insurance charges, plus extra per visit costs. You're not the only one that's lived abroad.
- sambe 9y agoThe places I've lived. Not just BT; literally every company I've dealt with since getting back has been somehow ragingly incompetent. How about a welcome letter with account number asking you to sign up online, followed by support call saying that won't actually work because it takes 10 business days to move your details from one computer to another? The Netherlands is one such country: not perfect but vastly better - definitely including the health service. You certainly don't pay nothing for the NHS.
- branchless 9y agoRight at the end: "She pays $750 a month for a room on the edge of the city with seven roommates". Financialisation of housing is killing the UK. Work has no real meaning because value created is unrelated to fiat money appropriated. The divide between have and have not is massive. Immigration is being used to prop up demand for housing as nobody can pay for a small apartment any more so people live 8 to a small house.
- sprafa 9y agoYou're right but HN hive mind is destroying you.
- branchless 9y agoIt's the worst site on the internet for economics. The mixture of econ 101 and smug closed-mindedness from success in other fields is hard to beat.
- wehadfun 9y agoStupid article. London has survived a couple world wars, invasions, depressions.
- Arizhel 9y agoSo has Rome. But Rome isn't exactly a globally-important city any more.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- chvid 9y agoLondon has fallen. Is falling. Slowly thru a century. As the focal point for economic activity of the planet moved from Europe to North America and eventually will move to China. Brexit has got nothing to do with it; there are much larger forces at play.
- olivermarks 9y agoThis is an awful piece of pro globalist propaganda IMO. Good job the online format makes it so hard to read. The EU is totally undemocratic with 7 unelected presidents imposing layers of bureaucracy and regulation on everyone within the eurozone. It has failed to reform and modernize, a key reason why the UK elected to leave in the referendum. Meanwhile Wall Street is locked in combat with the City of London, hence the 'poor old London the loser/ has been tone' of this article. 'Will London Fall?' etc The reality is that the City of London is an entirely separate sovereign state within England, and is also one of the largest offshore tax havens on the planet. (This also urgently needs reform). https://www.ft.com/content/7c8f24fa-3aa5-11e4-bd08-00144feabdc0 https://www.ft.com/content/7c8f24fa-3aa5-11e4-bd08-00144feab... As such it is highly unlikely that anything will change around London's global dominance financially.. I am all for integration of the peoples of europe, but on their own terms and wellbeing, not as chattels of a large globalist financial entity. Greece, Portugal, Spain and Ireland have all been badly damaged by the EU. We need a more equitable system that is about the people and not profits...
- Boothroid 9y agoSpot on.
- krona 9y agoThey asked the same question in 2008.
- k__ 9y agoI hope so. The UK has brought the world much pain, sadly there is no omnipresent compensation, like Karma, that make things right again. The only fear I have is that people will now flock to Berlin and gentrify the hell out of it. Shame.
- mangecoeur 9y agoThis article does a great job at capturing the mood in London. I think a lot of Londoners feel a kind of betrayal - when Brexiteers talk about 'reclaiming' the country, to diverse Londoners that means 'reclaiming' it from them. There is no doubt that people are feel targeted and alienated by this kind of discourse - and this very much includes EU citizens who have been witnessing the rhetoric with increasing concern. I particularly dislike the arrogance of the uniquely British 'reassurances' given to skilled non-UK citizens with regards to this anti-immigrant rhetoric, which goes something like "Oh when we talk about throwing out the filthy immigrants, we don't mean YOU - so long as we find you useful". I mean, geez, thanks I guess it's just friends and family who'll get forcibly deported then, nothing to worry about. In general there appears to be a (possibly wilful) lack of appreciation among the Brexit crowd that when you say horrible things about the Europeans and immigrants, those people can actually hear you. I'm not sure how they expect to build an 'open trading nation' while becoming known as the country that calls foreigners scum.
- ng12 9y agoHow is that uniquely British? They do that everywhere. The primary justification for accepting immigrants is that they are a driver for the economy.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- mrec 9y agoIs it really Leavers saying that, though? Or is it Remainers telling everyone that Leavers are saying that as a way of trying to make Leavers look bad? Obviously, as with anything in reality, it's a bit of both. But polls both before and after the referendum consistently showed that immigration was not the primary concern motivating Leave voters, support for immigration in general is still very high across the board (well into the 80s IIRC, and ISTR the most recent poll I saw showed only about a 1% gap in support for it between Leave and Remain voters), and support for all existing EU residents being able to stay after Brexit is near-as-dammit universal. The only reason that hasn't been officially confirmed already is that the EU refused to reciprocate for UK citizens living in the rEU until the Article 50 notification had happened. I understand that a lot of people are anxious, and I hope things get cleared up soon to remove that anxiety, but the people continually screaming that Brexiteers hate immigrants and want to throw them out, against all evidence to the contrary, are not really helping matters.
- rm445 9y agoSo this article is about whether London will lose its multicultural appeal after Brexit. Here's an observation about the nationalities of the people cited. Quite a few Europeans, but also: - An Indian-British writer (Nikesh Shukla) who has compiled a set of essays about nonwhite Britons. (In case it isn't obvious, most (all?) European countries are mostly white and the countries that are mostly nonwhite are not in Europe). - Russian house-buyers. - A Canadian who wrote a book about London. - London's Pakistani-British mayor. - A Brazilian hairdresser. - A Japanese sculptor. - Jewish refugees from European persecution a hundred years before Britain joined the EU. - An Indian food entrepeneur. - Somali immigrants at the doctor's surgery. - The Bangladeshi-born mayor of Tower Hamlets. - Bangladeshi muslims at Brick Lane Mosque. Excellent people, no doubt, and worthy contributors to the life of the capital (even the Russian oligarchs). The point is that they don't seem to owe their position to EU membership. It's interesting, the opening lines of the article say 'after the "Brexit" referendum, its future as an international crossroads is far from certain'. But the sources make it seem like London's multiculturalism doesn't owe that much to the EU in the first place.
- a_name 9y agoThe Bangladeshi-born mayor of Tower Hamlets Not an excellent person. "An east London mayor has been removed from office and a poll declared void after he was found guilty of electoral fraud." http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-32428648 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-32428648 Current mayor is John Biggs.
- cylinder 9y agoIf the EU citizens wanted security of living in London for as long as they want, why not apply for permanent residency after five years and then citizenship? Doesn't seem like that big of an obstacle. Why is London the only prosperous city in England? Does that seem right? Germany has many prosperous cities. And what is it that makes London a world capital so much more than Paris or Frankfurt? Perhaps it is due to something uniquely British? If so, perhaps that's worth preserving. As someone living for years in one of these "global cities," they are all hype. They are modern feudal estates. Look at the mentality of so many of these expats who come into London... For example, the French. Do they treasure British traditions? Doubtful. They want to make their money and resume and go back home as soon as it's feasible. They want to stick to their own enclaves in London. Does anyone else find this odd and unappealing from both sides? How did London become a global capital? Mostly money laundering for the world. They call it finance, but it's really just banking (not a lot of PE or hedge funds), which is really just money laundering when you talk about the top end of that industry. Screw banking and finance, every city they dominate ends up sucking. Leave and we can build a city based on something real. I just saw this in Sydney too. Everyone openly says, the (white) Aussies have sold their property and bailed out to regional towns or what not. It seems abnormal because what all the immigrants were chasing was the place, culture and system those people built.
- Boothroid 9y agoSo much FUD it's difficult to know where to start! Just a few observations: 1. Londoners are said to be more open-minded, but there's been plenty of narrow-minded sneering about Brexit supporters from Remainers 2. There is a deliberately false picture being portrayed that no immigration will be permitted after Brexit. On the contrary - it's just that the UK will be able to exercise sovereignty over its borders once again. Nothing about that means the drawbridge is being pulled up 3. No one makes the same criticisms about isolation etc. from other places that don't offer hundreds of millions of people the automatic right to move to. Canada? Australia? You never hear the same bleating about these countries skilled migrant programmes!! 4. No one could have predicted what London would have looked like in future even if we had stayed in the EU - let's not forget the EU has a good long list of serious challenges on its plate 5. 'You can't live in an island and call it your oasis' said Shirley Watkins, 83 - might just as well say the same about the detachment of Londoners from the rest of the UK! 6. Criticism of tabloid press over Brexit - let's not forget the almost unanimous media, political, business and academic consensus that supported remain, and the apocalyptic FUD saying things like the day after a leave vote an immediate recession would start, etc. etc. In that context criticism of one side hints at bias 7. '..London is struggling so much now.'. Oh please.. Not from where I'm standing. So the borders with the EU become a little firmer. As if there won't still be millions of people interested in making the UK their home. Who's to say we won't have a more interesting and diverse London with more migrants from outside the EU?