Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, who could ever afford a £8 ping on a SWE salary. /s
Tax rates matter. It's easy to talk as a yank in a US salary with the tax rates in most states. UK is insane.
-healthcare, etc, etc
London Then and Now: Aerial Shots Show City Grow over Past Two Decades
201–210 of 220 posts
Re: London Then and Now: Aerial Shots Show City Grow over Past Two Decades
#202i moved to London a decade ago, and it's incredible how much the city has changed. whole new neighborhoods have been built on the sites of former industrial parks. existing neighborhoods are expanding, and new skyscrapers are appearing all over the place. even new (and huge) infrastructure projects. as a european, this change is something special. in europe you will rarely find a city as big and important as London w…
It's astounding how much greener it is in the pictures. It can take trees ~30 years to reach maturity where they can span across an entire street. I assumed that part of the reason the nicer neighborhoods in the EU and most the US were so nice is because they had always been green and nice. But maybe it only takes ~10 years or so? Not familiar with London, but looking at the pictures, it looks like maybe this is a re…
[deleted]
Re: London Then and Now: Aerial Shots Show City Grow over Past Two Decades
#203Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unproductive work is a financial drain, wouldn't it help investments to cut it? (We do have the problem of defining what's productive, though)... Economic calculation problem.
No. Those "unproductive" workers spend their money which ends up driving labor growth because of the services and goods they pay for. If every company got rid of the "unproductive" workers and all the inefficiency, you'd have wide swaths of really unproductive unemployed who are unable to contribute to the economy in any way, as well as all the "saved" money going towards the wealthy.
Thus my comment. Let’s cut these “bullshit” jobs and have another French Revolution already.
Re: London Then and Now: Aerial Shots Show City Grow over Past Two Decades
#204Earlier quoted context omitted.
In my opinion it could be solved by simply making it more attractive to have children, but it would require more equality and redistribution of wealth to cover the costs. There would still be billionaires, but the number of ultra-rich may be reduced. Women wants careers and equal opportunities. That means they wait longer and longer before they get children because they want to make sure they have a career to go back…
Norway is close to providing all of what you describe and still seeing well below replacement fertility rates. It maybe be a start, and it produces a far more pleasant society, but it's not enough.
There are other concerns as well related to cost of living.
Even though we would like people to live outside the cities, cities attract a lot of potential parents. They end up in a situation where they have a long education and start their careers late and don't have the financial capability to get a decent family friendly apartment in the city. Many wait until it's almost too late, and having more than 1 or 2 is definitely not something most wants
The average age of first-time mothers is over 30 years old. A single child may be something the family can handle, but more than 1 or 2 forces the families to move outside the cities to be able to afford a house in addition to hurting the mother's career.
Tldr:
- Cost of living in the cities are too high
- If a second (or third) child forces them to move out of the city, many increasingly choose the cities
- Having more than one child after 30 will have a negative impact on the career as they simply can't work as many hours and has to spend long periods away from work
Re: London Then and Now: Aerial Shots Show City Grow over Past Two Decades
#205Earlier quoted context omitted.
It will not continue seeing such rapid growth for another few hundred years, world population will plateau by mid century and even the big cities will at some point stop growing.
Inner London population peaked over 100 years ago.
But the "suburbs" (some of them would not be considered suburbs but simply outer parts of the city in a lot of other places in the world) are immensely more populous than 100 years ago.
Re: London Then and Now: Aerial Shots Show City Grow over Past Two Decades
#206Earlier quoted context omitted.
Probably better to ask ourselves more holistically what good urban design looks like. There are very pleasant and extremely livable high density cities (or areas within them) as well as many example of lower density urban and suburban environments that are awful. Also, buildings are not really getting “ever denser and taller” except in the most extreme cases. In London, for example we’re usually talking about taking…
A pleasant environment is not too dense. People prefer less density, more space, more greenery. At some point more people means quality of life has to go down. Now, the UK's population does not even grow intrinsically, we're creating the problem by literally importing people.
I agree there’s almost certainly a maximum density above which we don’t know how to make cities livable.
London is nowhere near that. The relatively dense parts that suck to live in suck for other reasons or because of poor design (read: lack of care for the people who will live there from the designers/funders). Sprawl scales as badly, though it’s easier to pretend it doesn’t.
As for the rest of the UK: there’s even more opportunity to introduce well thought out density alongside infrastructure improvements and create a net benefit for everyone.
> we're creating the problem by literally importing people.
This is the opposite of how I see it. The UK could easily grow by properly investing in cities and infrastructure without eating into green space (and still meet climate goals).
Given the current unsettled world, we should be opening the doors to the smart and ambitious with a sensible but significant plan to increase population and have multiple globally important cities in say 20 years. Check out Canada for an (albeit incomplete and not without its challenges) example.
Re: London Then and Now: Aerial Shots Show City Grow over Past Two Decades
#207i moved to London a decade ago, and it's incredible how much the city has changed. whole new neighborhoods have been built on the sites of former industrial parks. existing neighborhoods are expanding, and new skyscrapers are appearing all over the place. even new (and huge) infrastructure projects. as a european, this change is something special. in europe you will rarely find a city as big and important as London w…
It's astounding how much greener it is in the pictures. It can take trees ~30 years to reach maturity where they can span across an entire street. I assumed that part of the reason the nicer neighborhoods in the EU and most the US were so nice is because they had always been green and nice. But maybe it only takes ~10 years or so? Not familiar with London, but looking at the pictures, it looks like maybe this is a re…
Another random London (well, UK) tree fact:
“A powerful storm ravaged many parts of the UK in the middle of October 1987.
With winds gusting at up to 100mph, there was massive devastation across the country and 18 people were killed. About 15 million trees were blown down. Many fell on to roads and railways, causing major transport delays. Others took down electricity and telephone lines, leaving thousands of homes without power for more than 24 hours.”
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/learn-about/weather/cas...
Re: London Then and Now: Aerial Shots Show City Grow over Past Two Decades
#208Earlier quoted context omitted.
Norway is close to providing all of what you describe and still seeing well below replacement fertility rates. It maybe be a start, and it produces a far more pleasant society, but it's not enough.
There are other concerns as well related to cost of living. Even though we would like people to live outside the cities, cities attract a lot of potential parents. They end up in a situation where they have a long education and start their careers late and don't have the financial capability to get a decent family friendly apartment in the city. Many wait until it's almost too late, and having more than 1 or 2 is def…
I think you can simplify that: Standards rise as living standards rise. People want more both for themselves and their children when they see that as realistic, and opting for fewer children is a way to make that happen.
Re: London Then and Now: Aerial Shots Show City Grow over Past Two Decades
#209Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are other concerns as well related to cost of living. Even though we would like people to live outside the cities, cities attract a lot of potential parents. They end up in a situation where they have a long education and start their careers late and don't have the financial capability to get a decent family friendly apartment in the city. Many wait until it's almost too late, and having more than 1 or 2 is def…
I think you can simplify that: Standards rise as living standards rise. People want more both for themselves and their children when they see that as realistic, and opting for fewer children is a way to make that happen.
Yes, I think that covers everything in a concise way.
If we want to go back to a sustainable birth rate, we need a wide range of actions. Some may require to reduce the financial risks, while others require encouraging cultural changes.
Re: London Then and Now: Aerial Shots Show City Grow over Past Two Decades
#210Earlier quoted context omitted.
What? Why? Riyadh changed like crazy in just 10 years.
Yes, because as a populated city it’s very young: it virtually didn’t exist in the 19th century while London was the most populated city of the whole world at the time. Even in the 1930s London had 300x the population of Riyadh. You have to wait until the 1980s to see Riyadh have more than 1M inhabitants.
This doesn't make it any less impressive to see a whole city changing in 10 years.
Even Dubai which is probably younger didn't have the same level of change in the last 5 years.