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The City of London which is not part of London (2016)

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Re: The City of London which is not part of London (2016)

#91

Post by timr »

notahacker wrote: post #25
timr wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not well known in America. Recent conversations on congestion surcharges in NYC regularly confused the charges in City of London (miniscule) with London as a whole (huge), and then tried to draw the comparison to the now-canceled charges in NYC, which would have affected more than half of Manhattan, and a large portion of the most significant commercial areas of NYC. People are either being completely disingenuo…

Aside from the points others have made that the congestion charge introduced by the mayor of the large urban area of London which covers the whole of central London[1] doesn't really have anything to do with the City of London boundaries or administration, I don't think "it's not well known in America" justifies the use of "secret" The jurisdictions of San Mateo and Santa Clara aren't particularly well known in the U…

I never said anything about it being a "secret", nor did I even use the word.

You seem to be having an argument with the title of the piece, not with me.

Re: The City of London which is not part of London (2016)

#92

Post by timr »

CPLX wrote: post #9
timr wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not well known in America. Recent conversations on congestion surcharges in NYC regularly confused the charges in City of London (miniscule) with London as a whole (huge), and then tried to draw the comparison to the now-canceled charges in NYC, which would have affected more than half of Manhattan, and a large portion of the most significant commercial areas of NYC. People are either being completely disingenuo…

What are you talking about the London congestion charge is analogous to the NYC one, covering the core central business district.

No, not even close. The NYC one covered all of Manhattan south of 60th, and almost every ingress/egress to the island. As I said in my comment, even if you only consider people who live in Manhattan (which is a fraction of the NYC residents affected by the proposed policy), it would have covered about 10% of the entire city -- about 800,000 people.

Re: The City of London which is not part of London (2016)

#93

Post by chrisjj »

actionfromafar wrote: post #39
denton-scratch wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. I stopped reading when I got to the bit where they explained that the "secret city" was the City of London. That's tabloid crap.

But it’s such an unexpected power structure in a modern democracy some people don’t really believe it even when told.

They are right to disbelieve.

Re: The City of London which is not part of London (2016)

#94

Post by Animats »

The City of London is sort of a lobbying organization for the UK financial community. Or at least it thinks it is.[1] Its police force is not ceremonial - there's a sizable Economic Crime Directorate, handling fraud cases. They claim a 75% clearing rate.

[1] https://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/about-us/plans-policies/our-...

Re: The City of London which is not part of London (2016)

#95

Post by philipwhiuk »

arrowsmith wrote: post #76
BillEllson wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Greater London is made up of 32 London Boroughs and the City of London that provide the vast majority of municipal services. Each has a mayor or Lord Mayor. The powers and responsibilities of London Boroughs, and the local authority responsibilities of the City of London Corporation are set out in statute law, not delegated by the Mayor of London. The Mayor of London is responsible for public transport, Fire and Resc…

Something else that a lot of younger people don't realize is the position "Mayor of London" is only 24 years old. London had no city-wide government between 1985 and 2000, and the pre-1985 council didn't have a mayor. Personally I'd enthusiastically vote for a return to the pre-2000 system as it's not at all clear to me what these people do for us or what we gain from giving them all this money.

> and the pre-1985 council didn't have a mayor.

True but it had a council leader.

> Personally I'd enthusiastically vote for a return to the pre-2000 system as it's not at all clear to me what these people do for us or what we gain from giving them all this money.

A failing on your part. About half of it is TFL.

Budget https://www.london.gov.uk/media/100391/download?attachment

Re: The City of London which is not part of London (2016)

#96

Post by dventimi »

foldr wrote: post #84
dventimi wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's one way to put it. Another way to put it is "most". The City has the largest number of financial firms, the largest share of office space, and the largest share of trading volume and assets under management. It's home to the Bank of England and the London Stock Exchange, and will be home to HSBC when it finishes its move there from Canary Wharf. Those firms have been accused--indirectly--of money laundering. I…

The firms you mention have certainly colluded with the government in Westminster, which is the one that regulates financial services. The City of London Corporation is merely a local authority (albeit a quirky one), and banks don't really need its cooperation in order to launder money. (HSBC did a fine job of it from Canary Wharf, for example.) >it also runs a police department. As do many other regions of the countr…

I'm not saying there's anything necessarily sinister or surprising about its police department. I'm just trying to be more complete. If we say the City just collects bins and runs one school, well that's not really giving the full picture, now is it?

Beyond that, consider this:

-The City has one of highest concentrations of global finance power in the world, if not the highest.

-That global finance power--global banking and commerce--has been accused of illicit activity, largely money laundering.

-If they do engage in that illicit activity, they probably collude with whatever governments they need to to advance their interests. It only makes sense.

-And, they probably would cloak these activities under a veil of secrecy. That also only makes sense.

Little if any of this is in dispute. What seems to be in dispute is the answer to these related questions:

Money laundering can happen anywhere, in Canary Wharf, in the Channel Islands, hell in New York and Delaware. But, is there something unique about the square mile? If so, what is it? Whatever conditions create a money laundering opportunity, are those conditions enhanced by what's unique about the City? And if it's not the Corporation, then what is it? If there's a high degree of money laundering there to go along with its high concentration of global finance power, then why is that? Because there hasn't been equivalent such accusations against New York and Delaware. The square mile has been called out as playing an outsized role in corruption. If that's true--supposing for the sake of argument it is--if that's true, then why? Is it just coincidence? Global finance and the vices it's indulged in had to land somewhere, and the City was as good a place as any?

Re: The City of London which is not part of London (2016)

#97

Post by dventimi »

lolinder wrote: post #85
dventimi wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article title includes "the secret City of London." Without clarification, it's left to readers to decide what that means. It could mean its government actively maintains a cloak of secrecy, it could just mean that it's not well known, say, to Americans, or it could mean something in between. The latter pole--that it's not well known, say, to Americans--has been established in this thread. What I'm trying to do i…

> The article title includes "the secret City of London." Without clarification, it's left to readers to decide what that means. Generally speaking the etiquette on HN is to at least pretend that you've read the article. I've rarely seen someone so audaciously using the fact that they didn't read the article as a defense.

Whether or not there's an etiquette for HN, there's definitely guidelines for HN which among other things encourage commenters not to accuse each other of not reading the articles, and to give each other the benefit of the doubt.

As it happens, I did read the article before writing my first comment. That would be the article which uses the word "secret" in its title but neither "secret" nor "secrecy" anywhere else in the body. Put another way, having actually read the article, among the many interesting things it says, one thing I know it doesn't say is exactly what it means by its title

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: The City of London which is not part of London (2016)

#98

Post by jasomill »

jschveibinz wrote: post #81

Interesting anecdote: the city of Baltimore, MD, USA is administratively distinct from the County of Baltimore, MD. The area is collectively referred to as Baltimore, but the county has no jurisdiction within the city. [1] https://www.greektownbaltimore.org/what-the-difference-betwe...

Yes, and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, home of the Indianapolis 500, is located in Speedway, Indiana, which has its own local government and police force, in spite of the fact that it is both surrounded by Indianapolis and entirely contained within Marion County, whose government, aside from a few exceptions like Speedway, is entirely consolidated with the government of the city of Indianapolis[1].

Local government can be complicated.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unigov

Re: The City of London which is not part of London (2016)

#99

Post by bobthepanda »

arrowsmith wrote: post #76
BillEllson wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Greater London is made up of 32 London Boroughs and the City of London that provide the vast majority of municipal services. Each has a mayor or Lord Mayor. The powers and responsibilities of London Boroughs, and the local authority responsibilities of the City of London Corporation are set out in statute law, not delegated by the Mayor of London. The Mayor of London is responsible for public transport, Fire and Resc…

Something else that a lot of younger people don't realize is the position "Mayor of London" is only 24 years old. London had no city-wide government between 1985 and 2000, and the pre-1985 council didn't have a mayor. Personally I'd enthusiastically vote for a return to the pre-2000 system as it's not at all clear to me what these people do for us or what we gain from giving them all this money.

regional coordination of services like transport is the big one. as a general example, if it were just the councils, Crossrail probably would not have gotten off the ground. And TfL is probably the only authority bucking the general British trend of bus services totally collapsing.

Re: The City of London which is not part of London (2016)

#100

Post by Spooky23 »

CPLX wrote: post #9
timr wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not well known in America. Recent conversations on congestion surcharges in NYC regularly confused the charges in City of London (miniscule) with London as a whole (huge), and then tried to draw the comparison to the now-canceled charges in NYC, which would have affected more than half of Manhattan, and a large portion of the most significant commercial areas of NYC. People are either being completely disingenuo…

What are you talking about the London congestion charge is analogous to the NYC one, covering the core central business district.

Only in the most broad definition of central business district.

The NYC one was just a toll, which would have created a variety of problems without really solving a bunch of others beyond revenue generation. The people gridlocking the west side to get on the tunnels aren't going to blink at a surcharge for the most part. The alternative in most cases is a $100 Uber, so a $25 toll is an annoying bargain. But massive industries, like specialty healthcare, would have been boned by patients who cannot handle the fare.

In the healthcare example, advocates would be like "not a problem! just get an exemption permit!". When my wife was being treated at MSK for an aggressive cancer, it took almost 5 months to get a NYC handicapped permit -- she unfortunately didn't live long enough to benefit. The street closures during COVID were often cited as a quality of life improvement... closures don't require a toll.

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