[nito]

Originally Posted by Greavsie

From a British perspective I think we should concentrate on the redevelopment and expansion of other cities around the UK.. London will always be a very important city, but I'd like to see Liverpool, Birmingham, Manchester, Glasgow, Leeds, Newcastle, Bristol, Cardiff etc expand and become better Cities.

I think devolution of powers to cities is the way forward rather than any top-down reorganisation of concentrating on one place over another. We tried that after WWII, where UK governments sought to constrain the growth of London and the West Midlands (which after WWII was wealthier than London) with the Location of Offices Bureau and Control of Offices and Industrial Development Act 1965. The redistribution failed, undermined the UK economy, culminating in the 1976 IMF Crisis.

I’d like to see more city-focused transport and infrastructure bodies that have increased powers akin to Transport for London. Currently it is all a bit disjointed. Liverpool has Merseyrail, but the 16 and 13 commuter rail lines that respectively serve Manchester and Leeds are operated by the Northern franchise which has an opaque remit. That in turn limits the ability to align transport improvements with city and wider regional policy initiatives. There is a lot of untapped potential to bring a lot of the UK up to a higher level.

Originally Posted by hipster duck

It's interesting that you've been following Toronto transit developments from a continent away - this is usually quite rare!

I’m keen on following global rail developments.

It will be interesting to see years from now whether there was a missed opportunity to develop or safeguard old and prospective corridors before the city began to sprawl outwards across virgin land. If the regional population growth continues on the long-term average, I suspect that there will be immense pressure for expensive heavy engineering projects that go beyond increasing existing line capacity. Toronto Union will probably need to be completely rebuilt along the lines of say London Bridge.

Originally Posted by The North One

What was the point of quoting me if you aren't even going to be bothered to type a basic reply? This is spam.

You didn't like what I said, aww too bad because none of it was untrue. We can all see what's going on with UK politics and it's obviously not good.

It isn’t that I didn’t like what you said, it is that it is a load of mindless drivel, but let us review your ‘points’:

1. I voted remain, but I’d hesitate to align London’s success to EU membership. London is a service-based economy in a single-market heavily orientated towards agriculture, goods and manufacturing. The majority of London’s goods and service exports are outside of the EU. London was certainly the primary gateway for EU citizens migrating to the UK, but I’ll revert back to this below.
2. The present UK government is incompetent and clearly right of centre but claiming that they’re fascist just displays a complete lack of understanding of politics in the UK and any indication as to the definition of fascism as an ideology.
3. The Tories want to bring in an immigration points system like that of Australia and Canada. Since the referendum, the lack of certainty behind British residency was a key driver behind the decline in EU net migration, but in the last year the rate of growth has stabilised. Once clarity sets in as to the future relationship between the UK and the EU, I suspect that EU net migration will rise again, because the fundamentals behind the UK (as a place to work and live) over the long-term remain. I’d also note that non-EU net migration continued to grow after the referendum, and that is despite the UK government having full control over non-EU immigration.
4. There is no evidence that the ’great two decades for London is coming to a screeching halt’.