Phil, I'm not sure your annalise quite works.

You suggest that the UK's loss of a motor industry was a factor of urban planning & lack of land.

The main problem with that is that today there are more cars manufactured in the UK than at any previous time. The difference is that apart from Morgan, they are all foreign owned, mostly foreign companies with a plant in the UK.

This to me indicates a number of problems, that have nothing to do with land intensive urban industries, & more to do with continual interference in these industries by government. That actually means planners were the very thing that destroyed them.

For many years the government planners tried to use the industry arm of government. As with so much of government planning, they got it wrong, & with militant unionism wanting too many eggs, destroyed the goose.

Foreign industry could tell the government & their planners to go jump. When government tried to get dictatorial, they threatened to leave, & meant it. Not surprisingly, they prospered.

So endeth the lesson, "government help is usually terminal"

This leads to the natural conclusion. If Government planners continue to have too much input into our, & other countries, power industries, we will all soon be living in the dark.

Hasbeen, thanks for your comment. I agree with you about the many reasons for the long decline in the UK automobile industry, that seems to have reversed now. In general, the UK's urban planning system has been inimical to productivity, and especially so in the case of more land intensive industries.

The McKinsey Institute’s 1998 paper, "Driving Productivity and Growth in the UK economy" was a landmark of analysis.

Urban economist Alan W. Evans expanded on the findings of this, in his 2004 book, “Economics and Land Use Planning”.

There is a whole series of excellent papers from Paul Cheshire and various colleagues at the LSE(London School of Economics). There is a good summary paper, “What we Know (and Don’t Know) about the Effect of Planning on Economic Performance”, by Max Nathan and Henry Overman. It includes references to the series of papers over the years, in which the LSE’s research was advancing.

There is a “SERC Blogspot” at the LSE; they post articles about each new finding as it emerges.

Thatchernomics resulted in a turn-around of many of the factors that had been damaging UK productivity and competitiveness, but it failed to address the urban planning system, possibly because of the vested interests of the country club Tory land owners who make thousands of percent "planning gain" on their land holdings. The McKinsey Institute suggested that the land planning system in the UK was now the main reason for UK productivity being 20% to 40% below other mature OECD economies. (Cont.....)

(Cont.....) The UK land planning system reduces productivity by several mechanisms. Firstly, it forces businesses to use sub-optimal amounts of land for efficient processes. Anyone who has worked in a business that lacked space, with a boss complaining that he could not afford to buy or rent any more, will be able to relate to this.
Secondly, the high cost of housing is a workforce cost input.
Thirdly, local agglomeration economies of the "Silicon Valley" type are completely prevented from occurring, due to the lack of spare land or affordable land for potential new participants.
Fourthly, "anti competitive" effects are very strong. New business startups and even the opening of new branches and the expansion of premises, are prevented, to the benefit of "incumbents".

The "rebound" in UK automobile manufacturing is highly "relative". The UK never produced significant quantities of vehicles anyway in international terms, and to be only now exceeding 1971 production, is not exactly something to be proud of. To put it in perspective, the UK is now number 13 among nations, for automobile production. Iran is number 12, the Czech Republic is number 14, and Canada number 15. Spain, Russia and Mexico are numbers 9, 10 and 11. South Korea, India and Brazil are higher up the list again.

I would argue that the expertise and innovation that there is among the British, would be capable of putting Britain far higher than this, especially since Thatchernomics, so that "something" is holding them back.....! And even what they have now, will have a lot to do with government and local government suspending the costs and barriers normally associated with the planning system, to induce the restoration of sectors in which jobs have been lost. Meanwhile, the thousands of flowers that might have bloomed in the UK urban economy, that no-one even understands, are an ongoing casualty of the land planning system. The UK economy as a whole would do far better with a Houston "somewhere" in it.

I see your point Phil, but perhaps the best thing Huston could do for the UK people, is drop one of their rockets on Whitehall.

As long as they have their stupid preoccupation with alternate energy, they will have an alternate economy. Industry can not survive in a country with high wages & high inputs.

While they have this green delusions, that wind power is good for the planet, & China keeps buying our iron ore, the fastest growing UK city will continue to be Perth Oz, & their only flourishing industry the export of trained people.

Lets hope they don't send us any of their planners, we've got more than enough of them of our own.

Well, thanks Phil from NZ. I think.

>>Pericles, you are half right. I recommend an extremely enlightening online short book: "The Flow of Money and Its Impact on Local Economies" by William Fruth<<

I'm not quite sure how and where this delightful little book addresses "congestion", as such. It doesn't mention it even once - also, "crowding" and "overcrowding" are conspicuous by their absence.

But I do hope Ludwig didn't get around to reading it (fortunately, there's not much chance of that), because he would choke over the author's summary:

"Aside from immigration policy, the steps necessary to stop or contain population growth are undesirable. Therefore communities should embrace an increase in their population and enjoy the benefits of having a desirable place to live and a strong economy."

Sounds good to me, of course.

So let me see if I can discover a point in your response.

>>The simple fact is that strong CBD's are unique to only a few cities, that are sustained by flows of finance sector fee income and bureaucratic income<<

Are you suggesting that Sydney's CBD is "strong"? Or the opposite - it's not very clear which you mean.

>>Germany has a so called "network of global cities" instead of one primary one<<

Ummm... yes. They also have a very strong tradition of family-owned SMEs, something that Australia lacks. Northern Italy has many of the same characteristics, but as with Germany, it has evolved over centuries without the need for government intervention.

>>You might as well get all stressed out at the long distances that rural workers commute, and insist that farmers move into multi storey buildings so their workers too can catch trains.<<

Did I suggest this? If I did, I haven't the faintest idea why I would say something quite so bizarre.

Incidentally, which was the half that I got wrong?

Pericles, I think you and I are on the same side. You really do like Fruth’s booklet? I do not think Sydney has a “strong CBD”, and in fact I think it is unlikely that more than about 10 cities worldwide will ever do so. Everything I am saying, is supportive of your argument re decentralisation. I just do not get your cynicism about roads.
I believe roads ARE the answer, or at least some system that still allows for the entry and exit points to the infrastructure that roads do:
“Freedom Transit”
http://freedomtransit.com/

“EDM Skyway”:
http://www.innov8transport.com/

Fixed-route-based mass public transport systems simply cannot match automobility for “demand enabling” and the minimisation of “economic rent” in urban land. This has paramount significance for economic progress.
Do read my earlier comments, especially the ones on Tuesday. Note that I make an argument for internodal road networks, and against radial highways that focus congestion and land rent at CBD’s.
I will go right out on a limb and argue that no economy will develop like those of the USA and other nations, without the same sustained period of automobile-based urban development. Mainstream economists have completely missed the vital role of urban land market cyclical volatility in the broader economic picture. Unfortunately, share market bubbles have hogged all the attention, when even in the 1930’s depression, it was urban land markets that were most responsible for the severity. Economic cyclical volatility was a norm right up to this time, with urban land markets being a primary factor.
The economic stability and sustained growth in many economies that marked the decades following WW2, had everything to do with the fact that for the first time ever, urban land prices were “anchored” in the value of the surrounding rural land, just as long as developers in genuine competition with each other, could “leapfrog” one another’s land banks and obtain genuine rural-priced land for development. In cities with this attribute, the cost of new fringe developments is set by rural land prices, plus cost of development, plus a modest profit. No “planning gain”. (Cont.....)