rjson.bsky.social - Profile | ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

Glad to see @pkrugman.bsky.social paying renewed attention to distressed places. He makes some useful points about the economic challenges of distressed places. However, I would add some other points that are crucial for better place-based policies.

submitted 2 days ago • 1 comment

BLOG: 'One-horse towns' come up a lot at @centreforcities.bsky.social: cities reliant on one sector. These places should look to diversify their economies. But what if the dominant industry is IT (like Reading) or life sciences (Cambridge)? Aren't these 'key strengths'? Maybe not. Let me explain:🧵

submitted 7 days ago • 1 comment

"Societies change their minds faster than people do: Generational replacement is what shifts public opinion" www.economist.com/graphic-deta...

submitted 8 days ago • 0 comments

There are 200,000 kids living in poverty in the North East - 40% of all children in the area. @kimmcguinness.bsky.social has pledged to tackle this. But what is the role of charitable giving, and how can the mayor best work with the voluntary sector to achieve her mission? We looked at the data 🧵

submitted 8 days ago • 1 comment

When I worked in UK academia I recall hearing of a Japanese man who was baffled at how Britain had decided to run its universities like firms. “Why? Your universities are excellent and your firms are terrible.”

submitted 8 days ago • 22 comments

Mayors have missions for their areas, whether tackling child poverty on the North East or youth unemployment in the West Mids. How could they best use the voluntary sector to achieve these? We've written these briefings, using survey data on local giving patterns, to explain how 👇

submitted 9 days ago • 1 comment

The Government is very close to being able to introduce a flexible zoning system - see our briefing published yesterday to see how:

submitted 15 days ago • 1 comment

Thinking about skill level in UK cities must distinguish moves to raise the skill floor (-> participation) & skill ceiling (-> productivity). This blog by @annathew.bsky.social : - sets this out using Cities Outlook data. - includes interactive mushrooms! www.centreforcities.org/blog/how-do-...

submitted 30 days ago • 0 comments

Ok, quick thread on why DeepSeek is blowing up assumptions about LLMs and maybe the whole (U.S.) AI industry. DeepSeek is an AI lab funded by a Chinese hedge fund, their AI code is open source, meaning freely available to use, which most big U.S. models (aside from Meta’s) are not. That’s the start…

submitted 38 days ago • 124 comments

My former workplace @centreforcities.bsky.social have published the historical local housebuilding data (1946-2022) underpinning their latest reports. A fantastic resource for researchers. Grateful I got to work on this during my time there github.com/CentreforCit...

submitted 42 days ago • 0 comments

New evidence that reducing cars is good for business: In London, retail spending was stronger after neighborhoods were added to the Urban Low Emissions Zone (ULEZ). Spending was also higher than in areas nearby but outside the ULEZ. www.centreforcities.org/blog/ulez-ex...

submitted 43 days ago • 8 comments

Manchester breaks 1 million private sector jobs in the latest @centreforcities.bsky.social Cities Outlook. 20% more than Birmingham, despite having the same population.

submitted 45 days ago • 0 comments

Colleagues and I have pulled together together 17 indicators of UK city economic performance so you don't have to! 10 categories, time series data, top/bottom/geographic comparisons... One stark example: tool can compare city real wage growth 97-08 with wage stagnation/decline 08-24. Play around!

submitted 45 days ago • 0 comments

Hammering this point home talking about the health of city high streets on BBC CWR this morning. Cities with bigger tradeable bases have more spending on restaurants / pubs. Even clearer when ignoring cities caught in London's gravity (Reading / Slough etc) More tradeables = thriving city centres!

submitted 45 days ago • 1 comment

Faster UK growth tied to boosting export services in South East, data shows — great @amyborrett.bsky.social charts you can play with here. Given importance of exporting to productivity, begs question why growth-focussed govt doing so little on trade side of EU reset. on.ft.com/4jqFbKX

submitted 45 days ago • 9 comments

Interesting thread, lots to agree with. I'd temper it with young people in the UK are less likely to be able to work from home, and less likely to do so given the option (see our survey of C London office workers). I'm sure WFH a contributor, but wider (and pre covid) social trends also feature

submitted 46 days ago • 1 comment

Comparing high streets affected by ULEZ expansion against the previous year: no effect. Comparing affected high streets with ones just beyond the new boundary: no effect. No matter how you slice it (and we've tried), spending fears due to ULEZ seem unfounded. Sharp from @oscarselby.bsky.social

submitted 49 days ago • 0 comments

Congestion pricing coverage is peak economics Every person is like, "I didn't used to bear any of the external costs of my behavior. But now that I do, I am adjusting along an infinite variety of least-cost adaptive margins that no central planner could have foreseen or designed"

submitted 50 days ago • 6 comments

Ironically, one of the biggest pieces of proof that we have a severe housing shortage is that we only demolish 5,000 homes a year in England. Our planning system focuses on minimizing urban change - when we need more homes and more demolitions!

submitted 75 days ago • 0 comments

Brilliant blog from colleague @xuanrulin.bsky.social diving into the dirty D-word in UK housing policy - Demolitions. The private sector simply doesn't demolish as much as it should. This is a function of the planning system - market doesn't respond as it should, particularly in high value cities.

submitted 76 days ago • 0 comments

My thoughts on the English Devolution White Paper in a quick thread. The extra powers for big cities (rail and roads, planning, single settlement, geog alignment of police, fire and health etc) are all substantial improvements on what we have today. But outside the big cities...

submitted 79 days ago • 2 comments

We should read this partly about services and cost, but also about growth - an attempt to reduce the fragmentation of the system

submitted 82 days ago • 1 comment

Christmas is a good reminder that the Visitor Economy of many UK cities, particularly those you wouldn't think of as 'destinations', revolves around retail. Getting a big retailer in that your neighbours don't have will pay dividends.

submitted 85 days ago • 0 comments

Does HS2 have a future? And why does that question hinge on an unseen government document and a sugar mill in Nottinghamshire?

submitted 89 days ago • 27 comments

From the 2nd of our housebuilding series. Some maps on the changing role of public housebuilding - from post-war rebuilding everywhere, to driving the growth of new towns, to... fizzling out without playing a spatial role in recent years.

submitted 91 days ago • 1 comment

As we're all waiting for the Plan for Change to (re)launch tomorrow, here's a little piece on what this means for the Govt's economic mission. Headline: an understandable pivot on messaging, but should be continuity on policy

submitted 92 days ago • 0 comments