I love New York. It’s where can meets do. I also love Hong Kong, where East meets West. And Sydney, where work meets play. But none of these great cities can hold a candle to London.
Since establishing the St Bride’s World Cities Model in 2011, London has been ranked number one every year. For those of us who live or work in London, this is no great surprise. We have come to appreciate that it is now much more than just the capital of the UK. It is a centre of global excellence in business, culture, diversity, education, sport, the rule of law and integrity.
So, I was rather taken aback when a well-travelled, UK-educated Chinese businessman reckoned that our vote to exit the EU demonstrated a fundamental flaw in democracy. He suggested that “such a mindless act of self-destruction for both London and the rest of the UK” could never occur in China. He was rapidly reminded that the power of democracy lies less in the actual freedom to vote, and more in the acceptance and embracing of the outcome.
Here we are then. We are told that there is no going back and so, whichever way we may have voted individually, embrace life outside the EU we will.
But please, let our exit be a force for good and not simply retrenchment. Let’s build on our global standing, not diminish it. Let’s not forget that:
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Depending upon where sterling alights at the end of the process, the UK will continue to have the fifth or sixth largest economy;
- The UK “invented” property investment, portfolio management, pooled funds and performance measurement;
- The RICS is the global seat of property professional standards; and
- Because of our openness and transparency, inward investment into UK property fluctuates at around 10% of the global pot, second only to the US.
And while we are about it, let’s address some of the fundamental domestic issues that have been exposed too – not least the socio-economic gulf that has been developing between London and much of the rest
of the country. We really must give the regions the necessary armoury and incentives to properly grow and prosper in parallel with London.
Out of St Bride’s top 20 World Cities, the US has six – Boston, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington DC. They are all global powerhouses. It is bemusing therefore why our domestic investors have been so reluctant to invest there. Perhaps the changes to the Foreign Investment in Real Property Tax Act, which will level the tax playing field, will encourage them to have another look. I hope so.
And it is also interesting that Australia (Sydney and Melbourne) and Canada (Toronto and Vancouver) both have two world cities. So why shouldn’t the UK have two as well? The nearest we get is Edinburgh and Manchester, ranked 37th and 43rd respectively. But neither really get close to premiership global status. By way of example, Melbourne has a larger GDP than the whole of Scotland, and Vancouver’s GDP is slightly more than twice that of Manchester.
So here is my proposition for a brighter, better Britain, and where the property industry can help:
- Resist our national pastime of building up icons only to delight in knocking them down and help London retain its top world city spot;
- Activate a progressive and deliverable plan to develop Manchester and Edinburgh as genuine world cities so that they work in harmony with London;
- Incentivise the other northern and Scottish powerhouse cities (Leeds, Sheffield, Liverpool and Glasgow) to put aside their ancient differences, embrace and benefit from this rather radical, but well-meaning plan in the way that Reading, for instance, has capitalised on the growth of its nearby senior neighbour, London.
And what is the key to making this happen? Infrastructure. We need to act now to deliver the hard and soft infrastructure that will allow our cities to compete on the world stage, always remembering the old adage, “If you snooze, you lose.”
