fear of the future

[Sheilbh]

Not really. A single line will not have much carrying capacity and factor in the inevitable absurd premium on ticket prices for a loss-making line, and the idea that Birmingham will relieve the population pressure on the south east is a non-starter.

Not Birmingham itself but the Midlands more generally.  It won't relieve the population pressure, nothing will until we start building more houses.  But with a decent and quick transport link I don't think it's ridiculous to see the Black Country, for example, going the way of the home counties or East Anglia and becoming a kind of extension of London.

[MadImmortalMan]

What you guys are describing sounds like a great big coordinated plan of economic sabotage, if it's just things like building plan restrictions holding the teeming masses of the North in poverty. I'm sure that's way too simplistic way of saying it but still.

[Ideologue]

Incidentally, this week's Economist has a special report on "the future of work".

http://www.economist.com/printedition/2011-09-10

Haven't had a chance to read it yet, but I'm sure it will have some interesting stuff relevant to the original post.

I like the one where this bit is related:

Last year's annual Glassdoor list of oddball interview questions was topped by Goldman Sachs, which asked a candidate for an analyst's job, "If you were shrunk to the size of a pencil and put in a blender, how would you get out?"

Actually, I think if you scaled human strength down to pencil-height and the associated mass, you could just jump right out.

Of course, you'd probably die immediately thereafter from a whole host of physical inconveniences.

[Martinus]

Last year's annual Glassdoor list of oddball interview questions was topped by Goldman Sachs, which asked a candidate for an analyst's job, "If you were shrunk to the size of a pencil and put in a blender, how would you get out?"

This looks more like "Reason 1012 to give the job to your best client's CEO's nephew" than anything else. I hate employers that insult people's intelligence like this. Just hire friends and family, but spare that kind of bullshit.

[The Brain]

Last year's annual Glassdoor list of oddball interview questions was topped by Goldman Sachs, which asked a candidate for an analyst's job, "If you were shrunk to the size of a pencil and put in a blender, how would you get out?"

This looks more like "Reason 1012 to give the job to your best client's CEO's nephew" than anything else. I hate employers that insult people's intelligence like this. Just hire friends and family, but spare that kind of bullshit.

They don't want friends and family. They want people who will jump when they say jump.

[Ed Anger]

Damn right.

[Richard Hakluyt]

What you guys are describing sounds like a great big coordinated plan of economic sabotage, if it's just things like building plan restrictions holding the teeming masses of the North in poverty. I'm sure that's way too simplistic way of saying it but still.

It reminds me of that old story of King Canute, we are trying to preserve a population distribution that is a result of our Victorian economy, meanwhile the economic tides sweep people into SE England which is the area of the country that has most of the business advantages nowadays.

[Sheilbh]

It reminds me of that old story of King Canute, we are trying to preserve a population distribution that is a result of our Victorian economy, meanwhile the economic tides sweep people into SE England which is the area of the country that has most of the business advantages nowadays.

Blame the Green Belt

[Josquius]

The idea that rising fuel costs are going to make people live very far away from their jobs seems a little counter-intuitive.

Thats the way of the modern world, actual physical distance doesn`t mean anything near as much as travel time. If the choice is to live in one town with no rail link or another, twice as far away, but with rail links, then a lot of people will be tempted by the town physically further away. Particularly if the roads aren`t very good for the station-less town and there aren`t many intermediary　stops for the town with rail.

Rail is the future IMO, with increasing fuel costs we're going to see a redistribution of the population to more 19th century lines, clinging to the railways to an extent.

This is completely ridiculous.

I don`t see why.
Already in London you can see things developing so that being near a tube station is a very desirable place to be.
Even in Newcastle　its a big selling point for flats that they are only x minutes walk from a metro station.
In Sweden IIRC you`ll pay more for a house in Marsta or the like than one in a town a similar distance from Stockholm but not on the railway line.

[Zoupa]

Same thing is happening in Montreal.