Just been to see a very very old friend who is now dying of a covid-related disease.
Desperately sad. Early 50s. Teen kids.
Wear a damn mask when you shop. How hard is that?
Thanks LG. I hate wearing a mask but promise to try harder in future.
Btw, we recently compared estimates of where the final US death tally ends. You went for 175,000; I suggested 200,000. It's currently 138,000. Sadly it looks like even my figure may be on the low side.
That clown in the White House has a lot to answer for.
To be fair to Trump (!!!) there is no perfect response to this if you're the leader of a normal large western country. The East Asian countries have 1. a memory of SARS, 2. a rule obeying populace, 3. a culture of mask wearing
None of these apply in big western nations, consequently, all have done badly, with the possible exception of Germany (but we aren't even halfway through this horror, yet, so who knows)
I am more pessimistic now, about covid and its medical/economic consequences, than I have ever been. And boy, have I been pessimistic before.
Absent a vaccine, I think we are FUCKED with a capital F plus UCKED
I think if that is the scenario for the foreseeable future sans vaccine then social democracy will be the dominant governing force across most of the West for decades given the resultant high unemployment and need for high state spending to support the economy and health services. The arguments will be over the level of tax paid to fund it and over cultural issues and immigration and law and order
Yes. The short-medium term future for all of the West is a much-less-efficient form of Sweden. With, of course, all the bombings in Malmo.
Or, in a nutshell, centrists who love their country reminding ourselves that we can see off illiberal minorities with a taste for enforcement and a distaste for free speech by holding steady, voting consistently and using sound reason and argument.
"The amazing thing is, my relatives are as stupid as PBers."
Believe that's actionable - certainly your kinfolk well-advised to seek legal advice!
What do you think this same process will do to America?
Cities like NYC, Chicago and LA were already losing population BEFORE Covid. Now that process will greatly accelerate. NYC is likely to face an historic property bust. Rich people will flee. The Big Apple will fall.
Ergo, big Democratic states will depopulate and big Republican states (eg Texas) will benefit. Intriguing.
Not sure that demographic changes will be as radical as you foresee. Demand for office space likely to be less than pre-Covid, but demand for housing will NOT lessen methinks.
Also, not ALL US cities experiencing population declines. For example, in WA State the fastest-growing area has been City of Seattle, and WA suburbs of Portland, Oregon. Even post-Covid would expect these trends to continue. M
ore people will be working from home. But most attracted to Seattle will NOT want to head to the back of beyond - EXCEPT on weekends, to go camping or to a cabin in the woods or on the beach.
I think perhaps the main problem for many pubs in the lack of “spontaneous” passing trade. When you potentially have to plan every trip, arrange to meet people in advance etc etc, it’s just a big effort that many can’t be bothered with. Especially having got used to months at home not going out.
This is almost every pub in central London (and to a lesser extent, Brum, Manc, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, Bristol, Belfast). As things stand they are all doomed.
The damage will be incalculable, and the cascade effect is, in prospect, terrifying. Read across for the USA, France, Spain, Italy...
A natural consequence of what demand there is for these leisure activities (and, based on my admittedly limited observations so far, quite a lot still exists) being concentrated in the places where people live now, rather than where they used to work or go for days out in February.
Logically, the pubs, cafes and restaurants with the best chance of survival are those which (a) obtain most of their custom from locals, arriving on foot or via short car journeys, most of whom will be regular or semi-regular patrons, and (b) have plenty of space to cope with the social distancing problem, or are able to compensate adequately for the lack thereof through takeaway sales.
Old fashioned pubs with no gardens in city centres will only survive if they belong to chains or big breweries, and the ultimate owners are willing to mothball them or run them at a loss whilst they wait for this horror to play out.
They will all be mothballed, I reckon.
Our big city high streets will become ghost towns. Why should they not? People are terrified.
I have been telling this to relatives for weeks: Central London is fucked. The amazing thing is, my relatives are as stupid as PBers. They say "Oh well, the economy needed to be rebalanced". They don't seem to understand this is value and capital being simply destroyed, never to return.
Central London is/was a unique eco-system which provided squillions to UK PLC. Foreign tourists, students and others funnelled in cash via property, rates, VAT, consumption, on and on.
Take all of that away and it won't "disperse" to small towns in Dorset or the Isle of Harris.
It will just go. The closest analogy - economically - is a major war with serious urban bombing, which levels structures which cannot be rebuilt.
Another way of putting this is that you are saying, LadyG, that there is no hope for their futures. We are doomed. The PBers you describe as 'stupid' are not saying that everything will be great, as prosperous as now, or all magically return. Reordering economies happens all the time. It is quite possible that London and the big cities will have to do so. They will. Yes we may all get poorer. we may even get more equal. But we are not all doomed.
No. The idiot PBers I am referencing were saying this "dispersal" of money out of London was actively a "good thing", like there was someone with a wheelbarrow walking out of Mayfair who would kindly deposit the excess cash - dislodged by covid - to happy provincials, perhaps in the form of gold guineas.
There will be no "dispersal" (and this is their word, not mine). The money created hitherto by the unique cultural/social nexus of London, a premier world city, is going to be destroyed. No one at all will benefit, unless you think universal impoverishment, with accompanying suffering, is a moral good in itself, because eating grass rather than meat is good for the Christian soul.
Jeremy Hunt's constituency newsletter (I am an avid reader - it's a good read, with witty asides) predicts that masks in shops eill be compulsory within the next few days.
And does Hunt have views on whether masks should be worn in pubs and restaurants ?
Less than 10% wear them in the supermarkets I've been to.
So that's a lot of people who might get annoyed - not a vote winner.
And if wearing masks are necessary now then the government is admitting it fucked up massively by neither encouraging them four months ago nor ensuring their supply - again not a vote winner.
60% of voters now want masks to be compulsory for shoppers, including 57% of Tory voters
It isn't because it is not yet the law to make wearing them mandatory as it is on public transport, by the end of the week it likely will be the law and compulsory to wear a facemask while shopping
And High Streets will be even more bolloxed.
Still it means more profits for Amazon.
And good luck getting people to go to pubs and restaurants after they've been told that its not safe.
The reverse, wearing facemasks reduces the spread of Covid making it safer to go shopping, not making facemasks compulsory means it is more sensible to shop via online delivery rather than in store
People will be more afraid and so will go out less.
Whereas there's sod all risk currently going to the shops.
Take a look at where the outbreaks occur - factories, farms, care homes and hospitals. Not shops.
But by your reasoning people will not go to pubs and restaurants because masks aren't worn on those.
There was a graphic, possibly posted here, of a range of behaviours ranked from 1 least risk of transmission to 9 greatest risk. Coming in at 9, absolutely the highest risk, was going to pubs (along with mass events, which are still banned in most places). Too many people in poorly ventilated spaces, too close together and shouting at each other and uninhibited behaviour due to alcohol. If the goal is to control the epidemic, pubs objectively should be closed, at least indoors, while other things that remain closed might actually be allowed. The reason pubs are open is economic particularly concerning employment and possibly also the perception that opening pubs is politically popular. The first point I get, but I'm not sure pubs are actually that popular and if the epidemic takes off again, fingers might get pointed in that direction. Pubs were closing anyway because people are not going to them so much.
nope, there was evidence the sector was turning the corner, with more pubs opening than closing in year ending March 2019. This trend had been expected to continue.
Lots of utter garbage posted on PB about pubs from people who seemingly never visit them.
Half of the population rarely or never go to the pub, 17% go once a month, leaving about a third of the population that are regulars. When there is no epidemic.
Jeremy Hunt's constituency newsletter (I am an avid reader - it's a good read, with witty asides) predicts that masks in shops eill be compulsory within the next few days.
And does Hunt have views on whether masks should be worn in pubs and restaurants ?
Less than 10% wear them in the supermarkets I've been to.
So that's a lot of people who might get annoyed - not a vote winner.
And if wearing masks are necessary now then the government is admitting it fucked up massively by neither encouraging them four months ago nor ensuring their supply - again not a vote winner.
60% of voters now want masks to be compulsory for shoppers, including 57% of Tory voters
It isn't because it is not yet the law to make wearing them mandatory as it is on public transport, by the end of the week it likely will be the law and compulsory to wear a facemask while shopping
And High Streets will be even more bolloxed.
Still it means more profits for Amazon.
And good luck getting people to go to pubs and restaurants after they've been told that its not safe.
The reverse, wearing facemasks reduces the spread of Covid making it safer to go shopping, not making facemasks compulsory means it is more sensible to shop via online delivery rather than in store
People will be more afraid and so will go out less.
Whereas there's sod all risk currently going to the shops.
Take a look at where the outbreaks occur - factories, farms, care homes and hospitals. Not shops.
But by your reasoning people will not go to pubs and restaurants because masks aren't worn on those.
As nichomar pointed out below studies show 70% of people will get infected if an infected person in their proximity does not wear a mask, only 5% will if an infected person does wear a mask.
Face masks are already compulsory for staff and outpatients and visitors in care homes and hospitals, if you are in a pub you are on one table with limited numbers allowed inside not constantly in others vicinity in shopping aisles
Tif it wasn’t a study, it was anecdote from numbers doing the rounds in Spain.
"The amazing thing is, my relatives are as stupid as PBers."
Believe that's actionable - certainly your kinfolk well-advised to seek legal advice!
What do you think this same process will do to America?
Cities like NYC, Chicago and LA were already losing population BEFORE Covid. Now that process will greatly accelerate. NYC is likely to face an historic property bust. Rich people will flee. The Big Apple will fall.
Ergo, big Democratic states will depopulate and big Republican states (eg Texas) will benefit. Intriguing.
I can't see it, but if you're right the big Republican state would become Democratic states... people don't switch their politics as they move state.
In non-mask news, has anyone read the piece about the central London economy in the Evening Standard (available without paywall via the website?)
Rebalancing away from London is now well in progress, although not necessarily in the manner that the Government may have envisaged. It's completely screwed. Very little commuter traffic, almost no foreign visitors and only limited prospects for a revival. Most offices empty, public transport still operating at a fraction of pre-pandemic levels, all the theatres and nightclubs still forcibly shuttered of course, and predictions of 50,000 job losses in the West End alone.
It's no wonder that Johnson is now trying to cajole commuters into going back into work, but he won't succeed (a recent survey apparently states that 88% of commuters polled said they would not be comfortable returning to public transport this year.) With time and support the tourist business and much of the wider retail, hospitality and entertainment sectors can be slowly nursed back to health, but much of that office space will stand empty forever once the current leases on it expire. The activity that it used to support has all moved into the leafier suburbs and the Home Counties. It's done. Finished.
As I have been saying for a week. This is an approaching catastrophe which won't, in the end, affect just central London.
It is going to ripple out to every last village
If this continues the only feasible answer if for vastly more of central London to convert surplus building to residential use, a huge drop in property prices and rents and a more balanced city to emerge.
Do we have any architects in the house with experience of adapting large commercial buildings for residential use? The problems must be legion. Just imagine all that extra plumbing, if nothing else: a skyscraper redeveloped to accommodate hundreds of flats, every one needing at least one fully-fitted kitchen and bathroom. Thousands of gallons of fresh water going up and thousands of gallons of foul water and sewage going back down again, every day. These buildings weren't designed to be lived in; the costs of converting a large percentage of them would surely be astronomical?
Jeremy Hunt's constituency newsletter (I am an avid reader - it's a good read, with witty asides) predicts that masks in shops eill be compulsory within the next few days.
And does Hunt have views on whether masks should be worn in pubs and restaurants ?
Less than 10% wear them in the supermarkets I've been to.
So that's a lot of people who might get annoyed - not a vote winner.
And if wearing masks are necessary now then the government is admitting it fucked up massively by neither encouraging them four months ago nor ensuring their supply - again not a vote winner.
60% of voters now want masks to be compulsory for shoppers, including 57% of Tory voters
It isn't because it is not yet the law to make wearing them mandatory as it is on public transport, by the end of the week it likely will be the law and compulsory to wear a facemask while shopping
And High Streets will be even more bolloxed.
Still it means more profits for Amazon.
And good luck getting people to go to pubs and restaurants after they've been told that its not safe.
The reverse, wearing facemasks reduces the spread of Covid making it safer to go shopping, not making facemasks compulsory means it is more sensible to shop via online delivery rather than in store
People will be more afraid and so will go out less.
Whereas there's sod all risk currently going to the shops.
Take a look at where the outbreaks occur - factories, farms, care homes and hospitals. Not shops.
But by your reasoning people will not go to pubs and restaurants because masks aren't worn on those.
As nichomar pointed out below studies show 70% of people will get infected if an infected person in their proximity does not wear a mask, only 5% will if an infected person does wear a mask.
Face masks are already compulsory for staff and outpatients and visitors in care homes and hospitals, if you are in a pub you are on one table with limited numbers allowed inside not constantly in others vicinity in shopping aisles
Tif it wasn’t a study, it was anecdote from numbers doing the rounds in Spain.
I didn’t claim scientific evidence, but it has the feel of being in the right ball park.
I think perhaps the main problem for many pubs in the lack of “spontaneous” passing trade. When you potentially have to plan every trip, arrange to meet people in advance etc etc, it’s just a big effort that many can’t be bothered with. Especially having got used to months at home not going out.
This is almost every pub in central London (and to a lesser extent, Brum, Manc, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, Bristol, Belfast). As things stand they are all doomed.
The damage will be incalculable, and the cascade effect is, in prospect, terrifying. Read across for the USA, France, Spain, Italy...
A natural consequence of what demand there is for these leisure activities (and, based on my admittedly limited observations so far, quite a lot still exists) being concentrated in the places where people live now, rather than where they used to work or go for days out in February.
Logically, the pubs, cafes and restaurants with the best chance of survival are those which (a) obtain most of their custom from locals, arriving on foot or via short car journeys, most of whom will be regular or semi-regular patrons, and (b) have plenty of space to cope with the social distancing problem, or are able to compensate adequately for the lack thereof through takeaway sales.
Old fashioned pubs with no gardens in city centres will only survive if they belong to chains or big breweries, and the ultimate owners are willing to mothball them or run them at a loss whilst they wait for this horror to play out.
They will all be mothballed, I reckon.
Our big city high streets will become ghost towns. Why should they not? People are terrified.
I have been telling this to relatives for weeks: Central London is fucked. The amazing thing is, my relatives are as stupid as PBers. They say "Oh well, the economy needed to be rebalanced". They don't seem to understand this is value and capital being simply destroyed, never to return.
Central London is/was a unique eco-system which provided squillions to UK PLC. Foreign tourists, students and others funnelled in cash via property, rates, VAT, consumption, on and on.
Take all of that away and it won't "disperse" to small towns in Dorset or the Isle of Harris.
It will just go. The closest analogy - economically - is a major war with serious urban bombing, which levels structures which cannot be rebuilt.
Another way of putting this is that you are saying, LadyG, that there is no hope for their futures. We are doomed. The PBers you describe as 'stupid' are not saying that everything will be great, as prosperous as now, or all magically return. Reordering economies happens all the time. It is quite possible that London and the big cities will have to do so. They will. Yes we may all get poorer. we may even get more equal. But we are not all doomed.
No. The idiot PBers I am referencing were saying this "dispersal" of money out of London was actively a "good thing", like there was someone with a wheelbarrow walking out of Mayfair who would kindly deposit the excess cash - dislodged by covid - to happy provincials, perhaps in the form of gold guineas.
There will be no "dispersal" (and this is their word, not mine). The money created hitherto by the unique cultural/social nexus of London, a premier world city, is going to be destroyed. No one at all will benefit, unless you think universal impoverishment, with accompanying suffering, is a moral good in itself, because eating grass rather than meat is good for the Christian soul.
Nah, a diminution of the London economy doesn't bother me much. Though I live a little over an hour away, I only go a few times in a year. The Great Wen sucks a lot of the Southern economy up, just as if did a couple of centuries ago. I dont expect the money to appear in Leicester, but it bothers me little if house prices in London halve.
Indeed, it might be a buying opportunity for Fox jr, as like everything else in a couple of years Covid will be history.
I think perhaps the main problem for many pubs in the lack of “spontaneous” passing trade. When you potentially have to plan every trip, arrange to meet people in advance etc etc, it’s just a big effort that many can’t be bothered with. Especially having got used to months at home not going out.
This is almost every pub in central London (and to a lesser extent, Brum, Manc, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, Bristol, Belfast). As things stand they are all doomed.
The damage will be incalculable, and the cascade effect is, in prospect, terrifying. Read across for the USA, France, Spain, Italy...
A natural consequence of what demand there is for these leisure activities (and, based on my admittedly limited observations so far, quite a lot still exists) being concentrated in the places where people live now, rather than where they used to work or go for days out in February.
Logically, the pubs, cafes and restaurants with the best chance of survival are those which (a) obtain most of their custom from locals, arriving on foot or via short car journeys, most of whom will be regular or semi-regular patrons, and (b) have plenty of space to cope with the social distancing problem, or are able to compensate adequately for the lack thereof through takeaway sales.
Old fashioned pubs with no gardens in city centres will only survive if they belong to chains or big breweries, and the ultimate owners are willing to mothball them or run them at a loss whilst they wait for this horror to play out.
They will all be mothballed, I reckon.
Our big city high streets will become ghost towns. Why should they not? People are terrified.
I have been telling this to relatives for weeks: Central London is fucked. The amazing thing is, my relatives are as stupid as PBers. They say "Oh well, the economy needed to be rebalanced". They don't seem to understand this is value and capital being simply destroyed, never to return.
Central London is/was a unique eco-system which provided squillions to UK PLC. Foreign tourists, students and others funnelled in cash via property, rates, VAT, consumption, on and on.
Take all of that away and it won't "disperse" to small towns in Dorset or the Isle of Harris.
It will just go. The closest analogy - economically - is a major war with serious urban bombing, which levels structures which cannot be rebuilt.
Another way of putting this is that you are saying, LadyG, that there is no hope for their futures. We are doomed. The PBers you describe as 'stupid' are not saying that everything will be great, as prosperous as now, or all magically return. Reordering economies happens all the time. It is quite possible that London and the big cities will have to do so. They will. Yes we may all get poorer. we may even get more equal. But we are not all doomed.
The comparison with a major war with serious urban bombing is relevant here. Because large chunks of London were levelled during World War II. For a while, I lived in a strange modern house stuck in a whole Victorian South London terrace; I think it was literally a bombsite.
London survived World War II and thrived afterwards. And whatever value has been destroyed by this virus and our government's rubbish response to it, it's peanuts compared to that. We're still blessed to be here and now.
I think perhaps the main problem for many pubs in the lack of “spontaneous” passing trade. When you potentially have to plan every trip, arrange to meet people in advance etc etc, it’s just a big effort that many can’t be bothered with. Especially having got used to months at home not going out.
This is almost every pub in central London (and to a lesser extent, Brum, Manc, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, Bristol, Belfast). As things stand they are all doomed.
The damage will be incalculable, and the cascade effect is, in prospect, terrifying. Read across for the USA, France, Spain, Italy...
A natural consequence of what demand there is for these leisure activities (and, based on my admittedly limited observations so far, quite a lot still exists) being concentrated in the places where people live now, rather than where they used to work or go for days out in February.
Logically, the pubs, cafes and restaurants with the best chance of survival are those which (a) obtain most of their custom from locals, arriving on foot or via short car journeys, most of whom will be regular or semi-regular patrons, and (b) have plenty of space to cope with the social distancing problem, or are able to compensate adequately for the lack thereof through takeaway sales.
Old fashioned pubs with no gardens in city centres will only survive if they belong to chains or big breweries, and the ultimate owners are willing to mothball them or run them at a loss whilst they wait for this horror to play out.
They will all be mothballed, I reckon.
Our big city high streets will become ghost towns. Why should they not? People are terrified.
I have been telling this to relatives for weeks: Central London is fucked. The amazing thing is, my relatives are as stupid as PBers. They say "Oh well, the economy needed to be rebalanced". They don't seem to understand this is value and capital being simply destroyed, never to return.
Central London is/was a unique eco-system which provided squillions to UK PLC. Foreign tourists, students and others funnelled in cash via property, rates, VAT, consumption, on and on.
Take all of that away and it won't "disperse" to small towns in Dorset or the Isle of Harris.
It will just go. The closest analogy - economically - is a major war with serious urban bombing, which levels structures which cannot be rebuilt.
Another way of putting this is that you are saying, LadyG, that there is no hope for their futures. We are doomed. The PBers you describe as 'stupid' are not saying that everything will be great, as prosperous as now, or all magically return. Reordering economies happens all the time. It is quite possible that London and the big cities will have to do so. They will. Yes we may all get poorer. we may even get more equal. But we are not all doomed.
No. The idiot PBers I am referencing were saying this "dispersal" of money out of London was actively a "good thing", like there was someone with a wheelbarrow walking out of Mayfair who would kindly deposit the excess cash - dislodged by covid - to happy provincials, perhaps in the form of gold guineas.
There will be no "dispersal" (and this is their word, not mine). The money created hitherto by the unique cultural/social nexus of London, a premier world city, is going to be destroyed. No one at all will benefit, unless you think universal impoverishment, with accompanying suffering, is a moral good in itself, because eating grass rather than meat is good for the Christian soul.
Thanks. Fair enough. I am not denying that value can be destroyed, the cake get smaller. But the shattering of value of activity X does open the door to the increase in value of activity Y. And suppose we find that in London the price of everything drops, from commercial rents to property prices to cups of coffee. This is the mechanism which creates opportunity as well as closing down dying and unprofitable areas of activity.
"The amazing thing is, my relatives are as stupid as PBers."
Believe that's actionable - certainly your kinfolk well-advised to seek legal advice!
What do you think this same process will do to America?
Cities like NYC, Chicago and LA were already losing population BEFORE Covid. Now that process will greatly accelerate. NYC is likely to face an historic property bust. Rich people will flee. The Big Apple will fall.
Ergo, big Democratic states will depopulate and big Republican states (eg Texas) will benefit. Intriguing.
I can't see it, but if you're right the big Republican state would become Democratic states... people don't switch their politics as they move state.
Texas also has some big cities eg Houston and Dallas which would see movement to more rural and suburban areas of the state.
I doubt there would be big movement inter state, more intra state, eg New York city to upstate New York and LA and San Francisco to more rural counties in California and here from London to the Home counties with more working from home and fewer people travelling into the city every day, just for meetings
I think perhaps the main problem for many pubs in the lack of “spontaneous” passing trade. When you potentially have to plan every trip, arrange to meet people in advance etc etc, it’s just a big effort that many can’t be bothered with. Especially having got used to months at home not going out.
This is almost every pub in central London (and to a lesser extent, Brum, Manc, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, Bristol, Belfast). As things stand they are all doomed.
The damage will be incalculable, and the cascade effect is, in prospect, terrifying. Read across for the USA, France, Spain, Italy...
A natural consequence of what demand there is for these leisure activities (and, based on my admittedly limited observations so far, quite a lot still exists) being concentrated in the places where people live now, rather than where they used to work or go for days out in February.
Logically, the pubs, cafes and restaurants with the best chance of survival are those which (a) obtain most of their custom from locals, arriving on foot or via short car journeys, most of whom will be regular or semi-regular patrons, and (b) have plenty of space to cope with the social distancing problem, or are able to compensate adequately for the lack thereof through takeaway sales.
Old fashioned pubs with no gardens in city centres will only survive if they belong to chains or big breweries, and the ultimate owners are willing to mothball them or run them at a loss whilst they wait for this horror to play out.
They will all be mothballed, I reckon.
Our big city high streets will become ghost towns. Why should they not? People are terrified.
I have been telling this to relatives for weeks: Central London is fucked. The amazing thing is, my relatives are as stupid as PBers. They say "Oh well, the economy needed to be rebalanced". They don't seem to understand this is value and capital being simply destroyed, never to return.
Central London is/was a unique eco-system which provided squillions to UK PLC. Foreign tourists, students and others funnelled in cash via property, rates, VAT, consumption, on and on.
Take all of that away and it won't "disperse" to small towns in Dorset or the Isle of Harris.
It will just go. The closest analogy - economically - is a major war with serious urban bombing, which levels structures which cannot be rebuilt.
Another way of putting this is that you are saying, LadyG, that there is no hope for their futures. We are doomed. The PBers you describe as 'stupid' are not saying that everything will be great, as prosperous as now, or all magically return. Reordering economies happens all the time. It is quite possible that London and the big cities will have to do so. They will. Yes we may all get poorer. we may even get more equal. But we are not all doomed.
No. The idiot PBers I am referencing were saying this "dispersal" of money out of London was actively a "good thing", like there was someone with a wheelbarrow walking out of Mayfair who would kindly deposit the excess cash - dislodged by covid - to happy provincials, perhaps in the form of gold guineas.
There will be no "dispersal" (and this is their word, not mine). The money created hitherto by the unique cultural/social nexus of London, a premier world city, is going to be destroyed. No one at all will benefit, unless you think universal impoverishment, with accompanying suffering, is a moral good in itself, because eating grass rather than meat is good for the Christian soul.
Nah, a diminution of the London economy doesn't bother me much. Though I live a little over an hour away, I only go a few times in a year. The Great Wen sucks a lot of the Southern economy up, just as if did a couple of centuries ago. I dont expect the money to appear in Leicester, but it bothers me little if house prices in London halve.
Indeed, it might be a buying opportunity for Fox jr, as like everything else in a couple of years Covid will be history.
London is responsible for a high percentage of the tax that pays for the rest of the country.
Anecdotally I know people in high-income clusters in the US who are now looking at the cost of living differentials and thinking they might as well move somewhere cheaper if they don't need to go to the office.
What we're seeing is a shift, possibly long-term, in thresholds. People will still go to something with a small risk if they think it'll be absolutely fantastic - I expect TSE and I would go to an Abba reunion, say. But take even a small risk (0.01%, say) so as to eat at Nandos? No. Because if I lowered the threshold to do that, I'd do it maybe 20 times in the year, and then the risk starts to grow.
And I think it's the same with the passing trade and pubs. Regulars really like their local and want to support it loyally. Someone who happens to walk by and wonders whether to take a small risk to try out the Dog & Duck? Less so.
So I'd expect to see top-end places surviving, and conversely rakeaways where you're just popping in and out in a few minutes. But not everyday city centre restaurants, pubs or anythning else requiring sitting indoors.
Conversely, though, appetite for online stuff is growing fast. I know someone who runs webinars. Her latest got nearly 200 participants, 4 times the norm. Board gamers (who I know a lot of) are switching en masse to line versions. Pokerstars tournaments have gone through the roof. People adjust, and find that physical proximity wasn't quite as vital as we thought for casual social life.
Jeremy Hunt's constituency newsletter (I am an avid reader - it's a good read, with witty asides) predicts that masks in shops eill be compulsory within the next few days.
And does Hunt have views on whether masks should be worn in pubs and restaurants ?
Less than 10% wear them in the supermarkets I've been to.
So that's a lot of people who might get annoyed - not a vote winner.
And if wearing masks are necessary now then the government is admitting it fucked up massively by neither encouraging them four months ago nor ensuring their supply - again not a vote winner.
60% of voters now want masks to be compulsory for shoppers, including 57% of Tory voters
It isn't because it is not yet the law to make wearing them mandatory as it is on public transport, by the end of the week it likely will be the law and compulsory to wear a facemask while shopping
And High Streets will be even more bolloxed.
Still it means more profits for Amazon.
And good luck getting people to go to pubs and restaurants after they've been told that its not safe.
The reverse, wearing facemasks reduces the spread of Covid making it safer to go shopping, not making facemasks compulsory means it is more sensible to shop via online delivery rather than in store
People will be more afraid and so will go out less.
Whereas there's sod all risk currently going to the shops.
Take a look at where the outbreaks occur - factories, farms, care homes and hospitals. Not shops.
But by your reasoning people will not go to pubs and restaurants because masks aren't worn on those.
As nichomar pointed out below studies show 70% of people will get infected if an infected person in their proximity does not wear a mask, only 5% will if an infected person does wear a mask.
Face masks are already compulsory for staff and outpatients and visitors in care homes and hospitals, if you are in a pub you are on one table with limited numbers allowed inside not constantly in others vicinity in shopping aisles
Tif it wasn’t a study, it was anecdote from numbers doing the rounds in Spain.
In non-mask news, has anyone read the piece about the central London economy in the Evening Standard (available without paywall via the website?)
Rebalancing away from London is now well in progress, although not necessarily in the manner that the Government may have envisaged. It's completely screwed. Very little commuter traffic, almost no foreign visitors and only limited prospects for a revival. Most offices empty, public transport still operating at a fraction of pre-pandemic levels, all the theatres and nightclubs still forcibly shuttered of course, and predictions of 50,000 job losses in the West End alone.
It's no wonder that Johnson is now trying to cajole commuters into going back into work, but he won't succeed (a recent survey apparently states that 88% of commuters polled said they would not be comfortable returning to public transport this year.) With time and support the tourist business and much of the wider retail, hospitality and entertainment sectors can be slowly nursed back to health, but much of that office space will stand empty forever once the current leases on it expire. The activity that it used to support has all moved into the leafier suburbs and the Home Counties. It's done. Finished.
As I have been saying for a week. This is an approaching catastrophe which won't, in the end, affect just central London.
It is going to ripple out to every last village
If this continues the only feasible answer if for vastly more of central London to convert surplus building to residential use, a huge drop in property prices and rents and a more balanced city to emerge.
It will be interesting to see where the money has moved to. At a random guess, based on the local high street, lunch money is being spent in local cafes. So a direct transfer there.
I reckon that most people are bored with cooking at home while WFH and a relishing going out for lunch.
Too true. I've moved onto getting takeaway from local cafes/coffee shops just to get out of the house for a bit each day.
I'm past the point of going to pubs regularly. My friendship group are in the 40-50 age range, so going out requires arranging around childcare and work commitments. Tend to drink in the same place we're going out to eat, or a quick cocktail afterwards. I really miss this.
Most places where I live are really 'restaurants with a bar', the trad. pub is harder to find.
Jeremy Hunt's constituency newsletter (I am an avid reader - it's a good read, with witty asides) predicts that masks in shops eill be compulsory within the next few days.
And does Hunt have views on whether masks should be worn in pubs and restaurants ?
Less than 10% wear them in the supermarkets I've been to.
So that's a lot of people who might get annoyed - not a vote winner.
And if wearing masks are necessary now then the government is admitting it fucked up massively by neither encouraging them four months ago nor ensuring their supply - again not a vote winner.
60% of voters now want masks to be compulsory for shoppers, including 57% of Tory voters
It isn't because it is not yet the law to make wearing them mandatory as it is on public transport, by the end of the week it likely will be the law and compulsory to wear a facemask while shopping
And High Streets will be even more bolloxed.
Still it means more profits for Amazon.
And good luck getting people to go to pubs and restaurants after they've been told that its not safe.
The reverse, wearing facemasks reduces the spread of Covid making it safer to go shopping, not making facemasks compulsory means it is more sensible to shop via online delivery rather than in store
People will be more afraid and so will go out less.
Whereas there's sod all risk currently going to the shops.
Take a look at where the outbreaks occur - factories, farms, care homes and hospitals. Not shops.
But by your reasoning people will not go to pubs and restaurants because masks aren't worn on those.
As nichomar pointed out below studies show 70% of people will get infected if an infected person in their proximity does not wear a mask, only 5% will if an infected person does wear a mask.
Face masks are already compulsory for staff and outpatients and visitors in care homes and hospitals, if you are in a pub you are on one table with limited numbers allowed inside not constantly in others vicinity in shopping aisles
Tif it wasn’t a study, it was anecdote from numbers doing the rounds in Spain.
I didn’t claim scientific evidence, but it has the feel of being in the right ball park.
I know you didn’t but I felt that it was turning into a FACT by the magic of social media.
"The amazing thing is, my relatives are as stupid as PBers."
Believe that's actionable - certainly your kinfolk well-advised to seek legal advice!
What do you think this same process will do to America?
Cities like NYC, Chicago and LA were already losing population BEFORE Covid. Now that process will greatly accelerate. NYC is likely to face an historic property bust. Rich people will flee. The Big Apple will fall.
Ergo, big Democratic states will depopulate and big Republican states (eg Texas) will benefit. Intriguing.
Not sure that demographic changes will be as radical as you foresee. Demand for office space likely to be less than pre-Covid, but demand for housing will NOT lessen methinks.
Also, not ALL US cities experiencing population declines. For example, in WA State the fastest-growing area has been City of Seattle, and WA suburbs of Portland, Oregon. Even post-Covid would expect these trends to continue. M
ore people will be working from home. But most attracted to Seattle will NOT want to head to the back of beyond - EXCEPT on weekends, to go camping or to a cabin in the woods or on the beach.
Are there any stats on positive cases as a percentage of tests at the moment? How much testing is going on in various countries of the EU at present compared to what is going on here? Because if we are actually doing significantly higher levels of testing (I don’t know if we are) then some of the reported numbers in places of the EU are pretty high.
On one level I wonder if the Govt think that numbers might start growing again, and are looking to position the U.K. as “star performers” second time around. Not that I think this is ever going to be very likely as you have to perform very well as a large country to look good.
But the number of tests does not relate to the number of people being tested. I have a relative who works in a care home - she is tested weekly.
The Great Wen of London is much more central and important to British economy than any one major metropolis in America. Traditional for one group of cities to be going down (say Detroit, Philadelphia, St Louis) as another group is going up (Seattle, Phoenix, Nashville).
As for Seattle, we have a proud tradition of boom: Yukon gold rush, WWI, WWII, Boeing boom, Microsoft boom, Amazon boom. AND bust: post gold rush & war depressions, Boeing bust ("Will the last person leaving Seattle please turn out the lights?"), dot-com bust.
Common experience AND shared mentality have together taught us: bad times bite damn hard - and better days are just around the corner.
I can see the appeal of perma WFH for those with a nice detached house in the home counties, with a nice study and 2.5 kids. But speaking as a newly single man in his early 30's, this bloody fills me with dread. Has 4 months of this convinced the majority to bin off the commute?
It's not only sad acts like me who live to work? What about apprentices, and early years professionals who'd be immersed in office life, learning by osmosis (on bugger all money) building their network and reputations. Try doing that from your parents spare room over Zoom.
As has been noted, London is a finely balanced ecosystem that isn't going to survive the sudden removal of 50%+ of it's workforce plus tourism... Sure, the city can and will evolve over decades to reflect emerging social and economic trends, but this, be careful what you wish for.
I think perhaps the main problem for many pubs in the lack of “spontaneous” passing trade. When you potentially have to plan every trip, arrange to meet people in advance etc etc, it’s just a big effort that many can’t be bothered with. Especially having got used to months at home not going out.
This is almost every pub in central London (and to a lesser extent, Brum, Manc, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, Bristol, Belfast). As things stand they are all doomed.
The damage will be incalculable, and the cascade effect is, in prospect, terrifying. Read across for the USA, France, Spain, Italy...
A natural consequence of what demand there is for these leisure activities (and, based on my admittedly limited observations so far, quite a lot still exists) being concentrated in the places where people live now, rather than where they used to work or go for days out in February.
Logically, the pubs, cafes and restaurants with the best chance of survival are those which (a) obtain most of their custom from locals, arriving on foot or via short car journeys, most of whom will be regular or semi-regular patrons, and (b) have plenty of space to cope with the social distancing problem, or are able to compensate adequately for the lack thereof through takeaway sales.
Old fashioned pubs with no gardens in city centres will only survive if they belong to chains or big breweries, and the ultimate owners are willing to mothball them or run them at a loss whilst they wait for this horror to play out.
They will all be mothballed, I reckon.
Our big city high streets will become ghost towns. Why should they not? People are terrified.
I have been telling this to relatives for weeks: Central London is fucked. The amazing thing is, my relatives are as stupid as PBers. They say "Oh well, the economy needed to be rebalanced". They don't seem to understand this is value and capital being simply destroyed, never to return.
Central London is/was a unique eco-system which provided squillions to UK PLC. Foreign tourists, students and others funnelled in cash via property, rates, VAT, consumption, on and on.
Take all of that away and it won't "disperse" to small towns in Dorset or the Isle of Harris.
It will just go. The closest analogy - economically - is a major war with serious urban bombing, which levels structures which cannot be rebuilt.
Another way of putting this is that you are saying, LadyG, that there is no hope for their futures. We are doomed. The PBers you describe as 'stupid' are not saying that everything will be great, as prosperous as now, or all magically return. Reordering economies happens all the time. It is quite possible that London and the big cities will have to do so. They will. Yes we may all get poorer. we may even get more equal. But we are not all doomed.
No. The idiot PBers I am referencing were saying this "dispersal" of money out of London was actively a "good thing", like there was someone with a wheelbarrow walking out of Mayfair who would kindly deposit the excess cash - dislodged by covid - to happy provincials, perhaps in the form of gold guineas.
There will be no "dispersal" (and this is their word, not mine). The money created hitherto by the unique cultural/social nexus of London, a premier world city, is going to be destroyed. No one at all will benefit, unless you think universal impoverishment, with accompanying suffering, is a moral good in itself, because eating grass rather than meat is good for the Christian soul.
Nah, a diminution of the London economy doesn't bother me much. Though I live a little over an hour away, I only go a few times in a year. The Great Wen sucks a lot of the Southern economy up, just as if did a couple of centuries ago. I dont expect the money to appear in Leicester, but it bothers me little if house prices in London halve.
Indeed, it might be a buying opportunity for Fox jr, as like everything else in a couple of years Covid will be history.
London is responsible for a high percentage of the tax that pays for the rest of the country.
London, or large city businesses based in central London?
Or, in a nutshell, centrists who love their country reminding ourselves that we can see off illiberal minorities with a taste for enforcement and a distaste for free speech by holding steady, voting consistently and using sound reason and argument.
Thanks for the explanation. I genuinely had little idea of what radicals he was wittering on about.
Or, in a nutshell, centrists who love their country reminding ourselves that we can see off illiberal minorities with a taste for enforcement and a distaste for free speech by holding steady, voting consistently and using sound reason and argument.
Yeah, I'm guessing you voted for 'centrist' BJ with his sound reason and argument. When's he going to stop being bossed around by the highly organised ideological and unrepresentative radicals for whom he's a sock puppet?
I think perhaps the main problem for many pubs in the lack of “spontaneous” passing trade. When you potentially have to plan every trip, arrange to meet people in advance etc etc, it’s just a big effort that many can’t be bothered with. Especially having got used to months at home not going out.
This is almost every pub in central London (and to a lesser extent, Brum, Manc, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, Bristol, Belfast). As things stand they are all doomed.
The damage will be incalculable, and the cascade effect is, in prospect, terrifying. Read across for the USA, France, Spain, Italy...
A natural consequence of what demand there is for these leisure activities (and, based on my admittedly limited observations so far, quite a lot still exists) being concentrated in the places where people live now, rather than where they used to work or go for days out in February.
Logically, the pubs, cafes and restaurants with the best chance of survival are those which (a) obtain most of their custom from locals, arriving on foot or via short car journeys, most of whom will be regular or semi-regular patrons, and (b) have plenty of space to cope with the social distancing problem, or are able to compensate adequately for the lack thereof through takeaway sales.
Old fashioned pubs with no gardens in city centres will only survive if they belong to chains or big breweries, and the ultimate owners are willing to mothball them or run them at a loss whilst they wait for this horror to play out.
They will all be mothballed, I reckon.
Our big city high streets will become ghost towns. Why should they not? People are terrified.
I have been telling this to relatives for weeks: Central London is fucked. The amazing thing is, my relatives are as stupid as PBers. They say "Oh well, the economy needed to be rebalanced". They don't seem to understand this is value and capital being simply destroyed, never to return.
Central London is/was a unique eco-system which provided squillions to UK PLC. Foreign tourists, students and others funnelled in cash via property, rates, VAT, consumption, on and on.
Take all of that away and it won't "disperse" to small towns in Dorset or the Isle of Harris.
It will just go. The closest analogy - economically - is a major war with serious urban bombing, which levels structures which cannot be rebuilt.
Another way of putting this is that you are saying, LadyG, that there is no hope for their futures. We are doomed. The PBers you describe as 'stupid' are not saying that everything will be great, as prosperous as now, or all magically return. Reordering economies happens all the time. It is quite possible that London and the big cities will have to do so. They will. Yes we may all get poorer. we may even get more equal. But we are not all doomed.
No. The idiot PBers I am referencing were saying this "dispersal" of money out of London was actively a "good thing", like there was someone with a wheelbarrow walking out of Mayfair who would kindly deposit the excess cash - dislodged by covid - to happy provincials, perhaps in the form of gold guineas.
There will be no "dispersal" (and this is their word, not mine). The money created hitherto by the unique cultural/social nexus of London, a premier world city, is going to be destroyed. No one at all will benefit, unless you think universal impoverishment, with accompanying suffering, is a moral good in itself, because eating grass rather than meat is good for the Christian soul.
Nah, a diminution of the London economy doesn't bother me much. Though I live a little over an hour away, I only go a few times in a year. The Great Wen sucks a lot of the Southern economy up, just as if did a couple of centuries ago. I dont expect the money to appear in Leicester, but it bothers me little if house prices in London halve.
Indeed, it might be a buying opportunity for Fox jr, as like everything else in a couple of years Covid will be history.
Yes. London crowds out. If it shrinks there will be less of that. It's good.
In non-mask news, has anyone read the piece about the central London economy in the Evening Standard (available without paywall via the website?)
Rebalancing away from London is now well in progress, although not necessarily in the manner that the Government may have envisaged. It's completely screwed. Very little commuter traffic, almost no foreign visitors and only limited prospects for a revival. Most offices empty, public transport still operating at a fraction of pre-pandemic levels, all the theatres and nightclubs still forcibly shuttered of course, and predictions of 50,000 job losses in the West End alone.
It's no wonder that Johnson is now trying to cajole commuters into going back into work, but he won't succeed (a recent survey apparently states that 88% of commuters polled said they would not be comfortable returning to public transport this year.) With time and support the tourist business and much of the wider retail, hospitality and entertainment sectors can be slowly nursed back to health, but much of that office space will stand empty forever once the current leases on it expire. The activity that it used to support has all moved into the leafier suburbs and the Home Counties. It's done. Finished.
As I have been saying for a week. This is an approaching catastrophe which won't, in the end, affect just central London.
It is going to ripple out to every last village
If this continues the only feasible answer if for vastly more of central London to convert surplus building to residential use, a huge drop in property prices and rents and a more balanced city to emerge.
Do we have any architects in the house with experience of adapting large commercial buildings for residential use? The problems must be legion. Just imagine all that extra plumbing, if nothing else: a skyscraper redeveloped to accommodate hundreds of flats, every one needing at least one fully-fitted kitchen and bathroom. Thousands of gallons of fresh water going up and thousands of gallons of foul water and sewage going back down again, every day. These buildings weren't designed to be lived in; the costs of converting a large percentage of them would surely be astronomical?
Plenty of old mills converted to flats in Yorkshire.
I think perhaps the main problem for many pubs in the lack of “spontaneous” passing trade. When you potentially have to plan every trip, arrange to meet people in advance etc etc, it’s just a big effort that many can’t be bothered with. Especially having got used to months at home not going out.
This is almost every pub in central London (and to a lesser extent, Brum, Manc, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, Bristol, Belfast). As things stand they are all doomed.
The damage will be incalculable, and the cascade effect is, in prospect, terrifying. Read across for the USA, France, Spain, Italy...
A natural consequence of what demand there is for these leisure activities (and, based on my admittedly limited observations so far, quite a lot still exists) being concentrated in the places where people live now, rather than where they used to work or go for days out in February.
Logically, the pubs, cafes and restaurants with the best chance of survival are those which (a) obtain most of their custom from locals, arriving on foot or via short car journeys, most of whom will be regular or semi-regular patrons, and (b) have plenty of space to cope with the social distancing problem, or are able to compensate adequately for the lack thereof through takeaway sales.
Old fashioned pubs with no gardens in city centres will only survive if they belong to chains or big breweries, and the ultimate owners are willing to mothball them or run them at a loss whilst they wait for this horror to play out.
They will all be mothballed, I reckon.
Our big city high streets will become ghost towns. Why should they not? People are terrified.
I have been telling this to relatives for weeks: Central London is fucked. The amazing thing is, my relatives are as stupid as PBers. They say "Oh well, the economy needed to be rebalanced". They don't seem to understand this is value and capital being simply destroyed, never to return.
Central London is/was a unique eco-system which provided squillions to UK PLC. Foreign tourists, students and others funnelled in cash via property, rates, VAT, consumption, on and on.
Take all of that away and it won't "disperse" to small towns in Dorset or the Isle of Harris.
It will just go. The closest analogy - economically - is a major war with serious urban bombing, which levels structures which cannot be rebuilt.
Another way of putting this is that you are saying, LadyG, that there is no hope for their futures. We are doomed. The PBers you describe as 'stupid' are not saying that everything will be great, as prosperous as now, or all magically return. Reordering economies happens all the time. It is quite possible that London and the big cities will have to do so. They will. Yes we may all get poorer. we may even get more equal. But we are not all doomed.
No. The idiot PBers I am referencing were saying this "dispersal" of money out of London was actively a "good thing", like there was someone with a wheelbarrow walking out of Mayfair who would kindly deposit the excess cash - dislodged by covid - to happy provincials, perhaps in the form of gold guineas.
There will be no "dispersal" (and this is their word, not mine). The money created hitherto by the unique cultural/social nexus of London, a premier world city, is going to be destroyed. No one at all will benefit, unless you think universal impoverishment, with accompanying suffering, is a moral good in itself, because eating grass rather than meat is good for the Christian soul.
Nah, a diminution of the London economy doesn't bother me much. Though I live a little over an hour away, I only go a few times in a year. The Great Wen sucks a lot of the Southern economy up, just as if did a couple of centuries ago. I dont expect the money to appear in Leicester, but it bothers me little if house prices in London halve.
Indeed, it might be a buying opportunity for Fox jr, as like everything else in a couple of years Covid will be history.
London is responsible for a high percentage of the tax that pays for the rest of the country.
It's the opposite. It sucks the life of out the rest and throws a few dimes back.
I think perhaps the main problem for many pubs in the lack of “spontaneous” passing trade. When you potentially have to plan every trip, arrange to meet people in advance etc etc, it’s just a big effort that many can’t be bothered with. Especially having got used to months at home not going out.
This is almost every pub in central London (and to a lesser extent, Brum, Manc, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, Bristol, Belfast). As things stand they are all doomed.
The damage will be incalculable, and the cascade effect is, in prospect, terrifying. Read across for the USA, France, Spain, Italy...
A natural consequence of what demand there is for these leisure activities (and, based on my admittedly limited observations so far, quite a lot still exists) being concentrated in the places where people live now, rather than where they used to work or go for days out in February.
Logically, the pubs, cafes and restaurants with the best chance of survival are those which (a) obtain most of their custom from locals, arriving on foot or via short car journeys, most of whom will be regular or semi-regular patrons, and (b) have plenty of space to cope with the social distancing problem, or are able to compensate adequately for the lack thereof through takeaway sales.
Old fashioned pubs with no gardens in city centres will only survive if they belong to chains or big breweries, and the ultimate owners are willing to mothball them or run them at a loss whilst they wait for this horror to play out.
They will all be mothballed, I reckon.
Our big city high streets will become ghost towns. Why should they not? People are terrified.
I have been telling this to relatives for weeks: Central London is fucked. The amazing thing is, my relatives are as stupid as PBers. They say "Oh well, the economy needed to be rebalanced". They don't seem to understand this is value and capital being simply destroyed, never to return.
Central London is/was a unique eco-system which provided squillions to UK PLC. Foreign tourists, students and others funnelled in cash via property, rates, VAT, consumption, on and on.
Take all of that away and it won't "disperse" to small towns in Dorset or the Isle of Harris.
It will just go. The closest analogy - economically - is a major war with serious urban bombing, which levels structures which cannot be rebuilt.
Another way of putting this is that you are saying, LadyG, that there is no hope for their futures. We are doomed. The PBers you describe as 'stupid' are not saying that everything will be great, as prosperous as now, or all magically return. Reordering economies happens all the time. It is quite possible that London and the big cities will have to do so. They will. Yes we may all get poorer. we may even get more equal. But we are not all doomed.
No. The idiot PBers I am referencing were saying this "dispersal" of money out of London was actively a "good thing", like there was someone with a wheelbarrow walking out of Mayfair who would kindly deposit the excess cash - dislodged by covid - to happy provincials, perhaps in the form of gold guineas.
There will be no "dispersal" (and this is their word, not mine). The money created hitherto by the unique cultural/social nexus of London, a premier world city, is going to be destroyed. No one at all will benefit, unless you think universal impoverishment, with accompanying suffering, is a moral good in itself, because eating grass rather than meat is good for the Christian soul.
Nah, a diminution of the London economy doesn't bother me much. Though I live a little over an hour away, I only go a few times in a year. The Great Wen sucks a lot of the Southern economy up, just as if did a couple of centuries ago. I dont expect the money to appear in Leicester, but it bothers me little if house prices in London halve.
Indeed, it might be a buying opportunity for Fox jr, as like everything else in a couple of years Covid will be history.
London is responsible for a high percentage of the tax that pays for the rest of the country.
It's the opposite. It sucks the life of out the rest and throws a few dimes back.
You'd rather we didn't have a global city in our country?
I can see the appeal of perma WFH for those with a nice detached house in the home counties, with a nice study and 2.5 kids. But speaking as a newly single man in his early 30's, this bloody fills me with dread. Has 4 months of this convinced the majority to bin off the commute?
It's not only sad acts like me who live to work? What about apprentices, and early years professionals who'd be immersed in office life, learning by osmosis (on bugger all money) building their network and reputations. Try doing that from your parents spare room over Zoom.
As has been noted, London is a finely balanced ecosystem that isn't going to survive the sudden removal of 50%+ of it's workforce plus tourism... Sure, the city can and will evolve over decades to reflect emerging social and economic trends, but this, be careful what you wish for.
I see research published today by the Uni of California finds that smoking (including e-smoking) is a very big risk factor for younger people in terms of getting the more severe Covid symptoms.
What we're seeing is a shift, possibly long-term, in thresholds. People will still go to something with a small risk if they think it'll be absolutely fantastic - I expect TSE and I would go to an Abba reunion, say. But take even a small risk (0.01%, say) so as to eat at Nandos? No. Because if I lowered the threshold to do that, I'd do it maybe 20 times in the year, and then the risk starts to grow.
And I think it's the same with the passing trade and pubs. Regulars really like their local and want to support it loyally. Someone who happens to walk by and wonders whether to take a small risk to try out the Dog & Duck? Less so.
So I'd expect to see top-end places surviving, and conversely rakeaways where you're just popping in and out in a few minutes. But not everyday city centre restaurants, pubs or anythning else requiring sitting indoors.
Conversely, though, appetite for online stuff is growing fast. I know someone who runs webinars. Her latest got nearly 200 participants, 4 times the norm. Board gamers (who I know a lot of) are switching en masse to line versions. Pokerstars tournaments have gone through the roof. People adjust, and find that physical proximity wasn't quite as vital as we thought for casual social life.
I massively disagree. I’m absolutely done with Zoom, it’s a chore. You simply cannot replace face to face contact. Sure, conference calling is a means to an end, but it’s not a social activity - the simple mechanics of being unable to make pointed interruptions renders it a poor substitute. I’d rather pick up the phone - it feels luxurious compared to the artificiality of Zoom.
At the end of it all, people still wake up every day and think about how to fill their time and how to create value to pay for it. Creative destruction is the story of capitalism.
I would argue that cv-19 is doing little to economic, political and social norms but accelerate trends that were already inevitable, on a very very rapid timescale. De-urbanisation, digitisation of social and professional relationships, localisation of consumption and supply chains (partial unwinding of globalisation), Cold War 2 between democracy and totalitarian China, debt jubilee by sleight of central banker's hand to be followed by a permenantly bigger state etc...
In the midst of all that wealth destruction and disorder comes opportunity. The average outcome might end up being strongly positive but with a high standard deviation of outcomes across a population of individuals (a re-run of the 1980s then). Most of the time we are corks bobbing in the swirling currents of the ocean but every now and then we get the chance to swim with the tide.
People might not buy as many books at airports but they will have more time to read novels the rest of the time than ever before. It's not so bleak as people here make out if you zoom out the lens a bit. But this is admittedly very hard to do when we're still in the eye of the storm, especially so since this is an economic crisis second and a human one first.
In regards to public transport there appear to be quite a large number of (self certified as far as I can tell) exceptions. And there is clearly a reasonably high level of non compliance that is not resulting in fines.
I think perhaps the main problem for many pubs in the lack of “spontaneous” passing trade. When you potentially have to plan every trip, arrange to meet people in advance etc etc, it’s just a big effort that many can’t be bothered with. Especially having got used to months at home not going out.
This is almost every pub in central London (and to a lesser extent, Brum, Manc, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, Bristol, Belfast). As things stand they are all doomed.
The damage will be incalculable, and the cascade effect is, in prospect, terrifying. Read across for the USA, France, Spain, Italy...
A natural consequence of what demand there is for these leisure activities (and, based on my admittedly limited observations so far, quite a lot still exists) being concentrated in the places where people live now, rather than where they used to work or go for days out in February.
Logically, the pubs, cafes and restaurants with the best chance of survival are those which (a) obtain most of their custom from locals, arriving on foot or via short car journeys, most of whom will be regular or semi-regular patrons, and (b) have plenty of space to cope with the social distancing problem, or are able to compensate adequately for the lack thereof through takeaway sales.
Old fashioned pubs with no gardens in city centres will only survive if they belong to chains or big breweries, and the ultimate owners are willing to mothball them or run them at a loss whilst they wait for this horror to play out.
They will all be mothballed, I reckon.
Our big city high streets will become ghost towns. Why should they not? People are terrified.
I have been telling this to relatives for weeks: Central London is fucked. The amazing thing is, my relatives are as stupid as PBers. They say "Oh well, the economy needed to be rebalanced". They don't seem to understand this is value and capital being simply destroyed, never to return.
Central London is/was a unique eco-system which provided squillions to UK PLC. Foreign tourists, students and others funnelled in cash via property, rates, VAT, consumption, on and on.
Take all of that away and it won't "disperse" to small towns in Dorset or the Isle of Harris.
It will just go. The closest analogy - economically - is a major war with serious urban bombing, which levels structures which cannot be rebuilt.
Another way of putting this is that you are saying, LadyG, that there is no hope for their futures. We are doomed. The PBers you describe as 'stupid' are not saying that everything will be great, as prosperous as now, or all magically return. Reordering economies happens all the time. It is quite possible that London and the big cities will have to do so. They will. Yes we may all get poorer. we may even get more equal. But we are not all doomed.
No. The idiot PBers I am referencing were saying this "dispersal" of money out of London was actively a "good thing", like there was someone with a wheelbarrow walking out of Mayfair who would kindly deposit the excess cash - dislodged by covid - to happy provincials, perhaps in the form of gold guineas.
There will be no "dispersal" (and this is their word, not mine). The money created hitherto by the unique cultural/social nexus of London, a premier world city, is going to be destroyed. No one at all will benefit, unless you think universal impoverishment, with accompanying suffering, is a moral good in itself, because eating grass rather than meat is good for the Christian soul.
Nah, a diminution of the London economy doesn't bother me much. Though I live a little over an hour away, I only go a few times in a year. The Great Wen sucks a lot of the Southern economy up, just as if did a couple of centuries ago. I dont expect the money to appear in Leicester, but it bothers me little if house prices in London halve.
Indeed, it might be a buying opportunity for Fox jr, as like everything else in a couple of years Covid will be history.
London is responsible for a high percentage of the tax that pays for the rest of the country.
A lot of the money made in the rest of the country is banked in London perhaps, where companies have their HQ.
We are nog talking about major tax paying companies though, just the ephemera of restaurants and pubs etc.
Anecdotally I know people in high-income clusters in the US who are now looking at the cost of living differentials and thinking they might as well move somewhere cheaper if they don't need to go to the office.
And why on earth not. Trading floors can move to the developing world. Perfectly logical.
In non-mask news, has anyone read the piece about the central London economy in the Evening Standard (available without paywall via the website?)
Rebalancing away from London is now well in progress, although not necessarily in the manner that the Government may have envisaged. It's completely screwed. Very little commuter traffic, almost no foreign visitors and only limited prospects for a revival. Most offices empty, public transport still operating at a fraction of pre-pandemic levels, all the theatres and nightclubs still forcibly shuttered of course, and predictions of 50,000 job losses in the West End alone.
It's no wonder that Johnson is now trying to cajole commuters into going back into work, but he won't succeed (a recent survey apparently states that 88% of commuters polled said they would not be comfortable returning to public transport this year.) With time and support the tourist business and much of the wider retail, hospitality and entertainment sectors can be slowly nursed back to health, but much of that office space will stand empty forever once the current leases on it expire. The activity that it used to support has all moved into the leafier suburbs and the Home Counties. It's done. Finished.
As I have been saying for a week. This is an approaching catastrophe which won't, in the end, affect just central London.
It is going to ripple out to every last village
If this continues the only feasible answer if for vastly more of central London to convert surplus building to residential use, a huge drop in property prices and rents and a more balanced city to emerge.
It will be interesting to see where the money has moved to. At a random guess, based on the local high street, lunch money is being spent in local cafes. So a direct transfer there.
I reckon that most people are bored with cooking at home while WFH and a relishing going out for lunch.
Too true. I've moved onto getting takeaway from local cafes/coffee shops just to get out of the house for a bit each day.
I'm past the point of going to pubs regularly. My friendship group are in the 40-50 age range, so going out requires arranging around childcare and work commitments. Tend to drink in the same place we're going out to eat, or a quick cocktail afterwards. I really miss this.
Most places where I live are really 'restaurants with a bar', the trad. pub is harder to find.
Restaurants with a bar aka pubs? That pubs have diversified into places with great food doesn’t prevent them being pubs!
The Great Wen of London is much more central and important to British economy than any one major metropolis in America. Traditional for one group of cities to be going down (say Detroit, Philadelphia, St Louis) as another group is going up (Seattle, Phoenix, Nashville).
As for Seattle, we have a proud tradition of boom: Yukon gold rush, WWI, WWII, Boeing boom, Microsoft boom, Amazon boom. AND bust: post gold rush & war depressions, Boeing bust ("Will the last person leaving Seattle please turn out the lights?"), dot-com bust.
Common experience AND shared mentality have together taught us: bad times bite damn hard - and better days are just around the corner.
If WFH becomes the norm every big city will decline in population size and economy with a shift to the suburbs, smaller towns and rural areas and that will be a trend across the developed world
"The amazing thing is, my relatives are as stupid as PBers."
Believe that's actionable - certainly your kinfolk well-advised to seek legal advice!
What do you think this same process will do to America?
Cities like NYC, Chicago and LA were already losing population BEFORE Covid. Now that process will greatly accelerate. NYC is likely to face an historic property bust. Rich people will flee. The Big Apple will fall.
Ergo, big Democratic states will depopulate and big Republican states (eg Texas) will benefit. Intriguing.
Not sure that demographic changes will be as radical as you foresee. Demand for office space likely to be less than pre-Covid, but demand for housing will NOT lessen methinks.
Also, not ALL US cities experiencing population declines. For example, in WA State the fastest-growing area has been City of Seattle, and WA suburbs of Portland, Oregon. Even post-Covid would expect these trends to continue. M
ore people will be working from home. But most attracted to Seattle will NOT want to head to the back of beyond - EXCEPT on weekends, to go camping or to a cabin in the woods or on the beach.
Are there any stats on positive cases as a percentage of tests at the moment? How much testing is going on in various countries of the EU at present compared to what is going on here? Because if we are actually doing significantly higher levels of testing (I don’t know if we are) then some of the reported numbers in places of the EU are pretty high.
On one level I wonder if the Govt think that numbers might start growing again, and are looking to position the U.K. as “star performers” second time around. Not that I think this is ever going to be very likely as you have to perform very well as a large country to look good.
But the number of tests does not relate to the number of people being tested. I have a relative who works in a care home - she is tested weekly.
I’m not sure that actually makes a difference to my argument, unless people are actually being tested multiple times in one day. But anyway - my question was a question not a statement. Are we testing more people than elsewhere? I don’t know whether we are or not.
Re: people switching politics when they move from one state to another.
Back in early 70s my Republican father was transferred by his company to Louisiana. After getting the lay of the land, he registered to vote - as a Democrat.
NOT because he'd changed his stripes, or his views. But because while the Republican Party was rising fast in the Pelican State, it was NOT fully competitive with Democratic Party, especially at legislative level and in local (parish) government. Many races were still decided in Democratic primary or runoff; and he was still free to vote for Republicans in general elections IF they were on the ballot.
When he moved back North in early 80s he again became a registered Republican.
Knew of somewhat similar case, a California Republican (from northern Cali) who moved to Indianapolis and became a registered Democrat. Said that Hoosier GOP was just too conservative, but Hoosier Dems were just right for him; definitely to the right of most Cali Dems.
What we're seeing is a shift, possibly long-term, in thresholds. People will still go to something with a small risk if they think it'll be absolutely fantastic - I expect TSE and I would go to an Abba reunion, say. But take even a small risk (0.01%, say) so as to eat at Nandos? No. Because if I lowered the threshold to do that, I'd do it maybe 20 times in the year, and then the risk starts to grow.
And I think it's the same with the passing trade and pubs. Regulars really like their local and want to support it loyally. Someone who happens to walk by and wonders whether to take a small risk to try out the Dog & Duck? Less so.
So I'd expect to see top-end places surviving, and conversely rakeaways where you're just popping in and out in a few minutes. But not everyday city centre restaurants, pubs or anythning else requiring sitting indoors.
Conversely, though, appetite for online stuff is growing fast. I know someone who runs webinars. Her latest got nearly 200 participants, 4 times the norm. Board gamers (who I know a lot of) are switching en masse to line versions. Pokerstars tournaments have gone through the roof. People adjust, and find that physical proximity wasn't quite as vital as we thought for casual social life.
I massively disagree. I’m absolutely done with Zoom, it’s a chore. You simply cannot replace face to face contact. Sure, conference calling is a means to an end, but it’s not a social activity - the simple mechanics of being unable to make pointed interruptions renders it a poor substitute. I’d rather pick up the phone - it feels luxurious compared to the artificiality of Zoom.
Agreed, I think for the most part, at the moment people have managed to carry over their existing relationships built up IRL into the virtual world fairly successfully. Whether this is sustainable over years, is for me, questionable. There's a lot of richness in physical contact I'm not sure is an adequate substitute.
Yeah, it could be done, on a technical level, but is this a world we want to live in? Society compartmentalised in their own homes, coming out now and again for a pre-booked meal or socially distanced drinks? Think I'll risk it with Covid, thanks.
The Great Wen of London is much more central and important to British economy than any one major metropolis in America. Traditional for one group of cities to be going down (say Detroit, Philadelphia, St Louis) as another group is going up (Seattle, Phoenix, Nashville).
As for Seattle, we have a proud tradition of boom: Yukon gold rush, WWI, WWII, Boeing boom, Microsoft boom, Amazon boom. AND bust: post gold rush & war depressions, Boeing bust ("Will the last person leaving Seattle please turn out the lights?"), dot-com bust.
Common experience AND shared mentality have together taught us: bad times bite damn hard - and better days are just around the corner.
If WFH becomes the norm every big city will decline in population size and economy with a shift to the suburbs and rural areas and that will be a trend across the developed world
Except that Seattle and number of other cities in US and elsewhere are attracting people who (at least at this stage of their lives) do NOT want to live in 'burbs or back of beyond.
I can see the appeal of perma WFH for those with a nice detached house in the home counties, with a nice study and 2.5 kids. But speaking as a newly single man in his early 30's, this bloody fills me with dread. Has 4 months of this convinced the majority to bin off the commute?
It's not only sad acts like me who live to work? What about apprentices, and early years professionals who'd be immersed in office life, learning by osmosis (on bugger all money) building their network and reputations. Try doing that from your parents spare room over Zoom.
As has been noted, London is a finely balanced ecosystem that isn't going to survive the sudden removal of 50%+ of it's workforce plus tourism... Sure, the city can and will evolve over decades to reflect emerging social and economic trends, but this, be careful what you wish for.
It is crazy. I doubt it will really happen.
I don’t see how businesses can operate dynamically over the medium term with everyone working from home. Managing staff turnover, keeping abreast of what staff are doing, training, general exchange of ideas etc etc all much harder if not impossible in a WFH environment. So the outcome of all this may increase WFH and lead to more efficient use of home working, but I can’t believe that businesses will basically revert to it as a default.
Anecdotally I know people in high-income clusters in the US who are now looking at the cost of living differentials and thinking they might as well move somewhere cheaper if they don't need to go to the office.
I can see the appeal of perma WFH for those with a nice detached house in the home counties, with a nice study and 2.5 kids. But speaking as a newly single man in his early 30's, this bloody fills me with dread. Has 4 months of this convinced the majority to bin off the commute?
It's not only sad acts like me who live to work? What about apprentices, and early years professionals who'd be immersed in office life, learning by osmosis (on bugger all money) building their network and reputations. Try doing that from your parents spare room over Zoom.
As has been noted, London is a finely balanced ecosystem that isn't going to survive the sudden removal of 50%+ of it's workforce plus tourism... Sure, the city can and will evolve over decades to reflect emerging social and economic trends, but this, be careful what you wish for.
It is crazy. I doubt it will really happen.
I don’t see how businesses can operate dynamically over the medium term with everyone working from home. So the outcome of all this may increase WFH and lead to more efficient use of home working, but I can’t believe that businesses will basically revert to it as a default.
Yes. Way, way too much of this debate seems to tend to the all or nothing. It seems obvious to me that we’ll end up on a 2:3 model or some such, and that when people are in the office they will leverage that time for personal interaction. In the days they WFH they will focus on project work and more solitary tasks. I have favoured this model long before CV-19.
In non-mask news, has anyone read the piece about the central London economy in the Evening Standard (available without paywall via the website?)
Rebalancing away from London is now well in progress, although not necessarily in the manner that the Government may have envisaged. It's completely screwed. Very little commuter traffic, almost no foreign visitors and only limited prospects for a revival. Most offices empty, public transport still operating at a fraction of pre-pandemic levels, all the theatres and nightclubs still forcibly shuttered of course, and predictions of 50,000 job losses in the West End alone.
It's no wonder that Johnson is now trying to cajole commuters into going back into work, but he won't succeed (a recent survey apparently states that 88% of commuters polled said they would not be comfortable returning to public transport this year.) With time and support the tourist business and much of the wider retail, hospitality and entertainment sectors can be slowly nursed back to health, but much of that office space will stand empty forever once the current leases on it expire. The activity that it used to support has all moved into the leafier suburbs and the Home Counties. It's done. Finished.
As I have been saying for a week. This is an approaching catastrophe which won't, in the end, affect just central London.
It is going to ripple out to every last village
If this continues the only feasible answer if for vastly more of central London to convert surplus building to residential use, a huge drop in property prices and rents and a more balanced city to emerge.
It will be interesting to see where the money has moved to. At a random guess, based on the local high street, lunch money is being spent in local cafes. So a direct transfer there.
I reckon that most people are bored with cooking at home while WFH and a relishing going out for lunch.
Too true. I've moved onto getting takeaway from local cafes/coffee shops just to get out of the house for a bit each day.
I'm past the point of going to pubs regularly. My friendship group are in the 40-50 age range, so going out requires arranging around childcare and work commitments. Tend to drink in the same place we're going out to eat, or a quick cocktail afterwards. I really miss this.
Most places where I live are really 'restaurants with a bar', the trad. pub is harder to find.
That last point's actually very pertinent to where I live as well. Thinking about it we've actually lost four pubs in recent years (three have been redeveloped, the other is boarded up and no-one will be taking on the lease for a long time, if ever, I suspect,) and they were all pretty much traditional boozers. The remaining licenced establishments in town, of which there are actually a fair few, do mainly fall into the restaurant with bar and inn/hotel brackets. Young lads and those otherwise going out mainly to drink typically end up in the 'spoons or the sports bar; pretty much everything else that's left is family friendly/polite middle class.
I think perhaps the main problem for many pubs in the lack of “spontaneous” passing trade. When you potentially have to plan every trip, arrange to meet people in advance etc etc, it’s just a big effort that many can’t be bothered with. Especially having got used to months at home not going out.
This is almost every pub in central London (and to a lesser extent, Brum, Manc, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, Bristol, Belfast). As things stand they are all doomed.
The damage will be incalculable, and the cascade effect is, in prospect, terrifying. Read across for the USA, France, Spain, Italy...
A natural consequence of what demand there is for these leisure activities (and, based on my admittedly limited observations so far, quite a lot still exists) being concentrated in the places where people live now, rather than where they used to work or go for days out in February.
Logically, the pubs, cafes and restaurants with the best chance of survival are those which (a) obtain most of their custom from locals, arriving on foot or via short car journeys, most of whom will be regular or semi-regular patrons, and (b) have plenty of space to cope with the social distancing problem, or are able to compensate adequately for the lack thereof through takeaway sales.
Old fashioned pubs with no gardens in city centres will only survive if they belong to chains or big breweries, and the ultimate owners are willing to mothball them or run them at a loss whilst they wait for this horror to play out.
They will all be mothballed, I reckon.
Our big city high streets will become ghost towns. Why should they not? People are terrified.
I have been telling this to relatives for weeks: Central London is fucked. The amazing thing is, my relatives are as stupid as PBers. They say "Oh well, the economy needed to be rebalanced". They don't seem to understand this is value and capital being simply destroyed, never to return.
Central London is/was a unique eco-system which provided squillions to UK PLC. Foreign tourists, students and others funnelled in cash via property, rates, VAT, consumption, on and on.
Take all of that away and it won't "disperse" to small towns in Dorset or the Isle of Harris.
It will just go. The closest analogy - economically - is a major war with serious urban bombing, which levels structures which cannot be rebuilt.
Another way of putting this is that you are saying, LadyG, that there is no hope for their futures. We are doomed. The PBers you describe as 'stupid' are not saying that everything will be great, as prosperous as now, or all magically return. Reordering economies happens all the time. It is quite possible that London and the big cities will have to do so. They will. Yes we may all get poorer. we may even get more equal. But we are not all doomed.
No. The idiot PBers I am referencing were saying this "dispersal" of money out of London was actively a "good thing", like there was someone with a wheelbarrow walking out of Mayfair who would kindly deposit the excess cash - dislodged by covid - to happy provincials, perhaps in the form of gold guineas.
There will be no "dispersal" (and this is their word, not mine). The money created hitherto by the unique cultural/social nexus of London, a premier world city, is going to be destroyed. No one at all will benefit, unless you think universal impoverishment, with accompanying suffering, is a moral good in itself, because eating grass rather than meat is good for the Christian soul.
Nah, a diminution of the London economy doesn't bother me much. Though I live a little over an hour away, I only go a few times in a year. The Great Wen sucks a lot of the Southern economy up, just as if did a couple of centuries ago. I dont expect the money to appear in Leicester, but it bothers me little if house prices in London halve.
Indeed, it might be a buying opportunity for Fox jr, as like everything else in a couple of years Covid will be history.
London is responsible for a high percentage of the tax that pays for the rest of the country.
It's the opposite. It sucks the life of out the rest and throws a few dimes back.
You'd rather we didn't have a global city in our country?
And now, just to run the borders, even if the deal goes to the government's plan, the UK is set to spend £10bn on people to complete and check the forms.
> bit re: France is interesting because of high likelihood French courts would refuse to extradite her back to US if she fled there (as in Mastro fraud case).
But what I don't understand is if she has the ability to go there after getting bail, why didn't she go there before she was caught?
The 7 billion doesn’t include lost trade because of more trade barriers . The polishing of the Brexit turd by some Leavers is truly pitiful !
Plus unlike the money spent on EU membership, which supported spending on EU wide projects, helped poorer economies in the bloc develop and some of which was spent on development projects in the UK itself, this £7bn is a pure dead weight cost to the economy, equivalent to simply pouring the money down the drain. It is utter madness.
The Great Wen of London is much more central and important to British economy than any one major metropolis in America. Traditional for one group of cities to be going down (say Detroit, Philadelphia, St Louis) as another group is going up (Seattle, Phoenix, Nashville).
As for Seattle, we have a proud tradition of boom: Yukon gold rush, WWI, WWII, Boeing boom, Microsoft boom, Amazon boom. AND bust: post gold rush & war depressions, Boeing bust ("Will the last person leaving Seattle please turn out the lights?"), dot-com bust.
Common experience AND shared mentality have together taught us: bad times bite damn hard - and better days are just around the corner.
If WFH becomes the norm every big city will decline in population size and economy with a shift to the suburbs and rural areas and that will be a trend across the developed world
Except that Seattle and number of other cities in US and elsewhere are attracting people who (at least at this stage of their lives) do NOT want to live in 'burbs or back of beyond.
Pre Covid maybe not if they no longer will need to work in the city on a regular basis and certainly not if they are middle aged or older and more at risk from the virus
Another way of putting this is that you are saying, LadyG, that there is no hope for their futures. We are doomed. The PBers you describe as 'stupid' are not saying that everything will be great, as prosperous as now, or all magically return. Reordering economies happens all the time. It is quite possible that London and the big cities will have to do so. They will. Yes we may all get poorer. we may even get more equal. But we are not all doomed.
My brother made an interesting observation a couple of weeks ago.
His firm has largely operated from a single site for well over 300 years. It took 6 days to repurpose that to a WFH environment. But there is little pressure to go back - remote working is effective, and those staff who are dependent on location (eg chefs) are being paid their full wage if they volunteer for local charities where they live
I can see the appeal of perma WFH for those with a nice detached house in the home counties, with a nice study and 2.5 kids. But speaking as a newly single man in his early 30's, this bloody fills me with dread. Has 4 months of this convinced the majority to bin off the commute?
It's not only sad acts like me who live to work? What about apprentices, and early years professionals who'd be immersed in office life, learning by osmosis (on bugger all money) building their network and reputations. Try doing that from your parents spare room over Zoom.
As has been noted, London is a finely balanced ecosystem that isn't going to survive the sudden removal of 50%+ of it's workforce plus tourism... Sure, the city can and will evolve over decades to reflect emerging social and economic trends, but this, be careful what you wish for.
It is crazy. I doubt it will really happen.
I don’t see how businesses can operate dynamically over the medium term with everyone working from home. So the outcome of all this may increase WFH and lead to more efficient use of home working, but I can’t believe that businesses will basically revert to it as a default.
Yes. Way, way too much of this debate seems to tend to the all or nothing. It seems obvious to me that we’ll end up on a 2:3 model or some such, and that when people are in the office they will leverage that time for personal interaction. In the days they WFH they will focus on project work and more solitary tasks. I have favoured this model long before CV-19.
In truth, one suspects that there will be a whole spectrum of responses. The important point is that you'd expect that only a minority of employees will ever go back to commuting full-time; some will need to go in part-time as you suggest; still others will only need to meet with colleagues periodically, which can be done by hiring a function room somewhere rather than gathering in an office; and some will work from home full-time and interact with employers and colleagues wholly or almost wholly remotely.
Even when Covid is over, businesses employing people in the second category are going to need less office space; if all of your workers are in categories 3 and 4, you won't need to bother at all. A substantial and permanent reduction in demand both for office accommodation and for all the services that businesses and workers using those offices require - such as cleaning, sandwich shops, city centre bars and public transport - will necessarily follow.
I can see the appeal of perma WFH for those with a nice detached house in the home counties, with a nice study and 2.5 kids. But speaking as a newly single man in his early 30's, this bloody fills me with dread. Has 4 months of this convinced the majority to bin off the commute?
It's not only sad acts like me who live to work? What about apprentices, and early years professionals who'd be immersed in office life, learning by osmosis (on bugger all money) building their network and reputations. Try doing that from your parents spare room over Zoom.
As has been noted, London is a finely balanced ecosystem that isn't going to survive the sudden removal of 50%+ of it's workforce plus tourism... Sure, the city can and will evolve over decades to reflect emerging social and economic trends, but this, be careful what you wish for.
Why does London have a right to survive as it is now? Where were the rights of the rest of the country when it was draining them like a vampire. sucking the money, brains and souls out of communities....as the upcoming youngsters if we have a new paradigm which is zoom and teams etc I am sure they will do just fine
Considering our EU membership fees were more than double that, what a bargain leaving is turning out to be!
Eu membership fees were always corporate welfare everyone had to pay so those firms that dealt with the eu could do stuff cheaper. Now they have to pay there own way its a damn good thing
I can see the appeal of perma WFH for those with a nice detached house in the home counties, with a nice study and 2.5 kids. But speaking as a newly single man in his early 30's, this bloody fills me with dread. Has 4 months of this convinced the majority to bin off the commute?
It's not only sad acts like me who live to work? What about apprentices, and early years professionals who'd be immersed in office life, learning by osmosis (on bugger all money) building their network and reputations. Try doing that from your parents spare room over Zoom.
I cannot help but get the feeling that people are leaping a bit quick onthe assumption that things will change massively in the long term. Sure, a lot of people, by necessity, are being converted to the benefits of WFH culture, and plenty of other places will have little choice to cut costs on things like office space, but like eco campaigners claiming that this now means we certainly won't need loads of homes and road infrastructure because we definitely will see a permanent decrease in commuting, I feel like it is possible people will gravitate back to more familiar ways of working. Perhaps not in the same numbers as before, but more than many suspect.
Personally I'm sick to death of it. I'm sad and lonely enough as it is, and awkward enough to boot, without the benefits of cultivating actual human relationships in a work setting.
I think perhaps the main problem for many pubs in the lack of “spontaneous” passing trade. When you potentially have to plan every trip, arrange to meet people in advance etc etc, it’s just a big effort that many can’t be bothered with. Especially having got used to months at home not going out.
This is almost every pub in central London (and to a lesser extent, Brum, Manc, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, Bristol, Belfast). As things stand they are all doomed.
The damage will be incalculable, and the cascade effect is, in prospect, terrifying. Read across for the USA, France, Spain, Italy...
A natural consequence of what demand there is for these leisure activities (and, based on my admittedly limited observations so far, quite a lot still exists) being concentrated in the places where people live now, rather than where they used to work or go for days out in February.
Logically, the pubs, cafes and restaurants with the best chance of survival are those which (a) obtain most of their custom from locals, arriving on foot or via short car journeys, most of whom will be regular or semi-regular patrons, and (b) have plenty of space to cope with the social distancing problem, or are able to compensate adequately for the lack thereof through takeaway sales.
Old fashioned pubs with no gardens in city centres will only survive if they belong to chains or big breweries, and the ultimate owners are willing to mothball them or run them at a loss whilst they wait for this horror to play out.
They will all be mothballed, I reckon.
Our big city high streets will become ghost towns. Why should they not? People are terrified.
I have been telling this to relatives for weeks: Central London is fucked. The amazing thing is, my relatives are as stupid as PBers. They say "Oh well, the economy needed to be rebalanced". They don't seem to understand this is value and capital being simply destroyed, never to return.
Central London is/was a unique eco-system which provided squillions to UK PLC. Foreign tourists, students and others funnelled in cash via property, rates, VAT, consumption, on and on.
Take all of that away and it won't "disperse" to small towns in Dorset or the Isle of Harris.
It will just go. The closest analogy - economically - is a major war with serious urban bombing, which levels structures which cannot be rebuilt.
Another way of putting this is that you are saying, LadyG, that there is no hope for their futures. We are doomed. The PBers you describe as 'stupid' are not saying that everything will be great, as prosperous as now, or all magically return. Reordering economies happens all the time. It is quite possible that London and the big cities will have to do so. They will. Yes we may all get poorer. we may even get more equal. But we are not all doomed.
No. The idiot PBers I am referencing were saying this "dispersal" of money out of London was actively a "good thing", like there was someone with a wheelbarrow walking out of Mayfair who would kindly deposit the excess cash - dislodged by covid - to happy provincials, perhaps in the form of gold guineas.
There will be no "dispersal" (and this is their word, not mine). The money created hitherto by the unique cultural/social nexus of London, a premier world city, is going to be destroyed. No one at all will benefit, unless you think universal impoverishment, with accompanying suffering, is a moral good in itself, because eating grass rather than meat is good for the Christian soul.
Nah, a diminution of the London economy doesn't bother me much. Though I live a little over an hour away, I only go a few times in a year. The Great Wen sucks a lot of the Southern economy up, just as if did a couple of centuries ago. I dont expect the money to appear in Leicester, but it bothers me little if house prices in London halve.
Indeed, it might be a buying opportunity for Fox jr, as like everything else in a couple of years Covid will be history.
London is responsible for a high percentage of the tax that pays for the rest of the country.
It's the opposite. It sucks the life of out the rest and throws a few dimes back.
You'd rather we didn't have a global city in our country?
What we're seeing is a shift, possibly long-term, in thresholds. People will still go to something with a small risk if they think it'll be absolutely fantastic - I expect TSE and I would go to an Abba reunion, say. But take even a small risk (0.01%, say) so as to eat at Nandos? No. Because if I lowered the threshold to do that, I'd do it maybe 20 times in the year, and then the risk starts to grow.
And I think it's the same with the passing trade and pubs. Regulars really like their local and want to support it loyally. Someone who happens to walk by and wonders whether to take a small risk to try out the Dog & Duck? Less so.
So I'd expect to see top-end places surviving, and conversely rakeaways where you're just popping in and out in a few minutes. But not everyday city centre restaurants, pubs or anythning else requiring sitting indoors.
Conversely, though, appetite for online stuff is growing fast. I know someone who runs webinars. Her latest got nearly 200 participants, 4 times the norm. Board gamers (who I know a lot of) are switching en masse to line versions. Pokerstars tournaments have gone through the roof. People adjust, and find that physical proximity wasn't quite as vital as we thought for casual social life.
I massively disagree. I’m absolutely done with Zoom, it’s a chore. You simply cannot replace face to face contact. Sure, conference calling is a means to an end, but it’s not a social activity - the simple mechanics of being unable to make pointed interruptions renders it a poor substitute. I’d rather pick up the phone - it feels luxurious compared to the artificiality of Zoom.
Agreed, I think for the most part, at the moment people have managed to carry over their existing relationships built up IRL into the virtual world fairly successfully. Whether this is sustainable over years, is for me, questionable. There's a lot of richness in physical contact I'm not sure is an adequate substitute.
Yeah, it could be done, on a technical level, but is this a world we want to live in? Society compartmentalised in their own homes, coming out now and again for a pre-booked meal or socially distanced drinks? Think I'll risk it with Covid, thanks.
Most normal people dont actually form social relationships at work....at least below middle management level. I have worked for quite a number of companies big and small since the 80's and it has always been middle managers and above that have socialised the hoi polloi on the whole leave at the end of the day and go out with friends not work colleagues
The 7 billion doesn’t include lost trade because of more trade barriers . The polishing of the Brexit turd by some Leavers is truly pitiful !
Plus unlike the money spent on EU membership, which supported spending on EU wide projects, helped poorer economies in the bloc develop and some of which was spent on development projects in the UK itself, this £7bn is a pure dead weight cost to the economy, equivalent to simply pouring the money down the drain. It is utter madness.
Why the hell should my hard earned money be taken to help romania or albania or Poland when I am left living hand to mouth because of it wondering if the money will last till the end of the month while high paid tits like you tell me how good it is to help other countries?
The 7 billion doesn’t include lost trade because of more trade barriers . The polishing of the Brexit turd by some Leavers is truly pitiful !
Plus unlike the money spent on EU membership, which supported spending on EU wide projects, helped poorer economies in the bloc develop and some of which was spent on development projects in the UK itself, this £7bn is a pure dead weight cost to the economy, equivalent to simply pouring the money down the drain. It is utter madness.
Why the hell should my hard earned money be taken to help romania or albania or Poland when I am left living hand to mouth because of it wondering if the money will last till the end of the month while high paid tits like you tell me how good it is to help other countries?
Albania isn’t in the EU, and our entire contribution is the same as the amount that gets sent to Northern Ireland.
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Also, not ALL US cities experiencing population declines. For example, in WA State the fastest-growing area has been City of Seattle, and WA suburbs of Portland, Oregon. Even post-Covid would expect these trends to continue. M
ore people will be working from home. But most attracted to Seattle will NOT want to head to the back of beyond - EXCEPT on weekends, to go camping or to a cabin in the woods or on the beach.
There will be no "dispersal" (and this is their word, not mine). The money created hitherto by the unique cultural/social nexus of London, a premier world city, is going to be destroyed. No one at all will benefit, unless you think universal impoverishment, with accompanying suffering, is a moral good in itself, because eating grass rather than meat is good for the Christian soul.
Indeed, it might be a buying opportunity for Fox jr, as like everything else in a couple of years Covid will be history.
London survived World War II and thrived afterwards. And whatever value has been destroyed by this virus and our government's rubbish response to it, it's peanuts compared to that. We're still blessed to be here and now.
I doubt there would be big movement inter state, more intra state, eg New York city to upstate New York and LA and San Francisco to more rural counties in California and here from London to the Home counties with more working from home and fewer people travelling into the city every day, just for meetings
And I think it's the same with the passing trade and pubs. Regulars really like their local and want to support it loyally. Someone who happens to walk by and wonders whether to take a small risk to try out the Dog & Duck? Less so.
So I'd expect to see top-end places surviving, and conversely rakeaways where you're just popping in and out in a few minutes. But not everyday city centre restaurants, pubs or anythning else requiring sitting indoors.
Conversely, though, appetite for online stuff is growing fast. I know someone who runs webinars. Her latest got nearly 200 participants, 4 times the norm. Board gamers (who I know a lot of) are switching en masse to line versions. Pokerstars tournaments have gone through the roof. People adjust, and find that physical proximity wasn't quite as vital as we thought for casual social life.
I'm past the point of going to pubs regularly. My friendship group are in the 40-50 age range, so going out requires arranging around childcare and work commitments. Tend to drink in the same place we're going out to eat, or a quick cocktail afterwards. I really miss this.
Most places where I live are really 'restaurants with a bar', the trad. pub is harder to find.
https://twitter.com/ProfTimBale/status/1281848808175996928
As for Seattle, we have a proud tradition of boom: Yukon gold rush, WWI, WWII, Boeing boom, Microsoft boom, Amazon boom. AND bust: post gold rush & war depressions, Boeing bust ("Will the last person leaving Seattle please turn out the lights?"), dot-com bust.
Common experience AND shared mentality have together taught us: bad times bite damn hard - and better days are just around the corner.
It's not only sad acts like me who live to work? What about apprentices, and early years professionals who'd be immersed in office life, learning by osmosis (on bugger all money) building their network and reputations. Try doing that from your parents spare room over Zoom.
As has been noted, London is a finely balanced ecosystem that isn't going to survive the sudden removal of 50%+ of it's workforce plus tourism... Sure, the city can and will evolve over decades to reflect emerging social and economic trends, but this, be careful what you wish for.
Considering our EU membership fees were more than double that, what a bargain leaving is turning out to be!
I would argue that cv-19 is doing little to economic, political and social norms but accelerate trends that were already inevitable, on a very very rapid timescale. De-urbanisation, digitisation of social and professional relationships, localisation of consumption and supply chains (partial unwinding of globalisation), Cold War 2 between democracy and totalitarian China, debt jubilee by sleight of central banker's hand to be followed by a permenantly bigger state etc...
In the midst of all that wealth destruction and disorder comes opportunity. The average outcome might end up being strongly positive but with a high standard deviation of outcomes across a population of individuals (a re-run of the 1980s then). Most of the time we are corks bobbing in the swirling currents of the ocean but every now and then we get the chance to swim with the tide.
People might not buy as many books at airports but they will have more time to read novels the rest of the time than ever before. It's not so bleak as people here make out if you zoom out the lens a bit. But this is admittedly very hard to do when we're still in the eye of the storm, especially so since this is an economic crisis second and a human one first.
We are nog talking about major tax paying companies though, just the ephemera of restaurants and pubs etc.
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-7886/
Back in early 70s my Republican father was transferred by his company to Louisiana. After getting the lay of the land, he registered to vote - as a Democrat.
NOT because he'd changed his stripes, or his views. But because while the Republican Party was rising fast in the Pelican State, it was NOT fully competitive with Democratic Party, especially at legislative level and in local (parish) government. Many races were still decided in Democratic primary or runoff; and he was still free to vote for Republicans in general elections IF they were on the ballot.
When he moved back North in early 80s he again became a registered Republican.
Knew of somewhat similar case, a California Republican (from northern Cali) who moved to Indianapolis and became a registered Democrat. Said that Hoosier GOP was just too conservative, but Hoosier Dems were just right for him; definitely to the right of most Cali Dems.
Yeah, it could be done, on a technical level, but is this a world we want to live in? Society compartmentalised in their own homes, coming out now and again for a pre-booked meal or socially distanced drinks? Think I'll risk it with Covid, thanks.
Thats where the threat lies...
Nice one Boris. Nice one Dom.
His firm has largely operated from a single site for well over 300 years. It took 6 days to repurpose that to a WFH environment. But there is little pressure to go back - remote working is effective, and those staff who are dependent on location (eg chefs) are being paid their full wage if they volunteer for local charities where they live
Even when Covid is over, businesses employing people in the second category are going to need less office space; if all of your workers are in categories 3 and 4, you won't need to bother at all. A substantial and permanent reduction in demand both for office accommodation and for all the services that businesses and workers using those offices require - such as cleaning, sandwich shops, city centre bars and public transport - will necessarily follow.
Personally I'm sick to death of it. I'm sad and lonely enough as it is, and awkward enough to boot, without the benefits of cultivating actual human relationships in a work setting.