Whatever Happened to Eco-Towns..?

Gordon Brown tries to revive his moribund fortunes with a big announcement on "British homes for British workers" (or somesuch words). This - as with much of the New Labour approach to news - restyles and remodels a lot of what has gone before and quietly lays to rest any knottier issues.
No-one could doubt the need for social housing and affordable homes. And no irony is detected in the voice of a former Chancellor who rode the wave of houseprice inflation until it crashed on the beach of the economic downturn. But this should not be 'The Big Idea' of any government. It should - as we begin to see in Scotland - be the day-to-day bread-and-butter of local services, provided and regulated democratically by local corporations.
The centralizing agenda of successive Conservative and Labour administrations threw out the trust of local authority and replaced it with the bland economics of 'cheapest service provider'. And what the concept of eco-towns did was to replace sensible, organic growth of community by community with the over-development in any place at any cost. That is an idea whose time was up long ago.
See also: John Healey: Green light given on eco-town sites plus tougher standards for future homes, Communities and Local Government, July 16th, 2009

Why Stealing Cars Could Secure Scotland’s Independence

The joint report from HSBC bank and The Future Laboratory interviewed entrepreneurs and business leaders across the UK and projected a focussed future for the business hubs of the 21st Century. The fine Scottish cities of Edinburgh, Glasgow and Dundee are each expected to perform well as the hot centers of high-value, high-end technologies like robotics and stemcell research, both in development and production. Student programmers all over Scotland will be pleased to hear that gaming is predicted to be one of the definitive ‘industries’ in all three places. Dundee, which is already home to the developers of worldwide brands such as ‘Grand Theft Auto’, will also provide the ideal conditions for nutraceutical business and the range of biotechnologies.
Also of interest are the identities of five ‘super-cities’ (Brighton, Leeds, Liverpool, London, Newcastle) with London in particular driving on to a dizzying city-state status. This is a global trend (at least in the developing world) and is not unique to the UK. Other Europe-wide studies have drawn the lines of influence more broadly and considered the Central Belt of Scotland (Edinburgh + Glasgow combined) on a par with productive micro-regions like the Ruhr. Micro-regions are historically defined in terms of providing services, but increasingly can be considered as spontaneous, self-sufficient and viable centers of economic creation.
The step from defining the viability of an extended Glasgow/Edinburgh/Dundee micro-region is not great and could provide a solid economic argument for a self-sustaining economic independence. But can this alone work? With public sector employment in Scotland hovering around fifty per cent and a healthier but ageing population, these niche industries will have to provide an income and tax base sufficient to support the changed demographics of the previously industrialized world. The very portability of miniature technologies means that there is physically no barrier to establishing them in any viable part of the world. Countries like India, ironically, are already seeing large industries like carmaking offshore themselves to the vast physical powerbase of China. But India has the technical and academic base to replicate the newer niche industries five and tenfold. This creates only a short window of opportunity before any advantage of precedent is lost. So, this may prove the economic opportunity of the century for a small developed nation like Scotland, and to seize it quickly may require the decision of the decade.
See also: En Avant, The future of UK business, according to HSBC, June 3rd, 2009

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