| Central London - just back 15:55 - Jan 26 with 9981 views | BlackCrowe |
Cycled along Portland Place, Oxford St, Regent St, Piccadilly Circus etc this morning. Utterly deserted, post-apocalyptic city. Made me sad.
Half expected to see dozen or so Daleks coming up the Strand. |  |
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| Central London - just back on 17:01 - Jan 27 with 1810 views | paulparker |
WFH is all well and good and I’ve done it for a year now and saved a fortune
But I can’t help but miss the office environment, winding up other lads in the office if their team loses, a bit of light banter, flirting with the girls from HR
Plus the free coffee and free electricity helps |  |
| And Bowles is onside, Swinburne has come rushing out of his goal , what can Bowles do here , onto the left foot no, on to the right foot
That’s there that’s two, and that’s Bowles
Brian Moore
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| Central London - just back on 17:23 - Jan 27 with 1762 views | loftboy |
| Central London - just back on 16:25 - Jan 27 by xianwol |
This has implications that we can barely contemplate. Clive is right that central London will never be the same again. God knows what will happen to all that office space, much of which is wholly unsuitable to conversion to residential at a reasonable cost.No one I speak to is going to go back to the office five days per week. I write about the railways for a living and the impact on that industry will be particular severe. Any notion that it will all go back to normal is wrong.
I do find it mostly utterly depressing. Towns and cities are the cradle of civilisation and intermingling with each other is a basic human activity, fundamental to our wellbeing. |
If they can build flats in the carcasses of gas works then I’m sure most of those high rises wouldn’t be a problem. [Post edited 27 Jan 2021 17:24]
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| Central London - just back on 17:39 - Jan 27 with 1721 views | PinnerPaul |
On the economy, apart from the train/bus companies - doesn't the money just get moved from one place to another?
People still have to eat and they spend that at home instead of at/near workplace for example.
Good discussion though - wouldn't get this on 'Lions Forever' or 'Blues Goons' or whatever their forums are called!  |  | | |
| Central London - just back on 18:19 - Jan 27 with 1665 views | Bushman |
Thought this was good and relevant- sorry it’s quite long
MATTHEW SYED
Shut bars and you kill whole ecosystems
Economies thrive when we work together and play together
In her book Regional Advantage, the sociologist AnnaLee Saxenian compares Silicon Valley with the tech sector of Massachusetts. She notes that in the early 1970s, it was the companies on the East Coast that were bigger, more profitable and looked set to dominate. The Valley, on the other hand, hosted a few companies in what had been a region of apricot farms. As one pundit put it: “Massachusetts were ahead of the game on all the key indicators.”
What happened next is one of the mysteries of modern economics. Although the Massachusetts firms had the scale and kudos, it was the Silicon Valley start-ups that powered ahead, creating so many technologies that they are not possible to list in a column of this length. By 2000, the region had changed the planet – and almost all the firms in Massachusetts had gone bust.
Saxenian has an answer to this mystery that goes to the heart of the pandemic and also helps us to understand perhaps the key issue in economics: innovation. Her answer isn’t to do with the brilliance of executives, or the size of the incentives, or anything else you might find in a textbook. Instead, it is contained in the bars, clubs and noodle joints that sprang up around the Valley.
You may have noticed that these places – hospitality venues – have been the first casualties of social restrictions during this pandemic. The government never curtails these venues lightly, to be fair, and typically looks at how they can be recompensed, along with the effect on the supply chain. But hospitality is not considered in the same way as, say, electricity – an industry regarded as crucial to the functioning of the broader economy.
Saxenian’s argument is that hospitality plays a similar role, albeit in a subtler way. You get a flavour of what she means by reading Tom Wolfe’s 1983 Esquire article on the Valley: “Every year there was some place, the Wagon Wheel, Chez Yvonne, Rickey’s, the Roundhouse, where members of this esoteric fraternity, the young men and women of the semiconductor industry, would head after work to have a drink and gossip and brag and trade war stories about phase jitters, phantom circuits, bubble memories, pulse trains, bounceless contacts, burst modes, leapfrog tests, p-n junctions, sleeping-sickness modes, slow-death episodes, RAMs, NAKs, MOSes, PCMs, PROMs, PROM blowers, PROM burners, PROM blasters, and teramagnitudes, meaning multiples of a million millions.”
Wolfe’s point is that while these spaces looked like “mere” social venues, they were provoking something more momentous: the crosspollination of ideas. They were the hubs that hosted encounters between engineers, thinkers, entrepreneurs and financiers. Saxenian argues that such places have always played a pivotal role in innovation, from the social clubs of the Scottish Enlightenment to the coffee houses of 19th century Vienna. Steve Wozniak came up with the idea for the Apple microcomputer the first time he went to the Homebrew computer club, where hobbyists in the Valley congregated to drink beer. “It changed my life,” he later said. Steve Jobs, his cofounder, also attended the Homebrew, as well as the other social haunts in the area.
As for the companies in Massachusetts, they failed not because of the quality of the people, but the impoverished ecosystem. The firms were isolated, existing miles apart along Route 128. This meant that ideas circulated within companies, but didn’t get a chance to spill over. People from diverse institutions didn’t meet up in bars and cafés because these scarcely existed. As one veteran put it: “There may have been a lunch spot, but there was nothing of the magnitude of Silicon Valley hangouts.”
Isn’t this picture of Massachusetts eerily similar to the socially distanced world today, where we work from home, or go home straight from work, and where our cities have become ghost towns? Our interactions have become linear, predictable, structured, curated via Zoom or Teams, lacking the serendipity engendered by our great urban centres, where people used to spill out into the creative haunts of Shoreditch and Soho, the tech hubs north of St Pancras, the bars of the City and the equivalents in Manchester, Edinburgh and beyond. To Saxenian, these represent the electricity grid of innovation, the places that could help us ward off the looming economic crisis.
This ought to trigger another thought, too. For while there is an epidemiological case for curtailing social venues during a pandemic (the physical proximity that enables ideas to spread is what enables viruses to spread, too), there is a longer-term question about the future of work. And it is remarkable how many economists are coalescing around vastly expanded home working. There are, of course, benefits from less commuting and more flexible hours, and some recalibration was overdue, but I fear that we are missing the bigger picture.
Economists (and some executives) seem to conceive of offices as locations where we work at desks, conduct meetings and the like. This is why they think home working can, more or less, mimic the office – for can we not use desks in our flats and conduct meetings online? The problem is that this misses out almost everything of significance about not just offices, but the ecosystems they are part of, which spawn the intricate ballet of innovation.
Think of the conversations – the trivial chats in the lifts and along the corridors that turn out to be anything but trivial. These are the places that drive the flow of ideas and whose spontaneity cannot be replicated in the straitjacket of a digital meeting, with its formal list of invitees. Think, too, of what happens outside the office as disparate people come together in the Wagon Wheels and their equivalents, the hubs of creative disruption. When we lose this, it is not productivity that suffers, at least not at first. No, the victim is innovation, which is far more serious.
In my book Rebel Ideas, I discuss a naive entomologist seeking to understand a colony of ants by analysing the ants within the colony. You could spend a lifetime focused on individual ants and learn nothing of these creatures. For it is only by stepping back that you glimpse the colony as a coherent organism, capable of solving problems such as building homes and finding food. An ant colony is an “emergent system”.
This is the secret of our species, too, the mystery of our wondrous achievements in art, science and tech. When we suppose that innovation is delivered by talented individuals, or even institutions, we are like naive entomologists failing to see the bigger picture; the way that great ideas emerge from the complex interplay of people and institutions within ecosystems. As we debate the future of work, of life, let us not fall into this trap.
For when we curtail our sociality, we curtail our humanity. |  |
| I know almost nothing about the Premier League even though I try to catch the big games every now and then at the end of the season. But I will say this, Queens Park Rangers is just a fukking sick ass team name. Just sounds so cool. |
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| Central London - just back on 18:21 - Jan 27 with 1659 views | E17hoop |
The UK moved to a service economy and we're now employed by a majority in knowledge industries. There's been a leaking of 'knowledge workers' from offices over the last decade as technology changes the nature of the workplace. What Covid has done has been to accelerate that migration. Surveys across the board find a majority of employees wanting to work from home now and the optimum will be 3 or 4 days remotely in the future.
This presents massive problems for workforce planning, people management, facilities, etc. If your workforce is only required in the office 40% of the time, it's likely you only need 40% of the office space. This will lead to massive oversupply, reduction in rents, and reduced revenues for building and office development. Check where your pension is invested - anywhere with a substantial property portfolio is going to be at risk.
Technology won't stand still on this either; I've seen virtual office technology that maps your original office design. People will check in at their desk and you can keep the office map open to see when people are at their desk. Popping over to have a chat is as simple as clicking on their image.
There will still be a demand for 'skill work' but it is, as highlighted earlier in this thread, likely to be lower paid. Developing new skill work is essential - roles in STEM based work must be the focus and innovation in technology and digital approaches should be strongly targeted. Have a look at how Latvia has developed a startup culture and has focused on becoming a digital leader for example.
This is a cracking read:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B08LNZS28R/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_tkin_
by a QPR fan about this stuff. He's an expert in workplace design and his last book understands the change problem really well. |  |
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| Central London - just back on 18:35 - Jan 27 with 1627 views | ted_hendrix |
The City of London Corporation has given planning permission for the construction of a 30-storey office development in the Square Mile.
Hong Kong developer Tenacity plans to build the tower at 55 Gracechurch Street, between Monument station and Leadenhall Market.
Alastair Moss, chair of the planning & transportation committee at the City of London Corporation, said: “We remain positive about the long-term future of the City office despite the current lockdown. It is fantastic, therefore, to see this significant vote of confidence from the developers of 55 Gracechurch Street.
“The building design embraces emerging development trends, such as flexible workspace, greening and access to fresh air — all of which were rising trends that have now been embedded into building design as a result of the pandemic."
Tenacity also has plans for a 33-storey tower at 70 Gracechurch Street in the City, called The Forum, to provide around 600,000 sq ft of office and retail space. |  |
| My Father had a profound influence on me, he was a lunatic. |
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| Central London - just back on 21:05 - Jan 27 with 1516 views | CiderwithRsie |
| Central London - just back on 15:41 - Jan 27 by kensalriser |
I have a feeling one fallout from all this will be middle managers - you know, the sort that likes to forever wander around the office and because they don't do any actual work but love to show how smart, capable and in control they are, is forever holding meetings that stop people who actually do the work from doing any work. The office served as the tide and now the tide has gone out, they'll be exposed as swimming naked. [Post edited 27 Jan 2021 15:43]
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You may well be right and put in those terms we can all say Good Riddance.
But a year or two back I read an interview with the bloke who came up with the term "meritocracy" in the 50s.
Two eye-openers. First, he didn't mean it as a good thing. What he meant was that we had gone from being ruled by hereditary aristocrats to being ruled by people with degrees. We're still ruled by an elite, just these ones have qualifications.
Second, he said the rise out of poverty for most people after WW2 had feck all to do with better education, it was all down to a massive increase in management and clerical jobs which meant most people no longer did grinding physical labour until they died of exhaustion at 65 plus a lot of ordinary joes could afford to buy a home.
Cut out a layer of those jobs, throw in the way property prices have gone in the last 40 years, and look at how the rich have sewn up private education and we're back with inherited wealth anyway. It's scary and the worst case scenario is some sort of revolution | | | |
| Central London - just back on 21:17 - Jan 27 with 1489 views | CiderwithRsie |
While I'm going all apocalyptic, leaving aside London a lot of small towns were already on their uppers and the continuing collapse of High Street chains is killing them. Now Debenhams is gone - along with John Lewis that was the classic "anchor store" town planners used to want to attract. It's not new but Covid has put the foot on the gas.
Obviously the way to go was to bring back some housing into town centres, coffee shops, entertainment etc - exactly that urban buzz that someone upthread was talking about. I still think that's the way to go but the number of small businesses getting crucified this last year is scary. I think London will bounce back at least a bit but some places up North, on the coasts and so on are getting kicked when they were already down.
Most of the councils have invested in property as a way of getting income and collapse of High Streets puts that at risk, plus the business rates are down the toilet, so the ability of councils to lead on regeneration is poor too
The fate of clubs like Bury is part of that, the football club is part of the soul of a small town. | | | |
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| Central London - just back on 21:58 - Jan 27 with 1424 views | GloryHunter |
Great thread. Some really interesting views.
My two penneth:
The internet started big time in 1997. Straightaway there were people saying we wouldn't have to commute into work any more, and there would be more remote working. But it never happened. I was lecturing in Higher Education at the time, and the guy who organised the teaching timetables tried to give us all a day at home, for marking and preparation. But the Head of Department didn't trust us, so he deliberately used to arrange meetings on our "home" days, so we'd have to commute in to HQ just to sit in on a meaningless 30 minute chat and coffee.
So I suspect that once things return to "normal", the bosses will still want to get everyone back in the office.
Plus, there is always a great yearning in everybody to get back to how it was before. I saw this in my parents, who survived WWII. They shelved their traumas and just wanted to carry on, as though nothing had happened.
[Edit: to remove baffling acronym - sorry :)] [Post edited 27 Jan 2021 22:04]
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| Central London - just back on 17:50 - Jan 28 with 1193 views | TGRRRSSS |
Back in the 70s they talked off the paperless office and lots more leasure time which happened in Victorian era when they gave more time off etc - put of this came football for example in terms of watching as a leisure pastime.
Those were big changes but today technology can offer more and also tie you more to itself in various forms.
I like Syed and think he's got some great ideas and stuff though there's an argument - put to me in a discussion 4 or 5 years back over Bounce - His first (I think) book.
Chap I was with opined Syed can be too keen on going with his theory and finding the evidence only for that not not counter balance it.
I think thats fair comment but I agree alot with the stuff as posted by BuSHMan.
I feel that endeavour ultimately comes form the sharing of ideas etc and different people making their way on.
Look at football and the habits of players today compared to the 90s when you's have mags like Match and Shoot asking players how many pints they could down of an evening.
The foreign imports such as Wenger came in and changed that and now they relatively live like Monks in the respect of how their diet is and other types of habits, hydration in game and goodness knows, this comes from the exchange and movement I guess, but even Wenger ultimately looked the dinosaur when the Moneyball theory exploded (for want of a better way of putting it) |  | | |
| Central London - just back on 17:54 - Jan 28 with 1180 views | Juzzie |
I love the way bosses pipe on about how technology makes things easier. Bollox does it, it just means they can employ less staff to do twice the amount of work. |  | | |
| Central London - just back on 12:55 - Jan 30 with 1001 views | TGRRRSSS |
That happens too, it's surprising though in my line of work how some of those technologically so advanced are still so old fashioned in terms of paperwork. | | | |
| Central London - just back on 15:08 - Feb 2 with 848 views | TacticalR |
Walking through Grosvenor Square a couple of weeks ago I was surprised to see that the facade of the American Embassy (which in my opinion doesn't have anything to recommend it) is being preserved. I took this photo:
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