Category Archives: Regeneration, Renewal And Resilience
The Tale of the Christmas Laser Lights: Spotlight on Delivery
Big celebratory events are always at risk of failing to fulfil their hyped-up promise. London experienced this so it is said when they tried one year to introduce laser lights for the Oxford Street Christmas illuminations. How much more embarrassing it would be if Liverpool were not to deliver fully on the promise for the celebrations in 2007 and 2008.
Twice in the past fortnight I’ve been in London, a city currently sporting serious Christmas illuminations, and both times I’ve heard from cab drivers the Tale of the Christmas Laser Lights.
The story goes that one year London’s Oxford Street Christmas lights (normally, as this year, fairly predictable arrangements) were redesigned to include lasers. This caused considerable excitement, to all accounts across the globe, and visitors travelled from far and wide to see these splendid displays. The problem, as related by my cab drivers, was however that splendid the lasers were not.
Promise only what you can deliver
Thus, in one case, my taxi driver told me that he had actually attempted to talk a potential visitor out of an expensive ride to see the lasers; but to no avail. His fare’s disappointment was huge, having as it then transpired travelled from abroad to see them, when it became evident to the visitor that these high-tech features of the Christmas illuminations were almost undetectable.
And there’s surely a moral here. If you’re going to talk something up, make sure you can actually deliver it. The story of the Christmas laser lights has clearly become a part of the folk lore of London tourism. It’s evolved, rightly or wrongly, into a benchmark for How Not To Do It.
The lesson for Liverpool
In the next two or three years Liverpool is lined up to deliver enormous celebratory events, firstly, in 2007, for the 800th anniversary of the Charter of the city, and then, in 2008, for the European Capital of Culture Year.
As things stand, few of us are privy to any substantive information about what will happen in Liverpool during these two years (and even fewer of us have been involved in making proposals). All, however, are regaled on a daily basis with tales of how splendidly impressive these signal events will be.
Let’s not forget the moral of the story of the Christmas Laser Lights. A visitior disappointed is a visitor who will very likely remember for many a year to come the time and resources s/he ill-advisedly invested.
Redeeming a nondescript set of annual Christmas illuminations is one thing. Redeeming two very special and critically high profile, but ultimately nondescript, years in a world-renown city such as Liverpool would be on a different scale of significance altogether.
The Merseyside Entrepreneurship Commission
The launch of the final Report of the Merseyside Entrepreneurship Commission this morning has thrown up some interesting facts, some challenging ideas and a number of practical ‘can do’s’. The big question now is, where do we go next?
This morning I went to the launch of the Merseyside Entrepreneurship Commission‘s final Report. It was a well attended meeting; and I gather there are to be events throughout the week to exemplify the core messge, that enterprise is doing, not talking about it.
Is Merseyside different?
It would I think be difficult to claim that Merseyside is really different from other similar areas of Britain in terms of the need to bring the entrepreneurial message into focus. But it may be that the particular context of European Objective 1 funding makes the situation a little more striking. It’s not unusual for areas such as this to have about 60% dependency in one way or another on public funding, but perhaps the huge plethora of agencies purporting to offer ‘advice’ is fuelled by the availability of this funding stream.
Whatever, I have to agree wholeheartedly that there are too many agencies, and that they are insufficiently monitored in respect of the quality of what they have on offer. I do wonder, however, what impact there might be on Merseyside’s economy if the 300 or so agencies were ‘rationalised’ in the way some might wish. Would there be a local mini-recession? And would this kick-start or stifle further developments?
Emphasis on technology
It’s also interesting that one proposal for the way forward is to have a web forum. As I was one of, no doubt, many who suggested the web ‘ideas exchange’, I am pleased to see that this notion has now taken on a life of its own.
The web forum has been entitled ‘ucan’ (make it) and is intended to be a virtual reference point for all things entrepreneurial in Merseyside. Hopefully, it will be a means by which those other, non-e agencies can streamline and provide a joined up service for budding entrepreneurs, as well as for established followers of the mode who want to exchange news, views and so on. Perhaps it will also be able to support the educational initiatives which the Commission obviously wants to see extended and nurtured.
Where now?
The Merseyside Entrepreneurship Commission told us this morning that it has now completed its formal work. It will be interesting – if not fascinating – to see what happens next. The website is to be sponsored for six months to see how much it is used and how it develops; and the challenge is firmly presented to the many agencies and other operators to get themsleves aligned in terms of the clients’ wider experience and access.
We shall all, I suspect, watch this space with interest.
Balancing The Early Years Education Pay-Off
There seems to be a growing consensus from different parts of the world about the benefits of education both to individuals and to the common good and economic well-being. What this means in terms of particular policies in different places may however be less obvious.
It’s probably not just random co-incidence which finds the New York Times and the BBC putting out complementary news items on education today.
The first of these items concerns the ‘return’ on education for the economy as a whole. The second is about the positive effects of nursery education on adults’ employment prospects and earnings. Each of these reports offers yet more evidence that education, as an overall experience and in the context of early years, is worthwhile both for the individuals concerned and for society as a whole.
Individual impact
In a British study, researchers Alissa Goodman and Barbara Sianesi of the Institute of Fiscal Studies have just reported that ‘starting education before the compulsory school starting age at five can have long-lasting, positive impacts on children’s lives.’
The IFS research findings suggest that adults with a nursery or playgroup background were more likely to have gained qualifications and be in work at the age of 33, and also offer evidence that such adults were able to sustain a 3-4% wage gain over others at that age. This is obviously encouraging to those currently engaged in enhancing pre-shcool provision in the U.K.
Impact on society
The American studies, some of them by Princeton’s Professor Alan Krueger, also point to an educational advantage (of up to 10% overall) for individuals who continue in education, with the impact being most pronounced for individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds.
The particularly interesting debate however concerns the effect on education on the economy as a whole. And in this there seems to be consensus across the Atlantic: UK economist Professor Jonathan Temple of Bristol is reported as agreeing with Harvard’s Professors Lawrence Katz and Claudia Goldin that the impact on total economic growth of extra education is at least as significant as that for individuals, with perhaps up to a 10% growth in gross domestic product. But as ever how this education should be funded, and to what extent, is less clear.
What’s good for people is good for society
The conclusion from these and other studies seems quite firmly to point towards a commonality of interest between those who strive as individuals to benefit from education, and those who as a matter of policy provide it. The evidence is unsurprising – education, from the early years onwards, produces people who are more able both to succeed in their personal lives and to contribute to their communities, society and overall well-being.
The next question, as politicans and decision-makers both sides of the Pond acknowledge, is at what level of public investment at any stage in individuals’ educational careers will there be optimal return in respect of socio-economic pay-off? Answers to that question may, even within the current economy-led consensus across the western world, yield very different specific policies in different places.
Towards a Strong Urban Renaissance (Urban Task Force)
The latest report from Lord Rogers and colleagues makes an interesting read. There’s an enormous amount of urban and infrastructural renewal still to be undertaken, but we now understand the challenges much more clearly, and this is obviously a good starting point for further endeavours.
It’s been an interesting experience today, travelling (again, again) between London and Liverpool, and reading The Urban Renaissance six years on, published in November 2005 by Lord Rogers and his Urban Task Force colleagues.
As we whizzed past towns, villages and fields, packed like sardines in our Pendolino, I mused on the messages of this report:- people who can and who have families are moving out of towns, neighbourhoods are neither well-designed nor well-served, transport provision is too dislocated, environmental issues abound, there is confusion at the macro levels about who leads economic development, and who regeneration, and so forth. To see that much of this is true I had only to look around me, out of the window or at my fellow travellers, most of them self-evidently long-distance commuters.
Not all bad news
But it would be unfair to suggest that Rogers and friends simply criticise. They point to impressive areas of development over the past few years, such as the ‘measurable change of culture in favour of towns and cities, reflecting a nationwide commitment to the Urban Renaisance’, and to the much larger numbers of (mostly younger) people now living in city centres.
And that’s before we get to the significant increases in investment in transport infrastructure, brownfield site development and the huge amounts of money (£39bn) allocated over the next five years to the Sustainable Communities Plan across England.
Why then so glum?
This is an issue which no doubt repays much further thought by us all, but the one thing which comes to mind immediately is, why are people in the U.K., one of the most wealthy countries in the world, so pessimistic about the future? There’s a will from the very top to address many serious issues (though we may all have views on the exact hows and whys) and there’s a demonstrated capaibility to achieve this.
What’s needed next is a wider commitment to excellence and a genuine engagement and determination to tackle identified problems energetically; that’s presumably what this latest Urban Task Force is all about. Of course there are enormous problems on the ground, and of course no-one has all the answers, but what I experienced first-hand today was a very different train ride from those I used to take between my home city and the metropolis, in grim, slow and meandering style, and often with little company.
The renewal has started
It’s difficult to remember this at times, but that crowded and fast train today should be a sign not of resigned despondency but of hope. There were lots of people on it, and they were obviously busy and successful folk – which seems as good as any a confirmation that we have arrived at the starting point for the social and economic renaissance we all seek.
Rural Comfort Zones Aren’t Always Comfortable
There is, despite modern technology and communications, a huge divide in understandings between rural and urban communities. Those in isolated locations are in some ways particularly vulnerable, as their young people leave and they resist change. Perhaps in this they have more in common with inner-city living than they appreciate, but the real risk is that these isolated communities may simply disappear.
What proportion of the UK population, I wonder, has ever been to the Scottish Highlands and Islands, or the very tip of Cornwall, or even to Pembrokeshire or Holy Island? Not that many, I’d guess, despite the fame and slightly mysterious aura of such locations.
But there again, I doubt that most people who live in these beguiling places have much knowledge, or even perhaps an accurate image, of what happens in our great cities, or in Britain’s busy market towns and ports. And of those folk who are well acquainted with urban society, I’d guess most don’t much like it, if they’ve chosen to live in the more far-flung of our wilder or more isolated places.
Does it matter if people stay in their comfort zones?
Most of the time, it’s none of anyone else’s business whether people in given locations are aware of other ways of life. None of us has the template for the ideal lifestyle, and none of us can claim we’ve got it sorted.
There is however a difficulty with the laisser faire approach to lifestyle at the point where it constrains and even threatens the very style we may have chosen. Things are never at a standstill; and this means that with denial of change may actually come the destruction of the way of life preferred.
Small communities become unviable without change
My musings on this subject arise from a recent conversation about an isolated community in north-west Scotland where a new arrival had the bright idea of developing a ‘sanctury’ to which wealthy paying visitors would come. This idea so shocked the more established residents, despite the promise of more jobs and increased investment in their community, that it had to be dropped.
Yet at the same time, here was a rapidly dwindling and aging population who constantly bemoan the way their youngsters have deserted the fold for places urban, or at least more ‘exciting’. What a surprise.
The local perspective isn’t all the story
So, on the one hand we have an enthusiastic newcomer who wants to attract new work and interests into the area, and on the other we have a group of villagers who resent and are highly suspicious of all things new.
The idea that visitors might seriously want to pay to come and enjoy what is there every day for locals doesn’t come into it, because the locals appreciate in a very different way the wonderful commodities (clean air, peaceful and stunning beauty, calm and quiet) they routinely experience. For local people, this ‘experience’ is not a ‘resource’ to invest in reviving their village.
Visitors of course bring with them a certain amount of disruption – but the very topography of these isolated locations means that this cannot be huge. There is absolutely no risk of motorways or hideous ten storey hotels! The problem, it seems to me, is that familiarity – the comfort zone as ever – is often dangerous. If you can’t adapt to new opportunities, you are in danger of losing those you already have.
Fear of the unknown
Perhaps the underlying problem is fear of the unknown – a strange and puzzling phenomenon in these days of instant-fix communication, but one which can afflict people anywhere, urban or rural.
But there’s a special urgency here for some isolated communities. In modern society a culture which doesn’t adapt is likely to be one which contains the seeds of its own destruction. Ironically, without some acceptance of change there is the prospect of a tragic scenario for numbers of small rural communities which until recent times may have existed relatively unchanged for centuries.
Sunday Opening Conundrums
Sunday trading laws are antiquated in England, but surprisingly liberal in Scotland. Is there really any sensible rationale for stopping market forces from deciding when shops should be open and closed?
My computer decided to go on strike yesterday evening, so it was up and organised this morning to get down to PC World for a spot of techno-chat…. hardly my favourite way to start Sunday, but better than not getting on with it and thus risking an on-going problem during next week, when I’ll have no time to visit computer megastores.
Anyway, there we were at just before 11 a.m.; and the car park was full, with huddles of folk (mostly chaps) no doubt swapping e-tech tales around the bolted entrance to the shop.
Strange, isn’t it, that we in England are not allowed to do our own thing on the day which is for most of us likely to be free? We have but six hours on Sundays to get our groceries (unless we use the corner shop), go to the garden centre, buy the Christmas presents, or whatever else we fancy.
The Scottish way
But even stranger is that, in Scotland, that place of the Sabbath and the Puritan streak, shops can open whenever they please. None of this ‘no garden centres open on Bank Holiday Sundays’ and so forth. If the shop thinks it will get custom, it can be open as far as I can see.
So why the miserable hours on English Sundays?
One reason is undoubtedly that the Unions have been uncomfortable with Sunday opening. They fear it will intrude on family life and maybe on church attendance (it’s apparently hard luck if your religious observance doesn’t fall on Sundays) or whatever.
This general argument I have some limited sympathy with, but it could easily be addressed by a rule which allows employees currently in retail (but not those entering later on) to refuse to work on Sundays in the future, if it’s so important. I’m not at all sure however that this caution is actually necessary; big stores have a large workforces to call on, and are usually quite flexible towards individual employee preferences for rotas etc.
The English idyll?
Maybe it’s all part of the nostaligia which seems to afflict certain aspects of English life…. misty lanes, bicycles, autumn leaves and cream teas. Change is always threatening to some.
I don’t know for sure that flexible, market-responsive Sunday opening would affect local businesses much one way or the other, but I do know that for lots of workers (health, law, entertainment, catering and much else) the choice to limit their own professional services on Sundays just isn’t there anyway.
These workers apart, people generally have time on Sundays to go out as families, and to catch up on chores and so forth. Constraining unnecessarily ways in which most of us can spend our precious free day / weekend is pointless. If you can buy alcohol till all hours now, why not also bits of computer?
Sunday trading is one commercial area where the Market alone really should be allowed to set the pace.
Enterprising or Entrepreurial?
The English language is surprisingly unhelpful when we consider the different ways in which enterprising people take on social and private businesses. Why is there no noun, other than ‘entrepreneur’, which reflects the variations between different ways of going about one’s ‘business’? And does this indefinite mode of ‘naming’ influence the way that some folk approach the business world?
I had a very interesting conversation today with a friend who works in suporting Liverpool businesses.
We were mulling over the issue of more public than private sector economic activity in Merseyside, and we got onto social enterprise. The reason there’s so much social enterprise here, it seems, may be that most people who decide to set up their own business come from working in the public sector… so their previous professional experience was of being employed by the state or local government.
From this public sector background, the full-blown private sector can look pretty scary, a step too far. Social enterprise is perhaps seen as closer to the ethos of public service, and perhaps less daunting, than would be full private sector competition in all its glory.
Enterprising and self directed
In some sense the ‘social’ option permits one to develop one’s skills in an enterprising way, without having to ‘go for it’ as would be necessary in a private business.
In my dictionary (Concise Oxford) enterprise is defined as ‘[an] undertaking, esp. bold or difficult one; business firm; courage, readiness, to engage in enterprises’. When defining the adjective, ‘enterprising’, the word ‘imaginative’ is added to this list.
In other words, people who are enterprising are willing to take on challenging and stretching tasks; but they may or may not aim to make financial profit as such. Mostly, it could be said of those who are enterprising that they like to choose their own way forward, and perhaps survive on their skills and wits, rather than that they are out for what they can get in the purely financial sense.
Entrepreneurial and in control
My dictiionary has a slightly different take on the meaning of ‘entrepreneur’. It says of entrepreneurs that these are people ‘in effective control of [a] commercial undertaking; [they] undertake a business or enterprise, with a chance of profit or loss…’.
So is the difference between someone who is ‘enterprising’ and someone who is ‘entrepreneurial’, that the latter are willing to drive forward – not simply direct – their activity in a way that exposes them to risk as well as profit?
Would social entrepreneurs agree?
It’s probably unjust to suggest that some social entrepreneurs are unwilling to take risks; the best and most socially amibitious of them certainly do… though sometimes – not always – the ‘risk’ may be more to their standing and others’ view of their skills and judgement, than directly to their pockets. (Social entrepreneurs, please do disagree, if you wish!)
Nonetheless, there may be something in this. We are many and varied in the way we see the world. Some of us value hard cash and all that goes with it; some of us put more store by value judgements of other kinds; and of course some of us try to bring these different, perhaps in part conflicting, elements of our lives together in what we set out to do. The world is a complex place.
Inadequate vocabulary
There’s one thing that strikes me about all this, however: There simply isn’t a separate noun in the English language which refers to people who are enterprising, rather than those, the ‘entrepreneurs’, who are entrepreneurial in the ‘strong’ sense.
When we talk about people setting up small businesses (even if they have absolutely no intention to become big ones), or social enterprises, we use the same word – entrepreneur – as when we discuss those who seek to take on huge financially make-or-break activities of the fundamentally ‘red in tooth and claw’ sort, in the private sector.
What’s the best balance of enterprise to entrepreneurship?
Perhaps this lack of distinction in our naming of activities and roles goes a little way towards explaining the lack of ‘ambition’ in significant numbers of people, for instance, in Merseyside. Because they haven’t actually rubbed shoulders with too many folk who really are ‘full-blooded’ entrepreneurs, they don’t recognise there are two senses in which one can become enterprising and / or entrepreneurial.
Undoubtedly, many industrious business people, in both the social and the private sectors, would not want to be entrepreneurial in the strongest sense, even if they saw the opportunity. I’d be interested, nonetheless, to find out what general percentage of businesses in any locality is the best predictor of a healthy and reasonably stable economy. Does anybody know?
‘Lifestyle’ Versus Value Creation In Merseyside’s Economy
Merseyside’s economy is often criticised for being too public-sector driven. And now the critque has extended to some sharp observations about the type of businesses which are here, as well as just how few of them there are. Maybe a bit of ‘experience swap’ would help us to get a wider picture?
There has been a lot of comment in recent years about the over-reliance of the Merseyside economy on the public sector, over the private one. It’s not so much, we are told, that there’s too much of the former, but rather that there’s not enough of the latter.
But now it seems even that defence is blown. At his quarterly report to the Liverpool Society of Chartered Accountants, corporate financier Steve Stuart has criticised Merseyside’s private sector for being ‘life-style’ at the expense of ‘value creation’.
This seems fair comment. Apparently, of 27,000 VAT-registered businesses in the area, 26,000 employed fewer than five people – and less than 700 had a turnover of more than £2m.
Too cosy or too costly?
The problem seems to be that most local businesses are averse to interference from outsiders, and like to do things their own way. This is a situation for which Mr Stuart holds local business advisers in part responsible.
Given the choice of external ‘interference’, or keeping things within the family, nearly all business people in these parts chooses to stay cosy. Not many want to take on the extra cost of private equity funding.
Well, I’m not surprised. Who around here has even heard of private equity funding? Of course, those in the world of banking are familiar on a day-to-day basis with this sort of arrangement; but you don’t bump into equity financiers on every corner in these parts.
This is, sadly, a part of the country where having A-levels is quite a considerable achievement for some folk… and where the difference between a pass degree and a doctorate is often seen – if it’s understood at all – as an irrelevant distinction. So not many of our home-grown entrepreneurs are bothered about the fancy stuff.
Who’s responsible for the Merseyside economy?
But before we ‘blame’ anyone too much for this unambitious state of affairs, for inhabiting such cosy comfort zones, it might be interesting to ask exactly who we think is ‘responsible’ for the health of our local economy. And my answer is, I’m not sure anyone really knows.
For my part, I regret that local people seem to need to be so cosy; but I don’t think it reasonable, given the claustrophobic and stultifying circumstances in which they survived until quite recently, to expect everyone in Merseyside who owns a business to want to go Big Time.
Before we see too much progress here I suspect we shall have to shake things up a bit – and one way might, dare I say it, be to bring in business ‘advisers’ from other parts of the country… and invite our home grown ones to work in differently-challenged business environments elsewhere, for the experience this would bring of other ways of doing things.
Then we’d all get a view of how green the grass is (or, depending, isn’t) on the other side of the fence. And that might really make some of us take ownership of pushing our local economy forward.
The Eco-Community is All of Us
Building sustainability into community life will take a real shift in how we do things; but, just like weight-loss diets, it will only work for most of us if it’s something we find enjoyable and actually want to do.
It’s been very interesting to see how everyone has responded (on- and off-line) to recent postings here on Eco issues.
I started with a piece on ‘allotments for all’, wandered through some thoughts on Tesco and the other superstores, and have so far ended up with ideas around building communities in which sustainable living becomes part of the common, shared experience. (All these postings are listed below, if you want to have another look.)
The theme which is emerging for me is that we (literally) can’t afford to make sustainability into a ‘do it because it’s good for you’ exercise. It’s too important for that. And evidence elsewhere (e.g. with weight-loss diets) shows that people simply won’t carry on doing what they should unless they really believe it’s for the best and, critically, it fits into their pattern/s of living.
So, we can get a little way with house-to-house collections (Liverpool does these too; and it still has almost the lowest recycling turnover of any place around), and we can indeed troop up to Tesco or wherever with our recycle bags, when we go shopping (one lot of petrol, two missions). But some people don’t have cars, though they may have babies, or no job, or boring, isolated days…..
Fitting the practice to the people
This is why the ‘little but often’ approach might work for certain folk. It’s nice to have places to go, especially if in a good cause (i.e. recycling and community-building, in this case); and it’s nice to have things to grow, as people would if they had back-yard allotments – which is of course also where the green waste would be composted.
I strongly suspect – though we’d need much more evidence to be sure – that giving people reasons to get out and about, even if only to recycle stuff and meet up with neighbours (see Eco-Inclusion), would help to develop local relationships, and thus the community as a whole. In some ways, it’s like parents waiting at the school gates – but in this case it can be everyone, not just carers of small children.
And, if previous experience serves me right, meeting up informally but for a purpose also gives everyone in a locality reason to become more invoved in their community, and to make this more of a reality in terms of common interests and ambitions for the future.
A new sort of community?
Get people to relax and talk to each other, and you never know where it will take them (or you). Giving them an excellent reason to do this (recycling) adds impetus to the process.
I’m trying to think out new ways to connect, which also take account of eco-considerations – without adding further rules and constraints to people’s everyday lives.
It would be impossible to persuade everyone to give up cars and all the other things we’ve grown to think of as essential for our lives; but adding a bit of community spirit might ‘include in’ more, and more varied, people of all kinds to the very necessary task of tryng to sustain the eco-communities in which we, everyone of us, have to live.
A New Life In Australia: Dream Or Reality?
Young professionals have always wanted spread their wings. But why are some workers outside London more willing to up roots to Australia, than they are even to try life in their own U.K. metropolis – or, come to that, in Cornwall if they want surfing and sun or in the Higlands if they want space? The distant unknown, it seems, is a more attractive dream for the future than the anything closer to home.
Strange how people often feel ‘safer’ opting for the completely unknown, rather than for the semi-familiar. Two or three times this week I’ve been chatting to young public sector professionals and skilled trades people around my patch (northern England) who’ve announced they fancy a new life in Australia.
When quizzed a bit more, the reasons for this option usually run as
1. it’s warmer and sunnier (indisputable, of course…. but it can be pretty humid too);
2. there are more ‘opportunities’ there (Yes, but that could be because loads of young Australian professionals are over here); and
3. it’s ‘boring’ here in the U.K. (What, all of it?)
Now, far be it from me to talk anyone out of an adventure – I went to Arizona on an American Field Service International Scholarship, for a full year and all on my own, at the ripe old age of seventeen – but I’m still a bit puzzled.
Why not London?
If I further enquire (because I’m curious, not because I want to dissuade) why these young people don’t want to try (say) London, I’m usually told it’s because Londoners are unfriendly and it’s a horrible, expensive, confusing place which you can’t get out of.
Well, some of my best friends live in London, I quite often work there, and I graduated from a London university. On the whole, I enjoy being there. It is a collection of some of the most historic ‘villages’ in the world, it has culture, it has cutting edge knowledge, it has huge parks…
But others’ hostile view of London does raise some interesting issues, such as: how do folk ‘know’ that a land they have never even visited isn’t also confusing, unfriendly or expensive? How can they be so confident that it’s a better place to be?
Or Cornwall or the Highlands?
Are these adventurers actually seeking a ‘new’ life when they leave the U.K., or, in fact, just a revamped version of the ‘previous’ one, with more excitement, freedom, challenges or whatever? And is this a realistic expectation in either event? Most people probably plan to take their current skills with them in their news lives, so they are in reality just trading locations (no harm in that).
If people want work and sunshine / space, why not Cornwall or the Highlands? Both are currently Objective One areas of the U.K., with plenty of incentives for skilled and entrepreneurial people, and both have space enough for everyone. They offer beaches, inexpensive housing, a more relaxed life-style; and they leave the option of experimentation without a huge commitment. In fact, on reflection, I’d probably suggest they be explored as ‘practice runs’ before taking the drastic step of crossing the equator for a permanent change of home.
It’s all in the marketing
These ideas of London and Oz are probably both wide of the mark. People are people everywhere, and, even allowing for deep cultural differences, how you find them usually depends far more on your own personal approach than on any other factor.
Which brings us to marketing and image…. Australia is openly eager to draw some of our brightest and best to its shores; and no problem there – we do the same to them, and, perhaps sometimes less fairly, to other countries too. But whilst London seems to emphasise the requirements of the knowledge economy, Australia also overtly seeks to draw those with technical and applied skills.
London as a city rarely does anything about actively attracting young public sector professionals from other parts of the U.K. Yes, individual organisations do this, but not London as a city in
its own right. It doesn’t really need to; but perhaps young people need it?
Conversely, the UK ‘regions’ all set themselves up in opposition to the metropolis. The very brightest of all already go to London in their droves (London has a far higher concentration of very highly qualified people than any other part of the U.K.); but little is done directly to encourage exchange and flow between different U.K. regions. And to us in the ‘regions’ London often looks like the Opposition.
Shared experience has value
It would be a very positive move if we encouraged young professionals to know their counterparts elsewhere in the U.K. Perhaps the problem here is that often only as they become more senior are they expected to attend conferences outside their own regional ‘comfort zone’, meeting other workers in more distant locations and learning how different people see the world. Indeed, for many that never happens, or else it’s too late by then for them to develop a fresh perspective.
Until a couple of decades ago many undergraduates chose to study as far away from home as possible; but that was at a time when a far smaller percentage of our young people went on the higher education. The sheer numbers of students these days makes this option impossible to finance by state grants; there’s been a relocation of post-school study to home ground as a trade-off for more people (of all ages) doing it.
So when are young people today getting their experience away from home territory? How can they come to see the opportunities across the U.K.? Maybe here’s a theme to return to another day.
Add your comments below…
Dreaming Realist 