Will the last person out of Liverpool...

Liverpool seems OK to me. It's only just started to look like a modern city centre in the last 5-10 years. I'd say it looks in a better state than Sheffield or Nottingham.

This is what wiki has to say about the actual figures:

The economy of Liverpool is beginning to recover from its long, post-World War II decline. Between 1995 and 2001 GVA per head grew at 6.3% annum. This compared with 5.8% for inner London and 5.7% for Bristol. The rate of job growth was 9.2% compared with a national average of 4.9% for the same period, 1998-2002. However, Liverpool is still comparatively poor; a 2001 report by CACI showed that Liverpool still had four of the ten poorest postcode districts in the country,[17] and almost 30% of people aged 65 or over are without central heating.

Anecdotally, most older scousers will tell you things have definitely improved in terms of jobs and services since the Thatcher years.

I don't understand the rationale behind this at all - ok, let's say I accept the first part about how the mines or industry that gave these cities their advantage at one time or another no longer have the importance that they once had, but I don't get the argument that London or Oxford or wherever has anything that cannot be reproduced in another town. Presumably the fact that we have an information economy or whatever you want to call it ought to mean that there is nothing fundamental to the location of any given town. The only advantage that they have is that they are perceived as more attractive, is the report doing anything more than identifying and reinforcing this?

crackerjack said:

Just to be clear, they're saying it's better now than in 1990, or better now as a result of what Thatcher did? Assuming it's the former.

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The former, of course. Most people would say it's gradually been getting better in most respects since the 1990, except perhaps in terms of crime.

swears said:

The former, of course. Most people would say it's gradually been getting better in most respects since the 1990, except perhaps in terms of crime.

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So do you reckon there's more crime, or just more public awareness of crime? Overall levels are meant to have dropped significantly since about 1995, but that doesn't say anything about any particular town, of course.

I can't say anything from personal experience, really. I moved up here from Hayes, just outside of London, when I was 11. I have to admit the my first impression of Liverpool in the mid-90s was that it was quite run down, but not hideously bad and that it has improved dramatically since.

So do you reckon there's more crime, or just more public awareness of crime? Overall levels are meant to have dropped significantly since about 1995, but that doesn't say anything about any particular town, of course

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Crime? I have no idea. If the economy picks up, it doesn't automatically mean crime will fall. On nights out in the city, I reckon you're a bit more likely to aggro than in Manchester, Leeds or most parts of London.

It's a great night out, otherwise, though. Chibuku is still my favourite house night and Saturday nights at Korova bar with the two fellas who play hip electro/techno-ish stuff there.

I went to a pretty decent breaks/electro night in Chibuku last summer, as it happens.

I can't remember whether it was that visit to Liverpool or another one (my girlfriend was at uni there), but I have a memory of some twats driving past us and one of them chucking an egg at me...which bounced off me and landed harmlessly on the pavement. Epic yobbery fail.
Whether egg-chucking incidents have risen or fallen since 1990 I can't say, of course.

I have to admit though, a couple of my academic high-flyer mates have moved south in search of higher wages and more opportunities. But to say that regeneration has "failed" because there aren't as many high-skilled 50k+ jobs up here is ridiculous. I mean, the vast majority of people down south don't earn that much, anyway.

IdleRich said:

The only advantage that they have is that they are perceived as more attractive, is the report doing anything more than identifying and reinforcing this?

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You half wonder if some sort of militant scouse Gek Opel has infiltrated them and is publishing this with the intention that noone will take the original report seriously and everyone will go on about how wrong it is and how great northern cities are these days, triggering a mass wave of south to north migration or something.

come to london, its ace. you get to go ten rungs down the property ladder while paying twice as much rent. as well as this you get to earn what you consider to be a reasonable wage (24k) and be completely skint all the time. and an oyster card! its a hoot.

The (no longer Manchester) Guardian has today dedicated the G2 section to a scathing riposte to this report. Well, I assume it's scathing, I haven't read it yet - of course it might carry more weight if the paper hadn't packed up its offices in a little red hankerchief and abandoned its northern roots to move down to the big smoke in search of prosperity.

not sure about liverpool but manchester is pretty much a smaller, less sophisticated version of ilford from what i could tell.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilford

luka said:

not sure about liverpool but manchester is pretty much a smaller, less sophisticated version of ilford from what i could tell.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilford

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that's quite damning lol.

i stayed in a hotel in central manchester last year for work, i found the city centre passable but not wildly exciting. leeds is my northern city of choice - not that, urm, anyone's asked me to choose.. :slanted:

But has anyone actually read the report? What does it say that London has and Liverpool not only doesn't have but by its very nature simply can't have?

Hubcaps?

mos dan said:

that's quite damning lol.

i stayed in a hotel in central manchester last year for work, i found the city centre passable but not wildly exciting. leeds is my northern city of choice - not that, urm, anyone's asked me to choose.. :slanted:

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ive just moved to london after 6 years in manchester and i really miss it. just big enough to have a really vibrant music and art scene, abeit mostly connected to the uni, but not imposingly big. plus i had a massive new flat in the city centre for £325 a month. the promoter of the gig i did last week believed that there was a much more vibrant DIY music culture up north and much more cross pollination, its all friday night party bangers down here. I'm really surprised how few nights there are down here which i give a fuck about.

vimothy said:

Hubcaps?

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nah mate its all fat alloys

"The (no longer Manchester) Guardian has today dedicated the G2 section to a scathing riposte to this report. Well, I assume it's scathing, I haven't read it yet - of course it might carry more weight if the paper hadn't packed up its offices in a little red hankerchief and abandoned its northern roots to move down to the big smoke in search of prosperity."

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Just started reading the report. First up Andrew Martin "I grew up in York and return there often" - seems he moved to London but York is so much nicer he, er, chooses to live in London and goes there every now and again. I'm guessing this is a reflection on the Guardian and the kind of people they lazily interviewed but I think it undermines the argument they're trying to make when half the people they've got to talk up "the north" have fled it to make their success in the prosperous, happening south. It's like when they announced Liverpool as the European city of culture or whatever it was and you had all these people such as Cilla Black or Paul McCartney saying how justified it was and how when they grew up there you could leave your door open and everyone was friends - of course they can only comment on what it was like when they were growing up because the second they got the slightest bit of success they fucked off to London and never went back (except every now and again for the odd photo-op or whatever) - just like Sean "Scotland the brave" Connery - if it's so great it moves you to bang on about it the whole time why the fuck do you live in LA?
There is nothing wrong with having pride in your origins I am just suspicious of people who play it up too much when their actions don't seem to bear out what they say.

On newsnight last night a weedy guy with massive specs and an annoying voice from the think tank discussed the report with John Prescott.

The report guy's postion was that all this regeneration was all very well but in the 21st century what counted was being close to financial markets and lots and lots of airports and transport links.

So Hull was great in the 19th century as a port but is now fucked.

Needless to say Prezza was not having any of this.

There was a debate on housing - where to build all the new homes for people. Basically on the greenbelt in East Anglia, it would seem.

The one thing missing from all this seemed to be a will to embrace the 21st Century properly by facilitating people working all over the country via this new thing called the interwebnet.

What is great about it though, is that it gives Express and Mail readers something extra to worry about. On top of swan-eating paedo asylum seekers they now might have to contend with a Scouser Invasion on their doorsteps...