Tom Forth Profile picture
Jan 25, 2022 14 tweets 5 min read Read on X
Preparing some data for a thing. Astonishing. Image
I know what the answer is going to be. But then I see the answer and it's just even more.
Part of why Saxony outperformed South Yorkshire is EU spending. Much more happened in East Germany, in part because their economies were weaker. But it's actually not much money. German fiscal transfers were over 10 times greater. open-innovations.org/projects/jrf/e… ImageImage
In 2010, fiscal transfers into Saxony were,
approx. €2100/resident from Germany.
approx. €170/resident from the EU.
So while I think that EU regional development funding is a good thing, the EU is a government with a small budget compared to the states within it.
In 2010, fiscal transfers into Yorkshire were,
approx. €900/resident from the UK.
approx. €42/resident from the EU.
My guess is that transfers to Saxony have gone down. Transfers to Yorkshire are up. €1500/resident today. A decade of economic weakness is expensive.
Some different choices taken in/for Saxony & Yorkshire,
1/ High speed rail arrived in Saxony in 2015. Yorkshire? Cancelled in 2021.
2/ Saxony has over 750 tram stops. Yorkshire? 50.
3/ State spending on R&D in Saxony is €450/resident per year. Yorkshire? €150.
Make choices. Get results. imactivate.com/regionexplorer… Image
What does the state spending three times as much on R&D really mean though? It means that Dresden has research institutes of,
* urban drainage.
* solid state physics.
* (regrettably) block chain.
* ecology and sustainability.
And companies that start-up & hire from their talents. ImageImageImageImage
Of course Yorkshire has similar. Just as good, maybe even better, institutes. Like the AMRC in Sheffield. It's just got a lot fewer of them, because the state is spending a third as much money. Image
Listen to the @CentreforCities podcast with three German academics on what we can (and can't) learn from Germany's success at reintegrating its East. centreforcities.org/podcast/city-t…
ps. The UK government, after what feels like a decade of chatting about it, cancelled a new underground central railway station in Bradford -- a city about the size of Leipzig. "Too expensive" appaz.
.
.
Here's Leipzig's new underground central railway station. Opened in 2013. ImageImage
It's probably not even the specific decision. It's the cheems mindset of it all. The fact that the German government said "Leipzig is a great German city and it will succeed" and the UK government said "not sure about Bradford, maybe the benefits don't add up, let's be cautious".
So far, I've been blaming the UK government's lack of belief in the North for our underperformance. That's right but too easy. We've made local decisions that leave our economy weaker than Saxony too. We should change that if we think it's bad, or own it if we think that's good.
Specifically,
* Saxony has a lot more politicians than Yorkshire. It has a Parliament and it has elected Mayors.
* Saxony has focused growth much more in its big cities. Rural and small town population has fallen rapidly.
* Saxony pays higher taxes, including higher local taxes.

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More from @thomasforth

May 1
I've done my four days (of the last six working ones) in London. Hopefully enough for the year. And now on the train home I think I'll do a thread on,... productivity.
Productivity is GVA per hour worked or GVA per job filled or (controversially) GVA per person (at a real push). So here's the GVA per hour worked dataset since 2004, from the ONS, for the UK's four nations. ons.gov.uk/employmentandl…Image
We can actually look back at productivity in the UK's four nations since 1998 if we use a different dataset. Scotland's performance is again extremely strong. ons.gov.uk/employmentandl…Image
Read 17 tweets
Feb 10
Can I make a map in an hour? I'm going to try. The home region of every Member of the House of Lords.
House of Lords expenses are here and when a member makes a claim they report the county (or similar) of the claim. Published in Excel and CSV. parliament.uk/business/lords…
27 downloaded. Now I'll write some code to analyse them. Most people would use R or Python I guess, I'll use C#, because old. Image
Read 20 tweets
Feb 4
The Chagos Islands for £18bn things is so ridiculous that I can't even process it. I can't even begin to think about whether it's true or not, or good or not, because is just so big it can't possibly be right.
Like if you were in IKEA and a table you wanted was £120,000. You'd just assume the label was wrong and take it to the checkout anyway expecting to pay £120.
At what stage of signing the mortgage form at Ikea for the table would you snap out if it and say "hold on, just checking it's not REALLY £120,000 is it? That would be ridiculous"?
Read 6 tweets
Jan 21
Hey, let's look at the bright side, I've been writing about why North England's poor for a week or so now and I'm learning more and more about why Thatcher was bad.
Gonna have to add some Northern examples to the origins of polytechnics page on Wikipedia. Image
You have a thing like the Leeds Mechanics Institute, founded locally in 1824 as a technical and vocational alternative to universities, which were banned in the North by the UK government, and it evolves all the way to Leeds Polytechnic and then Thatcher makes them central gov.
Read 9 tweets
Jan 17
England has two potential megacity urban areas. Both about 20 million people. Both 200km across. We've already built the blue circle, centred on London, a very strong economy. We could built the red one if we wanted. Currently it's a very weak economy. Image
I don't think the red circle's economy will ever again be as rich as the blue circle's economy. So 60% growth seems out of the question. But 40% growth in the long term feels reasonable. And 20% growth above trend over the next three decades should work. It did in East Germany.
20% growth for the circle means getting its economy up to the strength of the Scottish central belt. We surely can't think that's beyond the realms of possibility? Image
Read 12 tweets
Dec 1, 2024
The University of Hull is to close its chemistry department.

It said student numbers were "so low that these courses are no longer sustainable".

The chemistry department was rated the fourth best in the UK in The Guardian's University Guide 2024. bbc.com/news/articles/…
I guess the safe thing to say on twitter is "I think this is really bad, not fine, not good, but really really bad" and not hurt anyone's feelings. Keep it a safe space for the anons and not actually think about this, or think about how we might reverse it if we think it's bad.
I worked in the East Riding of Yorkshire's chemical industry. My brother worked in the East Riding of Yorkshire's chemical industry. I applied for further jobs for about a year after a graduated (relevant PhD). Didn't even get an interview. Brother left. Tough sell to be honest.
Read 10 tweets

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