Agglomeration – Why Cities Work

Agglomeration – why cities work, when one could argue, working from home saves a lot of wasted time spent travelling. Turns out when people come together they can generate more than the sum of their parts. People working in teams bring ideas which together which they share, work on and come up with better solutions as a result.
London is the best example in the UK. Indeed London stands comparison to anywhere in Europe. A lot of people commuting in to a central point. This helps solve problems and expand solutions. It enables a centre of world excellence to function. People can become very specialised, experts in obscure fields – rather than generalists.
If agglomeration is to work a city needs good transport links. Hence the talk of trying to create a “Northern Powerhouse” where lots of experts are able to easily meet and share ideas and work. What is holding back the Northern Powerhouse is the roads and trains are clogged. There is more demand than capacity.
It will interesting to see if the Government manage to improve transport links between the major cities.

Covid-19

When Covid-19 has gone and the world returns to “normal” firms will want their staff to come back to the office for the majority of the week, because it tends to boost group creativity.