London after Brexit | Richard G Smith | TEDxLondon

well hello hopefully I can cheer you up before lunch today's world is as much about cities as it is about Nations and so I want to suggest you I want to suggest to you that people who wear hats like this are perhaps mistaken in how they think the world works because it was today cities are as important as nations and indeed that news this week seems to back me up when Donald Trump pulled out of the Paris climate deal just a few days ago dozens of Mayors in US cities said they were going to implement the deal anyway so cities were acting autonomously outside of the nation-state so cities are more important than nations and so I guess that means I don't really need this hat so more than half the world's population lives in cities and almost the entire the majority of the world's economy is represented by about 400 cities most of the world cities today or many of the world's today are more populous they are more internationally connected they have more economic weight they are more diplomatic important than dozens of the world's nation-states cities today are more transnational in their outlook and activities than the nation states they have a larger international footprint than dozens of nation states or even the nation states which they are in so what I'm going to suggest is the map you all learnt at school the map that perhaps is on your study wall the map of the world's nation-states is no longer that useful and that you need to change the map in your head if you are to understand London after brexit really the image I want you to have in your heads is like a satellite image of the earth at night because in images like this this is Europe at night it is the cities that stand out as the most important feature not the nation's so that's the image I'd like you to carry in your head and it is because it affects that globalization is a worldwide network of cities that London in a way is already after brexit ok London is already bypassing the nation-state in in many ways when the United Kingdom decided to exit the European Union you know not last year as it were that left London in a pretty peculiar position because London is a global city and London lives off its connections to the world London is one of the world's leading global cities one of the world's leading if not the leading global city and a leading international financial centre and so that left it in this position of being someone that needs to be involved in the world somewhere that's living off its connections but really what the thing about London is that it's it's involved in transnational urban networks which means that in many ways brexit isn't as important as you might think for its future in the referendum almost 60% of Londoners and voted for remain maybe many of you here did but soon after around them soon after the referendum and there were many calls straight away for London to become a kind of independent city-state autonomous from the rest of United Kingdom there were calls for so called London's for for London to be a kind of Singapore on the Thames do you remember there was even an online petition do you remember where hundreds of thousands of people signed up for London to go it alone and to leave the UK behind now superficially that idea perhaps makes some sense ever since the 1970s London has become more detached from the UK in many ways in the UK but not of the UK and that is because London since the 1970s with globalization has become a city that belongs to the world back in the year 2000 to turn the millennium this cover of Newsweek magazine really sort of captures what I'm talking about today and in this image the famous t-shirt I Love New York has been changed to I love nylon and that was done to emphasize the strength of the connections between the world's two leading global cities and international financial centers just how tied up the two cities have become as other networks are on the rise they are what globalization is about rather than about relations between nation-states there are two main arguments that people make about London becoming independent people who campaign for lunch become independent say two things mainly the first one is about subsidy it's the idea that London pays more to UK that it gets back and that is indeed true London pays about a fifth of gross domestic product war that it gets back from the UK the second argument that's made is an argument about exceptionalism it's the idea that London is somehow exceptional that London with its sky-high property values its skyscrapers it's foreign billionaires and so on and so forth is a kind of alien country ok an alien world that is so different to the rest of the UK than it has this it could be an independent city-state but of course is London really going to become like Monaco to become a kind of Singapore it's that really going to happen such ideas are provocative but exaggerated London doesn't even have a real history of political independence having a mayor is a relatively recent firown' err little dependence then is perhaps something of a pipe dream but that said London's London in many ways is its interest don't map onto the UK London is different in in those ways its interests don't necessarily map map on to those of the United Kingdom the fact of the matter is that London is at the center of a worldwide network of cities what I called almost 20 years ago a new matter geography the world city network network and the truth of the matter is that London in many ways is already independent deal or no deal with the European Union London's destiny its future is already in a way in its own hands ok London needs to be confident to assert itself on the world stage as the world's leading global city London's bypassing of the nation-state is already happening and in that sense London is already after brexit the world has changed to warn which is predominantly about intercity relations rather than relations between nation-states and that is why we can be more confident in London's future than perhaps we might have been led to think London is the world's leading global city so stay strong London be confident thank you you

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 29,449

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, United Kingdom, Global Issues, Cities, Economics, Foreign policy, Politics

Id: gLevaghUuO0

Length: 10min 1sec (601 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 22 2017