If only there was a way to make living within a city less important.
There must be some way to move large numbers of people over "great distances" (50-100 miles) in a more commutable time.
There must be some way to move large numbers of people over "great distances" (50-100 miles) in a more commutable time.
From the article: "Today, 60 percent of properties for sale in this part of London go to international buyers."
Edit: As an example - in my neighborhood there are $300k houses in pretty sorry shape that are purchased just for the land. They are destroyed and then a $500k new house is built on that land. This is what I'm facing. I could perhaps afford $300k (although I'm gunshy to purchase in such a volatile market), but it would require IMHO another $50k in renovation to make it "livable". I'm not talking about granite counter tops and high-end designer furniture, I'm talking about roof, insulation, water heater, bathroom fixtures, yard work, etc.
275 sq. ft. with "a half refrigerator, 2 built-in electric burners, and a microwave oven"
I'd bet once a decent public transportation system is inline, the termination points of the larger trains will become as much city-like as the center, but much more affordable.
It is expensive though.
On a more serious note, maybe banks could offer some sort of investment vehicle made up of homes in a certain area. The homes would then be rented out for revenue, and foreign buyers could have an equivalent financial position without driving away actual residents.
Virtualisation probably makes more sense though.
There must be some way to move large numbers of bits over "great distances" so that knowledge/desk workers can choose where they want to live, and don't have to commute every day.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-04-01/american-c...
But then you need to answer my question:
There must be some way to move large numbers of people over "great distances" (50-100 miles) in a more commutable time.
E.g. between Stevenage (town North of London) and Kings Cross in the UK, its about 30 miles. Trains do that in 24 minutes. But to then go the final 1-to-3 miles to your central London Office might take another 25-30 minutes - the tube is good, but only if your destination is near a station, buses are slower than walking due to them stopping every 100m, and driving/taxis are obviously not an option due to gridlock.
You can walk it of course, but it will be slower than expected due to waiting to cross streets etc, plus of course it might be raining one day, or 90% humidity @ 25c the next (neither are great for getting to work in a comfortable state!).
For me, the solution appears to be get a job near the station, or perhaps buy one of those electric unicycles.
Barcelona in particular seems to have really gone all-in on this solution. The city, or at least the center, is covered in spots where you can pick up or leave such a bike using a card.
In Holland it's understandably not as widely rolled out because most people have at least one bike in the city where they live, and often a second bike for the city where they work.
(Most of the towns in the southeast of England are dominated by commuters to London)
It's 85 minutes at the moment [2], plus the journey from Euston Station to the office in London. 85 minutes is commonly accepted for a total journey, but I'd guess most people with longer journeys are only doing this temporarily.
If you find places closer to London on the map, you'll see many thousands of people make ~30 minute journeys by train into London, before continuing by metro/bus/whatever. (If you can find it, try and click "Westminster and City of London". It's small.)
[1] http://www.neighbourhood.statistics.gov.uk/HTMLDocs/dvc193/
I did have options to stay with friends in the Brixton area. However the walk to the bus, the wait for the bus, the bus journey to the Brixton tube, the tube journey to Green Park, the walk from one platform to another, then the connecting tube journey followed by the final walk to the office took longer door-to-door than my commute up/down to Birmingham. I could walk to Euston, hop on the train and get a taxi at the other end. The time on the train was 'productive' rather than noisy and stressful (compared to going south of the river). Fortunately my employers were paying my train and taxi fares, had they not done that then I would not have had an economically viable commute.
Top tip for anyone needing to work in London - don't go by public transport and live somewhere without a tube station. Get a bicycle - it is quicker - or an electric scooter.
Although these central London properties might look like amazing places to live, bear in mind that the air in central London could kill you...
It's called SkyTran personal rapid transit. Wikipedia has a page all about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SkyTran With small maglev pods traveling 100-150 mph, a 100-mile commute is actually quite doable in one of these, especially since you can sleep in it as it's automated and takes you door-to-door. If governments would actually invest in this and build it instead of wasting money on boondoggles like high-speed rail, we'd make a gigantic dent in our carbon emissions and roadway deaths, plus save ourselves a lot of time that we waste driving.
It would have to be underground.