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Comment by walterbell | Hacker News Reader

Need a City quant PhD to invent a mathematical analog of Black-Scholes [1] for pricing and trading the irreplaceable value of culturally significant physical spaces to future generations. Then City-like [2] institutions can compete financially for ongoing preservation rights, rather than a one-time chop shop auction.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black%E2%80%93Scholes_model

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_London

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The reality is that these are not culturally significant institutions and most people in London don’t care. Ordinary Londoners rarely use these markets, and they mostly sell to restaurants, and require major financial support.

Not everything from the past is good. We don’t still run coal power plants in London just to get that historic smog.

They were already planning to move both markets way out of central London (to a place no-one but a local would ever go) this is just changing it to not providing a new site.

> The reality is that these are not culturally significant institutions and most people in London don’t care. Ordinary Londoners rarely use these markets, and they mostly sell to restaurants […]

Just because most Londoners don't care doesn't make them unimportant. They can provide a useful 'infrastructure' role for allowing this specific sector to run more smoothly.

There's a similar thing in Toronto, the Ontario Food Terminal, that allows various local businesses (restaurants, local grocers / veg stands, (neighbourhood) florists, etc) buy directly from producers without having to go through a middle-man:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontario_Food_Terminal

There was some worry that the facility would be retired and the land (e.g.) used for housing, but there are no plans to get rid of or relocate it:

* https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-food-terminal...

* https://farmtario.com/news/ontario-food-terminal-distributes...

Given that Toronto is the largest city in Canada, it allows for a somewhat convenient location for producers to sell to a large amount of buyers in a concentrated space.

> […] and require major financial support.

Running a modern society requires major financial support. The question is: what are the benefits to society of the infrastructure in question? Are the vendors not charged rent? Are the buyers perhaps not charged a membership fee? At least when it comes to OpEx do annual fees not cover expenses? The above mentioned Ontario Food Terminal is self-sufficient from fees (perhaps the government helps out every so often with CapEx?).

https://www.blogto.com/eat_drink/2007/10/inside_the_ontario_...

> The whole operation is overseen by the Ontario Food Terminal Board.. $8 million of expenses... with a revenue rate exceeding that by $1 million, the operation is profitable, self-sustaining and receives no government support or preferential treatment despite its status as an agency of the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs.. Some of those that operate here are among the wealthiest families in Canada.. The thirty-year leases held by the most powerful grocers in the city are renewable in perpetuity, privileging a small number of family-owned businesses that have kept a tight hold on their terminal rights for over three generations. The business is so robust, and the leases are so sought after, that each one is estimated to be worth over a million dollars in annual economic returns.

The fact that the major grocers in Canada is an oligopoly is separate issue from the efficiency of having a market like the OTF.

I personally know someone who has a business license and goes to the OTF for stuff. Once a year my mom tags along so she can get Christmas flowers at wholesale prices (you just have to show up at 3AM for good selection):

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poinsettia

Mostly agree, Londoners go to Borough if they're rich or the many local farmer's markets on the weekend. You'd have to admit, the not providing a new site thing is kind of shoddy though?

Borough market is for tourists. (although one of my must-eat places for all of London is there)

I've bought some of the best seafood I've ever eaten from Billingsgate. I remember picking up some fresh scallops still covered in mud that were the plumpest sweetest scallops. My mother was in awe of how fresh they were

Sadly increasingly so re Borough. Used to be great.

Have you found anything like what it was for meat and produce? Maltby is great for street food but I mean actual raw ingredients. Yes there are some great butchers but Borough was great for everything in one place.

The reality is that the restaurant food is brought by trucks from warehouses. There are special companies that specialise in providing everything that a restaurant needs.

Aside from Michelin star places chefs don't go around buying anything the whole ordering is highly automated.

There are over 80 Michelin Star places in London. Not a small number of restaurants. Not to mention hundreds more that aspire to get a star and care deeply about being Michelin-level quality.

Visiting Billingsgate will teach you that quite a few restaurant folks (and quite a few "normal people") shop there, in addition to (smaller) fish traders.

Smithfield, at least to me, always had a different vibe; more pro-to-pro/business-to-business, but also they deliver or commission to pre order there; different from Billingsgate.

Most people in London don't care because they are not English and have no connection with the thousands of years of history the city and country have. Only a third of the population has any connection at all to the London of the 1950s, never mind the 1100s. They are not stakeholders in its heritage, the explanation is as simple as that.

Nah. Even people who've lived in London for generations don't care if they're not in the food industry. Why would they?

Are they unaffected by the efficiency of London food supply chains?

I don't see anything in the article claiming this will damage the efficiency of London's food supply chains; indeed I wouldn't be surprised if it improved them.

A lot of Londoners eat in those same restaurants though.

"Preserving the irreplaceable value of ..." works great as a personal motivation or a mission statement, but terribly as an explicit rule. It's the same problem as carbon offsets - if there's a formula for converting intangible values into cold hard cash, people will exploit the definition of the intangibles to make money.

This is largely because we’ve built a philosophy that eschews any concept of a collective or a people or a culture or a future.

Not every country is like this

People keep forgetting that money is just a set of rules we've created for ourselves and not a goal on its own.

Which legal and financial instruments have defended the City of London itself from being auctioned for parts?

Subsets of culture are preserved, packetized & traded daily. Even StubHub has a "food festival" category.

Before learning that this[1] was a thing, I honestly would have interpreted your remark in passing as figurative rhetoric.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Bridge_(Lake_Havasu_Cit...

> Which legal and financial instruments have defended the City of London itself from being auctioned for parts?

Currently, the Magna Carta. Clause 9, dating from 1297:

THE City of London shall have all the old Liberties and Customs which it hath been used to have. Moreover We will and grant, that all other Cities, Boroughs, Towns, and the Barons of the Five Ports, and all other Ports, shall have all their Liberties and free Customs.

This clause has never been repealed.

But there were other forms of royal charter at least as far back as the Norman conquest, and probably before.

This is a gamblers ruin problem action.

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