{"id":11061,"date":"2015-07-09T12:39:39","date_gmt":"2015-07-09T12:39:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tat.reddaisytrading.co.uk\/index.php\/2015\/07\/09\/great-countries-need-great-cities\/"},"modified":"2015-07-09T12:39:39","modified_gmt":"2015-07-09T12:39:39","slug":"great-countries-need-great-cities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/2015\/07\/09\/great-countries-need-great-cities\/","title":{"rendered":"Great Countries Need Great Cities"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

by Jas Sansi<\/h3>\n

\"\"

\nThe CEO of Marketing Birmingham, Neil Rami speaking at a Chamber event last week suggested it was a pretty sexy time to be in Greater Birmingham right now. The city region has a spring in its step with an air of confidence emanating from the place. It feels good to finally remove the shackles of the great recession.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

National media may even be affording\u00a0Brum a fairer press than ever before. We still get low punches, Sathnam Sanghera for The Times wrote we lack both self confidence and a creative buzz, and let’s not mention what Katie Hopkins and Jeremy Clarkson say about us in The Sun. What is it with the Murdoch Press, is there\u00a0a \u2018Hate Brum\u2019 tick in their recruitment process?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The capital’s\u00a0hacks should reflect with a degree of empathy\u00a0when writing about regional cities. A London consensus permeates the UK, putting all our eggs in one basket. The USA, albeit a much larger country offers an alternative structure, a financial capital in New York, a political capital in Washington and an entertainment capital in Los Angeles. \u00a0India has a political capital in New Delhi and\u00a0a financial centre in Mumbai. Mumbai, home to the Indian Film Industry also\u00a0dominates entertainment but at least there is a nod to more than one city. It is a position, we in the UK do not share.\u00a0London monopolises finance, politics and entertainment. And that can\u2019t be good for anyone.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

We\u2019re a relatively small country compared to India and the USA but we should recognise the strengths of promoting regional cities. Great countries need great cities. To the newly elected Government, I offer this; stop talking about devolution and devolve. Stop promising a Northern Powerhouse and empower. And please stop hand wringing over\u00a0High Speed 2 whilst suggesting\u00a0Cross Rail is a project for national pride. Churchill proclaimed \u2018Give us the tools, and we will finish the job.\u2019 Never have these words echoed louder nor rang truer. <\/p>\n

\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Jas Sansi The CEO of Marketing Birmingham, Neil Rami speaking at a Chamber event last week suggested it was a pretty sexy time to be in Greater Birmingham right now. The city region has a spring in its step with an air of confidence emanating from the place. It feels good to finally […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11753,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11061","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11061","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11061"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11061\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}