London businesses benefit from the city’s ‘diversity bonus’ – so current immigration policies are unhelpful. There should be a greater focus on workers’ welfare

London’s diversity is a cause for celebration for many, but does it have a positive impact on the city’s economy? Max Nathan argues that companies and markets directly benefit from London’s mix of cultures. Unfortunately, current government policy towards migrants and ethnic minorities does very little to maximise the potential of diverse workplaces

Tall buildings have productivity benefits for workers and prestige for firms. No wonder firms are willing to pay a premium to work in them.

In spite of the global recession, London and many other large cities are experiencing a major period of skyscraper construction. Discussing a new report, Max Nathan finds that tall buildings may make workers more productive and give firms a ‘prestige address’. This makes them more expensive, and therefore more attractive for developers to build

The Wrong Stuff? Creative Class Theory and Economic Performance in UK Cities

Richard Florida’s ‘creative class’ theory suggests that diverse, tolerant, ‘cool’ cities will outperform others. Ethnic minorities, gay people and counter-culturalists attract high-skilled professionals: the presence of this ‘creative class’ ensures cities get the best jobs and most dynamic companies. This paper examines Florida’s ideas, focusing on the evidence in British cities. Drawing on previously published work, it first tests the Florida model on a set of British cities, finding weak support for the creative class hypothesis. It then examines this hypothesis in detail. It finds little evidence of a creative class, and little evidence that ‘creative’ cities do better. The paper concludes that the creative class model is a poor predictor of UK city performance. There is other, stronger evidence that diversity and creativity are linked to urban economic growth.cities, economic development, urban economics, creative class, diversity, culture, creativity

Equations of motion from Cederwall's pure spinor superspace actions

Using non-minimal pure spinor superspace, Cederwall has constructed BRST-invariant actions for $D=10$ super-Born-Infeld and $D=11$ supergravity which are quartic in the superfields. But since the superfields have explicit dependence on the non-minimal pure spinor variables, it is non-trivial to show these actions correctly describe super-Born-Infeld and supergravity. In this paper, we expand solutions to the equations of motion from Cederwall's actions to leading order around the linearized solutions and show that they correctly describe the interactions of $D=10$ super-Born-Infeld and $D=11$ supergravity.Comment: 20 pages. Added reference to paper of Chang, Lin, Wang and Yi

Simplified D=11 Pure Spinor b Ghost

A $b$-ghost was constructed for the $D=11$ non-minimal pure spinor superparticle by requiring that $\{Q , b\} = T$ where $Q = \Lambda^{\alpha}D_{\alpha} + R^{\alpha}\bar{W}_{\alpha}$ is the usual non-minimal pure spinor BRST operator. As was done for the $D=10$ $b$-ghost, we will show that the $D=11$ $b$-ghost can be simplified by introducing an $SO(10,1)$ fermionic vector $\bar{\Sigma}^{i}$ constructed out of the fermionic spinor $D_{\alpha}$ and pure spinor variables. This simplified version will be shown to satisfy $\{Q, b\} = T$ and $\{b , b\} =$ BRST - trivial.Comment: 47 pages. Added reference

Beyond City Living: Remaking the Inner Suburbs

This paper explores the emerging regeneration strategies for inner suburban areas. Drawing on evidence from Liverpool, Manchester and Leeds, the authors argue that regeneration of these inner areas can do more than upgrade housing and environments for existing residents; they can become more attractive to a wider range of households as convenient, accessible locations for larger, more affordable housing than is available in the city centre or the more recent suburbs. But care will be needed to create appealing, safe, walkable places; to define and deliver an attractive ‘offer’ for new residents, and to avoid displacement and tensions with existing residents. Here is a potential site for one version of ‘sustainable communities’ in the early twenty-first century, if it is approached sensitively and intelligently.cities; housing; economic development; regeneration; city centre living

The fast growth of co-working spaces in London

The growth of shared, flexible urban workspaces for startups and SMEs (small and medium enterprises) is now a striking, and very visible feature of British cities. Over the past decade or so, startups and small firms in retail, manufacturing, arts, the cultural industries and the digital economy have been making creative use and re-use of urban spaces – through newish practices such as co-working and pop-ups, as well as reconfiguring older forms such as high street units and industrial estates. We can see these new practices across the city – in centres and in peripheries, in economically vibrant neighbourhoods and more deprived places. Since 2007, for example, there’s been a particular explosion of co-working, incubator and accelerator provision in London: in 2014 there were at least 132 spaces, 50 per cent of which had arrived since 2012. Today there are at least 156 co-working spaces alone

The economics of skyscrapers

Posted by Max Nathan, SERC and LSE Cities Like many cities, London is having a skyscraper phase at the moment. As The Shard rises over the capital, the Helter-Skelter, Cheesegrater and Walkie-Talkie are not far behind

City deals: what next?

Posted by Dr. Max Nathan, SERC and LSE Last Thursday’s Cabinet Office paper ‘Unlocking Growth in Cities’ got rather swamped by what happened in Brussels the following night. That's a shame. Nick Clegg and Greg Clark laid out some important, potentially profound shifts in the way local and central government work together. This is very clear from the obvious buzz in the room as Ministers delivered their speeches in Leeds, and the flurry of comment since