[jensen123]

Good example of doing something well, that probably shouldn't have been done at all. This will make London a better city to live in, causing even more people to move there. This will make it even bigger than it already is. This will make it an even more attractive target for terrorism. This will cause the UK to enact even more police state like laws on surveillance etc.

Why on earth don't they spend that money building a subway in some other UK city instead?

[barnabee]

Making London (or any city) better to live in is a good idea if it's affordable, as is attracting more people to places that have a relative advantage in attracting investment and creating jobs. The terrorist argument doesn't make much sense - London must already be pretty high up on the list of "attractive" terrorist targets based on all kinds of factors and I can't see how a million or two more (or fewer) people is going to make much difference.

On the other hand, there's an excellent argument for creating infrastructure outside London, it would be great to see a much stronger second city (or metropolitan region) - this would be attractive to some businesses that may be put off the capital by cost, relieve pressure on London, and be great for people for a multitude of reasons.

Given how cheaply governments can borrow money right now, I don't understand why they're not doing both, or why developed countries in general currently spend so little on infrastructure.

[sievebrain]

It's not like the UK government isn't trying. The whole "Northern Powerhouse" and such.

The basic problem is that people, by and large, want to live and work in London rather than Manchester (which is I think the only credible competitor to London for mega-city status right now).

Building Crossrail isn't something where you can just sort of pick and choose where to drop it. London transport is horribly overcrowded already. If it doesn't keep up with demand then it's not like everyone will just say, oh well, we'll all just move en-masse to a different city. If that were going to happen it'd have happened already. Instead they'll just keep packing in like sardines and feel miserable.

The UK already borrows huge sums of money. It's only cheap because so many countries have been or are printing money to fund public spending, which means it's not really anywhere near as cheap as it looks.

[barnabee]

I agree with all of the above but would love to see the "Northern Powerhouse" receive tens of billions (like London) rather than the tens of millions it seems [1] to be getting so far.

[1] http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/mar/16/osborne-budge...

[osullivj]

Couldn't agree more. UK has govt, finance, media, energy & tech all in London, which is massively overweight at ~10M people in Greater London vs 65M across UK. Germany spreads it out far better with govt in Berlin, finance in Frankfurt, tech in Munich, and lots of industry around major cities like Stuttgart, Hamburg etc. Or look at Italy with govt in Rome, finance in Milan, industry in Turin. Or the US with NY, Chicago, SF, Boston, Houston, Dallas all as major centres.

[SixSigma]

Because London is like a country.