[lmm]

Industry goes where it wants - if we try and stop these companies from basing themselves in London, the competition isn't other parts of the UK, it's Berlin or Singapore or Shanghai. Central planning of industry has a pretty poor history.

[barrkel]

It's less about industry than about foreign investors seeing London property as a store of value. There's a whole class of people living in properties as "guardians" at discounted rent simply to avoid the property seeming abandoned:

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142405270230454950...

[pjc50]

Yes and no; a lot depends on the competence with which it's done. It's not turned out too badly for China or South Korea.

There's a strong case for having a proper property tax (to central govt) in London. If we're going to have a boom then then at least we should benefit from it.

Admittedly there's hardly anyone in Parliament I trust even to be basically competent in this kind of planning, let alone honest.

[neverminder]

I'm in UK and I've been eyeing Berlin for a while now. The rent prices for offices/accommodation seems to be a fraction of those in London. Also startup community in Berlin seems to be booming.