London after Brexit | Richard G Smith | TEDxLondon

well hello hopefully I can cheer you up

before

lunch today's world is as much about

cities as it is about Nations and so I

want to suggest you

I want to suggest to you that people who

wear hats like this are perhaps mistaken

in how they think the world works

because it was today cities are as

important as nations and indeed that

news this week seems to back me up when

Donald Trump pulled out of the Paris

climate deal just a few days ago dozens

of Mayors in US cities said they were

going to implement the deal anyway so

cities were acting autonomously outside

of the nation-state so cities are more

important than nations and so I guess

that means I don't really need this hat

so more than half the world's population

lives in cities and almost the entire

the majority of the world's economy is

represented by about 400 cities most of

the world cities today or many of the

world's today are more populous they are

more internationally connected they have

more economic weight they are more

diplomatic important than dozens of the

world's nation-states

cities today are more transnational in

their outlook and activities than the

nation states they have a larger

international footprint than dozens of

nation states or even the nation states

which they are in so what I'm going to

suggest is the map you all learnt at

school the map that perhaps is on your

study wall the map of the world's

nation-states is no longer that useful

and that you need to change the map in

your head if you are to understand

London after brexit really the image I

want you to have in your heads is like a

satellite image of the earth at night

because in images like this this is

Europe at night it is the cities that

stand out as the most important feature

not the nation's so that's the image I'd

like you to carry in your head and it is

because it affects that globalization is

a worldwide network of cities that

London in a way is already after brexit

ok London is already bypassing the

nation-state in in many ways when the

United Kingdom decided to exit the

European Union you know not last year as

it were that left London in a pretty

peculiar position

because London is a global city and

London lives off its connections to the

world London is one of the world's

leading global cities one of the world's

leading if not the leading global city

and a leading international financial

centre and so that left it in this

position of being someone that needs to

be involved in the world somewhere

that's living off its connections but

really what the thing about London is

that it's it's involved in transnational

urban networks which means that in many

ways brexit isn't as important as you

might think for its future in the

referendum almost 60% of Londoners and

voted for remain maybe many of you here

did but soon after around them

soon after the referendum and there were

many calls straight away for London to

become a kind of independent city-state

autonomous from the rest of United

Kingdom there were calls for so called

London's for for London to be a kind of

Singapore on the Thames do you remember

there was even an online petition do you

remember where hundreds of thousands of

people signed up for London to go it

alone and to leave the UK behind now

superficially that idea perhaps makes

some sense

ever since the 1970s London has become

more detached from the UK in many ways

in the UK but not of the UK and that is

because London since the 1970s with

globalization has become a city that

belongs to the world back in the year

2000 to turn the millennium this cover

of Newsweek magazine really sort of

captures what I'm talking about today

and in this image the famous t-shirt I

Love New York has been changed to I love

nylon and that was done to emphasize the

strength of the connections between the

world's two leading global cities and

international financial centers just how

tied up the two cities have become as

other networks are on the rise they are

what globalization is about rather than

about relations between nation-states

there are two main arguments that people

make about London becoming independent

people who campaign for lunch become

independent say two things mainly the

first one is about subsidy it's the idea

that London pays more to UK that it gets

back and that is indeed true London pays

about a fifth of gross domestic product

war that it gets back from the UK the

second argument that's made is an

argument about exceptionalism it's the

idea that London is somehow exceptional

that London with its sky-high property

values its skyscrapers it's foreign

billionaires and so on and so forth

is a kind of alien country ok an alien

world that is so different to the rest

of the UK than it has this it could be

an independent city-state but of course

is London really going to become like

Monaco to become a kind of Singapore

it's that really going to happen

such ideas are provocative but

exaggerated London doesn't even have a

real history of political independence

having a mayor is a relatively recent

firown' err little dependence then is

perhaps something of a

pipe dream but that said London's London

in many ways is its interest don't map

onto the UK London is different in in

those ways its interests don't

necessarily map map on to those of the

United Kingdom the fact of the matter is

that London is at the center of a

worldwide network of cities what I

called almost 20 years ago a new matter

geography the world city network network

and the truth of the matter is that

London in many ways is already

independent deal or no deal with the

European Union

London's destiny its future is already

in a way in its own hands ok London

needs to be confident to assert itself

on the world stage as the world's

leading global city

London's bypassing of the nation-state

is already happening and in that sense

London is already after brexit the world

has changed to warn which is

predominantly about intercity relations

rather than relations between

nation-states and that is why we can be

more confident in London's future than

perhaps we might have been led to think

London is the world's leading global

city so stay strong London be confident

thank you

you