Richard Brown
@richardbrown.bsky.social
Cities, urban economics, housing, puns, poetry and pop music. Views are mine.
...especially since it essentially looks like the same design, dusted down and stretched a bit to fit.
November 11, 2025 at 8:54 AM
...especially since it essentially looks like the same design, dusted down and stretched a bit to fit.
Reposted by Richard Brown
The improvement in the employment rate of non-EU migrants to the UK over the past 15 years is remarkable, especially since the pandemic.
www.ons.gov.uk/employmentan...
www.ons.gov.uk/employmentan...
November 11, 2025 at 8:09 AM
The improvement in the employment rate of non-EU migrants to the UK over the past 15 years is remarkable, especially since the pandemic.
www.ons.gov.uk/employmentan...
www.ons.gov.uk/employmentan...
My understanding of the BBC scandal is not helped by repeatedly confusing Robbie Gibb with the late Robin Gibb.
November 11, 2025 at 7:38 AM
My understanding of the BBC scandal is not helped by repeatedly confusing Robbie Gibb with the late Robin Gibb.
Reading this @gideonrachman.bsky.social piece, I am reminded that Nena's '99 Luftballons' described the type of accidental incident that almost triggered nuclear war in Operation Able Archer (referred to here) a couple of months later. www.ft.com/content/3c30...
November 10, 2025 at 7:21 PM
Reading this @gideonrachman.bsky.social piece, I am reminded that Nena's '99 Luftballons' described the type of accidental incident that almost triggered nuclear war in Operation Able Archer (referred to here) a couple of months later. www.ft.com/content/3c30...
Unfashionable view, but I tend to agree. The only thing worse than subsidised housing demand is no housing demand. Also could it be designed to compensate in some way for uneven access to 'Bank of Mum and Dad'?
Oh, couple of other things I meant to include:
- juice housing demand. no, really. people can't afford to buy, so builders have stopped building and the whole system is gummed up, planning reform or not. they're going to have to do something to substantively help buyers.
- juice housing demand. no, really. people can't afford to buy, so builders have stopped building and the whole system is gummed up, planning reform or not. they're going to have to do something to substantively help buyers.
November 10, 2025 at 8:50 AM
Unfashionable view, but I tend to agree. The only thing worse than subsidised housing demand is no housing demand. Also could it be designed to compensate in some way for uneven access to 'Bank of Mum and Dad'?
Great sherry tasting yesterday evening at Hove's wonderful Fourth and Church to round off Sherry Week, under the expert and enthusiastic tutelage of Paul Morgan.
November 8, 2025 at 11:30 AM
Great sherry tasting yesterday evening at Hove's wonderful Fourth and Church to round off Sherry Week, under the expert and enthusiastic tutelage of Paul Morgan.
Will AI disrupt professional services, create whole new industries, or usher in a new age of leisure? Or maybe all three? In any case, as my blog for @hepi-news.bsky.social explores, universities will need to help the next generation of adapt and thrive. www.hepi.ac.uk/2025/11/05/h...
How generative AI could re-shape professional services and graduate careers - HEPI
Join HEPI and the University of Southampton for a webinar on Monday 10 November 2025 from 11am to 12pm to mark the launch of a new collection of essays, AI and the Future of Universities. Sign up now ...
www.hepi.ac.uk
November 6, 2025 at 4:08 PM
Will AI disrupt professional services, create whole new industries, or usher in a new age of leisure? Or maybe all three? In any case, as my blog for @hepi-news.bsky.social explores, universities will need to help the next generation of adapt and thrive. www.hepi.ac.uk/2025/11/05/h...
What does the rapid growth of genAI mean for professional services, for graduates and for universities? Will it transform working lives and the role of higher education? My blog for @hepi-news.bsky.social, based on last month's report for @uolondon.bsky.social. www.hepi.ac.uk/2025/11/05/h... 1/2
How generative AI could re-shape professional services and graduate careers - HEPI
Join HEPI and the University of Southampton for a webinar on Monday 10 November 2025 from 11am to 12pm to mark the launch of a new collection of essays, AI and the Future of Universities. Sign up now ...
www.hepi.ac.uk
November 6, 2025 at 11:13 AM
What does the rapid growth of genAI mean for professional services, for graduates and for universities? Will it transform working lives and the role of higher education? My blog for @hepi-news.bsky.social, based on last month's report for @uolondon.bsky.social. www.hepi.ac.uk/2025/11/05/h... 1/2
Great recommendations to celebrate Sherry Week. I'd add Valdespino's Fino Inocente, a sign of quality on any wine list.
My blog is out: The strange story of British sherry drinking: It's Sherry Week: a time to enjoy Spain's greatest fortified #wine - and ponder its sad decline in popularity. Plus: some of the top festive-season wine tastings
aviewfrommytable.substack.com/p/the-strang...
aviewfrommytable.substack.com/p/the-strang...
The strange story of British sherry drinking
It's Sherry Week: a time to enjoy Spain's greatest fortified wine - and ponder its sad decline in popularity in this country. Plus: some of the top festive-season wine tastings
aviewfrommytable.substack.com
November 5, 2025 at 9:32 AM
Great recommendations to celebrate Sherry Week. I'd add Valdespino's Fino Inocente, a sign of quality on any wine list.
Reposted by Richard Brown
"London is not a bad place to live, and does a lot better on measures such as crime than many of the populist right ... would argue. However, as so often, housing costs are a pervasive drag on liveability, pushing people into poverty, hobbling aspiration and jeopardising the UK’s prosperity."
I write about the new Index of Multiple Deprivation, and why London has generally good scores on education, health, crime and employment, but still has eight boroughs numbered among the most deprived 20% districts in England.
www.onlondon.co.uk/richard-brow...
www.onlondon.co.uk/richard-brow...
Richard Brown: London's distinctive patterns of deprivation
The government's new Index of Multiple Deprivation has revealed concealed hardships in the capital, despite some distortions and daft debates
www.onlondon.co.uk
November 5, 2025 at 7:59 AM
"London is not a bad place to live, and does a lot better on measures such as crime than many of the populist right ... would argue. However, as so often, housing costs are a pervasive drag on liveability, pushing people into poverty, hobbling aspiration and jeopardising the UK’s prosperity."
I write about the new Index of Multiple Deprivation, and why London has generally good scores on education, health, crime and employment, but still has eight boroughs numbered among the most deprived 20% districts in England.
www.onlondon.co.uk/richard-brow...
www.onlondon.co.uk/richard-brow...
Richard Brown: London's distinctive patterns of deprivation
The government's new Index of Multiple Deprivation has revealed concealed hardships in the capital, despite some distortions and daft debates
www.onlondon.co.uk
November 5, 2025 at 7:18 AM
I write about the new Index of Multiple Deprivation, and why London has generally good scores on education, health, crime and employment, but still has eight boroughs numbered among the most deprived 20% districts in England.
www.onlondon.co.uk/richard-brow...
www.onlondon.co.uk/richard-brow...
Last week government published its new Index of Multiple Deprivation, which found that eight London boroughs were among the 20 per cent most deprived local authorities in England. This matters because it affects funding. Is this a 'betrayal of levelling up' as some seem to feel? 1/5
November 4, 2025 at 4:24 PM
Last week government published its new Index of Multiple Deprivation, which found that eight London boroughs were among the 20 per cent most deprived local authorities in England. This matters because it affects funding. Is this a 'betrayal of levelling up' as some seem to feel? 1/5
Reposted by Richard Brown
With typical clarity and insight, @richardbrown.bsky.social reports on the government's recently released new Index of Multiple Deprivation: www.onlondon.co.uk/richard-brow... For proof that "north-south divide" populism does nobody any good. #london #truelondon @queensparkkaren.bsky.social
Richard Brown: London's distinctive patterns of deprivation
The government's new Index of Multiple Deprivation has revealed concealed hardships in the capital, despite some distortions and daft debates
www.onlondon.co.uk
November 4, 2025 at 3:15 PM
With typical clarity and insight, @richardbrown.bsky.social reports on the government's recently released new Index of Multiple Deprivation: www.onlondon.co.uk/richard-brow... For proof that "north-south divide" populism does nobody any good. #london #truelondon @queensparkkaren.bsky.social
Reposted by Richard Brown
I wrote this yesterday about what to tell young people who are worried about what work will be in the age of AI:
naomialderman.substack.com/p/preparing-...
naomialderman.substack.com/p/preparing-...
preparing for the working world in the age of AI
or: seven things to tell your kids when they ask what they should study now, or what the point of studying is
naomialderman.substack.com
November 4, 2025 at 8:56 AM
I wrote this yesterday about what to tell young people who are worried about what work will be in the age of AI:
naomialderman.substack.com/p/preparing-...
naomialderman.substack.com/p/preparing-...
If you see this, post a vampire that isn't Dracula.
October 31, 2025 at 4:40 PM
If you see this, post a vampire that isn't Dracula.
I'm as ready to moan about the NHS as the next middle-aged man, but I had some routine blood tests yesterday morning, and the results were available online less than four hours later.
October 30, 2025 at 11:51 AM
I'm as ready to moan about the NHS as the next middle-aged man, but I had some routine blood tests yesterday morning, and the results were available online less than four hours later.
By my reckoning that would take net migration back to mid-1990s levels. Big impacts on everything from budget deficit, to public services, to politics...
Net migration to the UK is falling rapidly. But how far will it fall? A new, detailed estimate by @jamesbowes01.bsky.social projects net migration in 2026 will be 70K to 170K.
This will have significant consequences, both economic and political.
ukandeu.ac.uk/the-coming-c...
This will have significant consequences, both economic and political.
ukandeu.ac.uk/the-coming-c...
October 29, 2025 at 1:46 PM
By my reckoning that would take net migration back to mid-1990s levels. Big impacts on everything from budget deficit, to public services, to politics...
Reposted by Richard Brown
Surely the task is to tackle inequality, low productivity and deprivation wherever they occur: north or south? London is a city of extremes: great wealth alongside extreme deprivation (come and visit Church Street for eg) and exceptional challenges. Making London worse off is in no one’s interests.
October 29, 2025 at 9:20 AM
Surely the task is to tackle inequality, low productivity and deprivation wherever they occur: north or south? London is a city of extremes: great wealth alongside extreme deprivation (come and visit Church Street for eg) and exceptional challenges. Making London worse off is in no one’s interests.
Reposted by Richard Brown
While New York is converting surplus office space to residential, the City continues to bet on more office development. But does the.Square Mile need more homes? My On London report
Here's @charleswright57.bsky.social reporting on Saturday's London Society event about housing in the Square Mile: www.onlondon.co.uk/city-of-lond.... #housing #london @tomcopley.bsky.social @homesnickw.bsky.social @matthewpennycookmp.bsky.social
City of London: Residents call for more Square Mile homes
Speakers at the latest London Society housing event argued that the Square Mile could only benefit from having more people living there
www.onlondon.co.uk
October 28, 2025 at 3:35 PM
While New York is converting surplus office space to residential, the City continues to bet on more office development. But does the.Square Mile need more homes? My On London report
Just looking up some stuff on the Kings Cross Fire of 18 November 1987, which killed 31 people....
- Desmond Fennell QC was appointed to chair a public inqury on the fire on 23 Nov 1987
- The Inquiry sat from 1 Feb-24 June 1988
- The Report was submitted to government 21 Oct 1988
- Desmond Fennell QC was appointed to chair a public inqury on the fire on 23 Nov 1987
- The Inquiry sat from 1 Feb-24 June 1988
- The Report was submitted to government 21 Oct 1988
Is the UK addicted to “full independent inquiries”? Does it really take a years-long process costing millions to say it was a mistake to release Hadush Kebatu on Friday? Wouldn’t a faster internal process into what went wrong allow the government to *fix* it faster?
October 28, 2025 at 4:15 PM
Just looking up some stuff on the Kings Cross Fire of 18 November 1987, which killed 31 people....
- Desmond Fennell QC was appointed to chair a public inqury on the fire on 23 Nov 1987
- The Inquiry sat from 1 Feb-24 June 1988
- The Report was submitted to government 21 Oct 1988
- Desmond Fennell QC was appointed to chair a public inqury on the fire on 23 Nov 1987
- The Inquiry sat from 1 Feb-24 June 1988
- The Report was submitted to government 21 Oct 1988
Reposted by Richard Brown
Is the UK addicted to “full independent inquiries”? Does it really take a years-long process costing millions to say it was a mistake to release Hadush Kebatu on Friday? Wouldn’t a faster internal process into what went wrong allow the government to *fix* it faster?
October 27, 2025 at 8:01 AM
Is the UK addicted to “full independent inquiries”? Does it really take a years-long process costing millions to say it was a mistake to release Hadush Kebatu on Friday? Wouldn’t a faster internal process into what went wrong allow the government to *fix* it faster?
Back from holiday. All lovely, but I do wish hotels and rentals didn't supply toiletries in bottles labelled 'Refresh', 'Regenerate', 'Revitalise' etc, only specifying in 6pt type whether they are shampoo, shower gel or depilatory cream. I don't take my reading glasses into the shower. Rant over.
October 20, 2025 at 8:43 AM
Back from holiday. All lovely, but I do wish hotels and rentals didn't supply toiletries in bottles labelled 'Refresh', 'Regenerate', 'Revitalise' etc, only specifying in 6pt type whether they are shampoo, shower gel or depilatory cream. I don't take my reading glasses into the shower. Rant over.
The think tank that waters the workers' beer. www.theguardian.com/society/2025...
One in three UK workers have called in sick after work drinks, survey finds
IPPR report warns of ‘productivity crisis’ and says many firms out of step with gen Z shift away from alcohol
www.theguardian.com
October 9, 2025 at 8:30 AM
The think tank that waters the workers' beer. www.theguardian.com/society/2025...
Three tomb doorways in St Nicholas Rest Gardens, Brighton. Design by Amon Henry Wilds (though probably not the concrete blockwork).
October 9, 2025 at 8:25 AM
Three tomb doorways in St Nicholas Rest Gardens, Brighton. Design by Amon Henry Wilds (though probably not the concrete blockwork).