Birmingham is incredible, but this business model for city building was always doomed to fail, and collapse, COVID-19 is an example of the shocks that make an already terrible thesis, near on catastrophic, but, this has been said for years, it continues. https://twitter.com/guardian/status/1330440035875872768

I often have heard city / regional leaders across industries say it’s not a good way to lead, as you have to hold the hope + ambition + inspiration. And, I’m like it’s exactly because of that hope, ambition, inspiration that we say this is a catastrophic strategy to city build.

It doesn’t mean people are inherently bad, it’s that we are running a bit of a disastrous financial, economic model here, incentivising the wrong things, + pursuing it relentlessly without imagination + it’s more dangerous than ever due to the range of impending shocks.

A few years ago a prominent academic from a regional economic dept left a programme we were running where a bunch of alternatives were presented + they said they were ridiculous. Today, I’ve just watched them acknowledge one prominent one of those + raise millions against it.

It’s not about any one person being right, or one solution, but recognise what we are pursuing is built on terrible foundations + isn’t smart at all, let alone equitable, just etc.