> The secret City of London which is not part of London
The City is part of London under any normal person's interpretation of that word. Being as charitable as possible, it is true that the ceremonial county of Greater London does not contain the City. But the Greater London administrative area does.
It's also not "secret". Many people aren't aware of it, but that's through ignorance on their part rather than secrecy on the part of the City. The City plasters its logo all over the place: on all street signs in the City, on police uniforms, on statues, etc. Even the bollards in the City bear the colors of the City's flag. It's impossible not to notice that the City is different from the rest of London.
So that's two mistakes in the headline alone.
> The mayor of Greater London has nothing to do with the original City of London, which still has separate governing bodies and a mayor.
This is wrong. The Mayor of London has authority over the City of London, through the Greater London Authority (although some power is delegated to the Corporation, in the same way it is to borough councils).
There is indeed also a mayor of the City (confusingly called the Lord Mayor of London), but that mayorship is largely ceremonial in nature.
> Oddly enough, if the monarch wants to enter the City of London, she first must ask the Lord Mayor for permission.
This is just an urban myth, no such permission is required. In fact, the sovereign has precedence over the Lord Mayor (in the context of formal events and such like).
Greater London is made up of 32 London Boroughs and the City of London that provide the vast majority of municipal services. Each has a mayor or Lord Mayor. The powers and responsibilities of London Boroughs, and the local authority responsibilities of the City of London Corporation are set out in statute law, not delegated by the Mayor of London.
The Mayor of London is responsible for public transport, Fire and Rescue Services, major highways, some major town planning issues across the 32 London Boroughs and the City of London, and policing across the 32 London Boroughs. The Mayor of London has no general authority over any of the 33.
Something else that a lot of younger people don't realize is the position "Mayor of London" is only 24 years old. London had no city-wide government between 1985 and 2000, and the pre-1985 council didn't have a mayor.
Personally I'd enthusiastically vote for a return to the pre-2000 system as it's not at all clear to me what these people do for us or what we gain from giving them all this money.
The London Mayor and more recently the Manchester Mayor have been huge successes in transport coordination. I don't think many people would a priori say "the best structure for a large city is fifty non-coordinated boroughs". You could make a clearer case for abolishing the boroughs (especially some of the more corrupt and incompetent ones) and running the city as a unitary whole.
The only reason the GLC was abolished in the first place was naked party politics.
The mayor of Tower Hamlets is one of the few people in the UK to have a conviction for electoral fraud. Somehow this didn't stop him getting elected again.
> Personally I'd enthusiastically vote for a return to the pre-2000 system as it's not at all clear to me what these people do for us or what we gain from giving them all this money.
Unless different to the rest of the country though, not directly elected (to the leader role), which I assume was the point, since a mayor is.
Mind you, we don't vote for parties to govern or which member to lead them (and it needn't be an MP) either, but it doesn't stop people talking like we do. (I'm voting Labour - no you're not, you're voting for the Labour candidate in your area. I'm voting for Rishi Sunak - you're almost certainly not, the vast majority of people not being in his constituency. Etc.)
> Mind you, we don't vote for parties to govern or which member to lead them (and it needn't be an MP) either, but it doesn't stop people talking like we do.
You are technically correct, but those pesky people are onto something. In practice people that voted for Boris Johnson in 2019 did not vote for Liz Truss or Rishi Sunak, yet still were governed by them.
You are voting for a candidate, but their party might decide the next pm with the input of their members only.
The pre-2000 system happened because Thatcher didn't like having a London government that represented the views of London voters, which was far more left wing.
That it what it gives us: Representation in a region more populous than most countries which is politically often poorly aligned with the national government.
The 1985 power-grab by Thatcher was deeply anti-democratic.
regional coordination of services like transport is the big one. as a general example, if it were just the councils, Crossrail probably would not have gotten off the ground. And TfL is probably the only authority bucking the general British trend of bus services totally collapsing.
Fun fact: Brussels has the exact same structure, with a “Brussels City” smaller than “Brussels Capital Region”, different mayors for different boroughs etc.
I am pretty sure that the CGP Grey video was the core inspiration for this article. Nearly every image in the article was featured in the YouTube video, which predates the article by ~4 years.
“Documentaries” on YouTube and not the best. Most of the time the images and background isn’t even the specific topic of discussion. For example, showing the wrong plane or car when the video is specifically about a certain fighter jet or war.
It made me realize the larger studios and productions have access to lots of accurate “fluff” like historical reels. They even have budgets to take real crews to locations. Makes me rethink the amount of time I spend on YouTube.
I consider "posted on YouTube" the same as "posted on the Internet". Youtube is basically a comm channel, they don't vet for accuracy nor do they claim to.
Look instead at the channel. Some channels make serious efforts to cite their sources and justify their claims; others do not. It's hard, but where you can, try to prefer the first.
I used to live in the City of London at the top end of Chancery Lane. I could therefore be in a different city (City of Westminster) by crossing the street to the west and leave the city entirely by crossing to the north (London Borough of Camden).
I used to live pretty close to the eastern end of the City in Aldgate/Whitechapel. It was pretty cool to go running and cycling around the City during the pandemic lockdowns, with almost no people or cars around.
Same with central London: I remember cycling though a completely deserted Leicester Square one day and hearing nothing but birds chirping in the trees!
During lockdown most hotels were closed, I ended up staying near Blackfriars and riding my Brompton to the west end. Very peaceful without so many taxis and vans and even it seemed fewer buses.
But then the city is hardly bustling on a Sunday either.
I lived in Chancery Lane in around 1998/1999. Weekends were eerily quiet and getting groceries was a nuisance.
Also I remember loafing around my flat watching the news about some May Day protests in London and when I turned the TV off I realised I could... hear the protesters. They were over on Fleet Street another very short walk away!
For me, the wildest fact about the City of London (the small, walled part), is that when the Romans left, some buildings were smashed up, but the roads and walls remained, and then the whole area was abandoned... for 470 years.
And it has the fewest residents of any London borough by a couple of orders of magnitude. So it probably makes sense that businesses have a bit more say.
Some of those individuals are not residents but expressly included as nominees of their businesses, a form of franchise that exists nowhere else in the UK.
It's true that the vote is exercised by the company's nominee, not the company itself, but that's only because the company itself can't show up at the polling station. Business voters are expressly included to represent their organisations[0], and do.
"In fact, the City of London is so independent that it has its own flag, crest, police force, ceremonial armed forces, and a mayor who has a special title, the Right Honorable, the Lord Mayor of London. Oddly enough, if the monarch wants to enter the City of London, she first must ask the Lord Mayor for permission"
Are there some books that comprehensively cover several aspects around the City of London?
The City of London appeared quite often in Lee Kwan Yu's memoirs
That makes much of the sword part of the ceremony, but surely it's the "red cord raised by City police" that signifies some self-authority -- what other part of the country may purposefully and physically stop the monarch and receive no investigation or punishment?
The City of London certainly has its own coat of arms. Phrasing that as "its own crest" is a bit weird. (The crest is only part, and by no means the most important part, of a heraldic achievement. The escutcheon is the important bit.)
Arms: Argent a cross gules, in the first quarter a sword in pale point upwards of the last.
Crest: On a wreath argent and gules a dragon's sinister wing argent charged on the underside with a cross throughout gules.
Supporters: On either side a dragon argent charged on the undersides of the wings with a cross throughout gules.
Yes. And local authorities in the UK routinely have grants of arms and banners/flags of them (albeit most of them are newer and less classy than the City's).
Ditto police forces: although most smaller authorities' police have merged into larger county or larger forces, there's nothing odd in principle about a municipal police force. The City's is strange, in that it's entirely enclaved within the Met, but there are plenty of oddities out there (the Mersey Tunnels Police, say).
There are several ancient cities with 'Lord' mayors, including York.
Interesting anecdote: the city of Baltimore, MD, USA is administratively distinct from the County of Baltimore, MD. The area is collectively referred to as Baltimore, but the county has no jurisdiction within the city. [1]
Yes, and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, home of the Indianapolis 500, is located in Speedway, Indiana, which has its own local government and police force, in spite of the fact that it is both surrounded by Indianapolis and entirely contained within Marion County, whose government, aside from a few exceptions like Speedway, is entirely consolidated with the government of the city of Indianapolis[1].
Many states have a similar code, all of Maryland might. There are lots of pockets of sovereignty in the US that are misunderstood.
Basically the default behavior is that the state is a bigger government than the county and overrides everything, county bigger than city, city bigger than something smaller.
But non-default behavior is codified to make it the reverse.
Either its directly codified in state law or state constitution, or there is a symbioses for the state to maintain collective support and order.
Unusually, the county of New York (coextensive with Manhattan) is only 1 of 5 counties inside the city of New York (which of course inside the state of New York).
The FT did a recent - and very good - expose with more on how the city works in “Undemocratic, anachronistic, fantastic. How the City of London survives” [1] Paywalled but accessible via Google.
The City of London is sort of a lobbying organization for the UK financial community. Or at least it thinks it is.[1] Its police force is not ceremonial - there's a sizable Economic Crime Directorate, handling fraud cases. They claim a 75% clearing rate.
City of London is a separate legal entity to England but still under the king. Hence all the banking industry is located there, to add another step in the money train to tax heavens.
I find the City of London (formerly the Corporation for London) to be fascinating for many reasons.
For one, the exact origins are unknown. the earliest record we have is from 1067 CE with the William Charter [1]. William granted the City rights in exchange for not attacking and the City recognizing him as King, which this article sort of mentions. But the interesting part is that William was simply recognizing the rights of something that already existed. For how long? Nobody knows. It's likely somewhere in the 7th or 8th century when Anglo-Saxons resettled the previously abandoned Roman walled city of Londinium after their departure in 410 CE.
It's also fascinating because it's managed to survive for nearly 1000 yaers since then, largely recognizable from its earlier form although there have been various changes and reforms. There have been efforts to disband it too but obviously they failed.
It also survived uncertain times like the Vikings would cojme along every now and again and burn down London Bridge.
London's development as a financial center goes back to 1066 too and a key part was likely due, at least in part, to the arrival of Jews during William's reign [2].
Why was this important? Well, Jews were prohibited from charging interest to other Jews. Muslims and Christians had similar constraints. But an oddity of Judaism was that Jews could charge interest to non-Jews [3]. This later likely contributed to conspiracy theories about Jews (eg blood libel) and antisemitism.
So ancient civil institutions like the Court of Aldermen still exist and certain rights given to the Freemen of the City of London still exist, like the ancient right to bring sheep in to the City over the bridge [4].
Is there a direct relation or something specific you were going to draw in mentioning the history of the Jews in England and the history and particularities of the City of London? That the Jews performed the interest loans on behalf of and/or within the City of London possibly or something like that?
Jews were historically associated with practices like moneylending largely due to the religious quirks I mentioned.
Go forward a few centuries and you have things like Shakespeare's moneylender from the Merchant of Venice, Shylock. This was no accident. It reveals both the reality of the time and attitudes towards Jews. This was such a powerful literary figure that the word "shylock" entered the lexicon.
Anyway here's another history [1]:
> The Jews came principally from Rouen - a great center of Jewish life in Northern France. It is well known that William brought them over as so called "feudal Jews" to be Royal serfs, the king's own chattels, providing him with financial services and income ...
> Though their principal function was to be money lenders, the London Jews did in reality they did follow a variety of other trades and callings
I'd go with something more like "secretive" than explicitly "secret". It's a weird & immensely powerful place in the UK, with some abstruse governing structures, hidden entirely in plain sight.
Secretive? As in run by Committees that meet in public with agendas and minutes published on the City's website in accordance with the Local Government Act 1972.
Please. I've read Dan Brown's novels and I know that those are just phony and for confuse the proles. But just how the Priory of Sion is involved is still not clear to me.
The secret isn't that the city of london has existed for centuries. Articles like this are designed to elicit your response. The secret is to what extent the social-political order in the West determined by the Finance and the extent to which they exercise power over nominally sovereign entities.
The article you link to is using the 'City of London' to refer to London's financial sector, which is primarily located in the City of London (rather like the use of 'Washington' to refer to the US government). It's not talking about anything shady that the institutions of the City of London itself are doing.
Relevance? I haven't said whether I'm talking about the City of London's government or its financial institutions (as if there's a difference). None of which has to do with "secrecy" which is arguably the relevant topic. On that subject, whether it's the government or the financial institutions or both, if they're engaged in money laundering, which is more likely: They keep those matters secret, or they don't keep those matters secret?
The article we're all commenting on is talking about the City of London in the sense of the geographic area administered by the City of London Corporation.
The article you linked to is talking about the shenanigans of the UK's financial sector (mostly concentrated in the City of London).
The UK financial sector is regulated by the FCA. Corporations headquartered in the City of London are subject to English law just like corporations headquartered in any other part of the country. So the role that the City of London Corporation plays in money laundering is relatively minor and indirect. Of course, there may well be corruption that is worth investigating and exposing.
Unfortunately, the idea of the City of London as some kind of extraterritorial legal island within the UK is catnip to conspiracy theorists of various stripes. It is complete nonsense. However, that is not to say that the City of London Corporation is not in need of reform.
The article title includes "the secret City of London." Without clarification, it's left to readers to decide what that means. It could mean its government actively maintains a cloak of secrecy, it could just mean that it's not well known, say, to Americans, or it could mean something in between. The latter pole--that it's not well known, say, to Americans--has been established in this thread. What I'm trying to do is offer evidence to support the former pole. If there's corruption within the City of London, that supplies a motive for its financial institutions or its government (as if there's a difference) to shield the activities that occur there from scrutiny.
> The article title includes "the secret City of London." Without clarification, it's left to readers to decide what that means.
Generally speaking the etiquette on HN is to at least pretend that you've read the article. I've rarely seen someone so audaciously using the fact that they didn't read the article as a defense.
Whether or not there's an etiquette for HN, there's definitely guidelines for HN which among other things encourage commenters not to accuse each other of not reading the articles, and to give each other the benefit of the doubt.
As it happens, I did read the article before writing my first comment. That would be the article which uses the word "secret" in its title but neither "secret" nor "secrecy" anywhere else in the body. Put another way, having actually read the article, among the many interesting things it says, one thing I know it doesn't say is exactly what it means by its title
The UK financial services sector is involved in money laundering. That does not have much to do with its location in the City of London. The City of London Corporation is essentially just a local authority and does not have the kind of governing powers that would enable it to play a major role in money laundering. For example, it does not regulate financial transactions or pass laws (except the largely inconsequential local ‘byelaws’ that any UK local authority can pass).
> How many financial companies in the world are based there?
Many, for sure. Plenty more are headquartered in Canary Wharf, which is not in the City but in Tower Hamlets. These include Barclays, HSBC and Citigroup.
That's one way to put it. Another way to put it is "most". The City has the largest number of financial firms, the largest share of office space, and the largest share of trading volume and assets under management. It's home to the Bank of England and the London Stock Exchange, and will be home to HSBC when it finishes its move there from Canary Wharf.
Those firms have been accused--indirectly--of money laundering. If they're engaged in that vice, it's plausible to me they would add the additional vice of protecting it from scrutiny. I.e. engaging in "secrecy." It need not collude with the government to do so, but if it did it would hardly be the first time business and government colluded under a veil of secrecy.
As for what the actual City of London Corporation runs, since you didn't answer the question, I'll answer it for you. In addition to collecting bins and operating one school, it also runs a police department.
The firms you mention have certainly colluded with the government in Westminster, which is the one that regulates financial services. The City of London Corporation is merely a local authority (albeit a quirky one), and banks don't really need its cooperation in order to launder money. (HSBC did a fine job of it from Canary Wharf, for example.)
>it also runs a police department.
As do many other regions of the country. There's nothing surprising or sinister about this. There isn't any connection between this administrative fact and money laundering.
I'm not saying there's anything necessarily sinister or surprising about its police department. I'm just trying to be more complete. If we say the City just collects bins and runs one school, well that's not really giving the full picture, now is it?
Beyond that, consider this:
-The City has one of highest concentrations of global finance power in the world, if not the highest.
-That global finance power--global banking and commerce--has been accused of illicit activity, largely money laundering.
-If they do engage in that illicit activity, they probably collude with whatever governments they need to to advance their interests. It only makes sense.
-And, they probably would cloak these activities under a veil of secrecy. That also only makes sense.
Little if any of this is in dispute. What seems to be in dispute is the answer to these related questions:
Money laundering can happen anywhere, in Canary Wharf, in the Channel Islands, hell in New York and Delaware. But, is there something unique about the square mile? If so, what is it? Whatever conditions create a money laundering opportunity, are those conditions enhanced by what's unique about the City? And if it's not the Corporation, then what is it? If there's a high degree of money laundering there to go along with its high concentration of global finance power, then why is that? Because there hasn't been equivalent such accusations against New York and Delaware. The square mile has been called out as playing an outsized role in corruption. If that's true--supposing for the sake of argument it is--if that's true, then why? Is it just coincidence? Global finance and the vices it's indulged in had to land somewhere, and the City was as good a place as any?
It's not well known in America. Recent conversations on congestion surcharges in NYC regularly confused the charges in City of London (miniscule) with London as a whole (huge), and then tried to draw the comparison to the now-canceled charges in NYC, which would have affected more than half of Manhattan, and a large portion of the most significant commercial areas of NYC.
People are either being completely disingenuous, or they don't understand that City of London is a relatively insignificant portion of greater London. This fact alone illustrates how absurd the comparison actually is:
> As of the 2011 census, the City of London has a population of 8,072 and area of 1.12 square miles.
(For context, Manhattan has a population of 1.65 million people, with about 73,000 people per square mile. Even setting aside that lower Manhattan is more densely populated than upper, and that a lot of people commute in from the outer boroughs, the congestion pricing scheme would have affected at least 800k resident people, or about 10% of NYCs total population.)
Aside from the points others have made that the congestion charge introduced by the mayor of the large urban area of London which covers the whole of central London[1] doesn't really have anything to do with the City of London boundaries or administration, I don't think "it's not well known in America" justifies the use of "secret"
The jurisdictions of San Mateo and Santa Clara aren't particularly well known in the UK but I'd still think any journalist referring to them as "secret" was being ludicrously hyperbolic...
[1]an area with approximately 17x the population of the City of London, and I suspect the ULEZ emissions charge which now covers all 9 million London residents also gets dragged into the US debate...
You're quibbling. The portion covered by the congestion charges is a tiny, tiny portion of the whole of London, comprising mostly business and entertainment areas.
The point I am making is that Americans use the naming confusion to draw the fundamentally misleading comparison.
Only if you don't know anything about Manhattan other than "density".
The now-canceled project would have affected, at a minimum, about 10% of New York's entire resident population (~800k). A lot of New Yorkers actually live in Manhattan south of 60th. That's part of why it's dense.
A more reasonable comparison to the current London congestion area would be midtown -- the small area in the middle of Manhattan with the obvious skyscrapers, as well as Times Square, theaters, throngs of tourists, and the bulk of finance.
You can't compare land areas directly. London is twice the size of New York. Population density, land uses, etc. are completely different.
For example, only about 140k people [1] live in the London area. Easily 800k live in the Manhattan area, and probably more (population density is higher on the lower half of the island, due to things like Central Park).
Yes the City of London has a population of around 10,000 but employs nearly 1 million by some estimates since the legal and financial capitals exist within it.
Only in the most broad definition of central business district.
The NYC one was just a toll, which would have created a variety of problems without really solving a bunch of others beyond revenue generation. The people gridlocking the west side to get on the tunnels aren't going to blink at a surcharge for the most part. The alternative in most cases is a $100 Uber, so a $25 toll is an annoying bargain. But massive industries, like specialty healthcare, would have been boned by patients who cannot handle the fare.
In the healthcare example, advocates would be like "not a problem! just get an exemption permit!". When my wife was being treated at MSK for an aggressive cancer, it took almost 5 months to get a NYC handicapped permit -- she unfortunately didn't live long enough to benefit. The street closures during COVID were often cited as a quality of life improvement... closures don't require a toll.
No, not even close. The NYC one covered all of Manhattan south of 60th, and almost every ingress/egress to the island. As I said in my comment, even if you only consider people who live in Manhattan (which is a fraction of the NYC residents affected by the proposed policy), it would have covered about 10% of the entire city -- about 800,000 people.
They may be confusing it with London's ULEZ (ultra low emissions zone), which was expanded last year with no democratic mandate and has been hugely controversial.
Residents would largely not have to pay, if they follow the London model. The London congestion zone covers ~150K residents, but above 1 million commuters, not counting trade and tourists.
Sensible, but unfortunately, that's not how it was going to work in NYC. Any car entering the zone below 60th would be covered, regardless of residency. Taxis, ride shares, deliveries, etc., were all covered as well.
The area in NYC was little more than a new tax on residents, disguised as congestion pricing. I'd personally have little problem with a fee that made carve-outs for the people who actually live here (and I say that as someone who doesn't own a car).
Thanks for the numbers on residents in the London area.
You’re just wrong. I live in NYC right next to the congestion zone and it would affect me greatly. I also have lived temporarily in London with a car. They’re very much similar plans.
You clearly don’t like the NYC one which is fine, but that wasn’t the topic.
As for the NYC one it’s a fee for using a car, not a tax on residents. Those are two different things.
Also you’re factually wrong, as the east/west side highways were exempted. So you very much could transit the area, or from the Brooklyn Bridge to upstate or the Battery Tunnel to Washington Heights, for example.
I live in the congestion zone. It would affect me greatly, even though I don't own a car. That's my point. Nothing you've written addresses that point.
> As for the NYC one it’s a fee for using a car, not a tax on residents. Those are two different things.
Any fee on car traffic in the zone that does not exclude residents, is de facto, a tax on residents. Even if you never ever ever take a taxi or ride in a car, the billion dollars in projected annual revenues don't just magically disappear because they're being paid by the people who deliver the goods you need for daily existence, the businesses where you shop, or the services you utilize. They get passed down to you, in the form of higher prices.
This is basic economics.
> Also you’re factually wrong, as the east/west side highways were exempted. So you very much could transit the area, or from the Brooklyn Bridge to upstate or the Battery Tunnel to Washington Heights, for example.
You're arguing about something I didn't say and isn't relevant to my arugment, so I'm not sure how I'm "factually wrong".
Yes, the west side highway and the FDR were exempted. Regardless, if your destination was inside the congestion zone, or you ended up driving there to get somewhere else, you were going to be charged the fee. But I don't care if you can travel upstate from Brooklyn. I live in Manhattan, not upstate. My argument is about people living here.
Not incidentally, when you say "or from the Brooklyn Bridge to upstate" that's some incredibly slippery wording, because, in fact, that's the only direction you can go from the Brooklyn bridge without incurring a fee. Per the MTA [1]:
> Vehicles can travel from the FDR Drive to the Brooklyn Bridge, and from the Brooklyn Bridge to the FDR Drive northbound without hitting the street grid and so will not be tolled. Vehicles traveling from the Brooklyn Bridge to the FDR southbound, however, will be tolled, as that connection includes hitting the grid at Pearl Street.
> The secret City of London which is not part of London
The City is part of London under any normal person's interpretation of that word. Being as charitable as possible, it is true that the ceremonial county of Greater London does not contain the City. But the Greater London administrative area does.
It's also not "secret". Many people aren't aware of it, but that's through ignorance on their part rather than secrecy on the part of the City. The City plasters its logo all over the place: on all street signs in the City, on police uniforms, on statues, etc. Even the bollards in the City bear the colors of the City's flag. It's impossible not to notice that the City is different from the rest of London.
So that's two mistakes in the headline alone.
> The mayor of Greater London has nothing to do with the original City of London, which still has separate governing bodies and a mayor.
This is wrong. The Mayor of London has authority over the City of London, through the Greater London Authority (although some power is delegated to the Corporation, in the same way it is to borough councils).
There is indeed also a mayor of the City (confusingly called the Lord Mayor of London), but that mayorship is largely ceremonial in nature.
> Oddly enough, if the monarch wants to enter the City of London, she first must ask the Lord Mayor for permission.
This is just an urban myth, no such permission is required. In fact, the sovereign has precedence over the Lord Mayor (in the context of formal events and such like).
Greater London is made up of 32 London Boroughs and the City of London that provide the vast majority of municipal services. Each has a mayor or Lord Mayor. The powers and responsibilities of London Boroughs, and the local authority responsibilities of the City of London Corporation are set out in statute law, not delegated by the Mayor of London.
The Mayor of London is responsible for public transport, Fire and Rescue Services, major highways, some major town planning issues across the 32 London Boroughs and the City of London, and policing across the 32 London Boroughs. The Mayor of London has no general authority over any of the 33.
Something else that a lot of younger people don't realize is the position "Mayor of London" is only 24 years old. London had no city-wide government between 1985 and 2000, and the pre-1985 council didn't have a mayor.
Personally I'd enthusiastically vote for a return to the pre-2000 system as it's not at all clear to me what these people do for us or what we gain from giving them all this money.
The London Mayor and more recently the Manchester Mayor have been huge successes in transport coordination. I don't think many people would a priori say "the best structure for a large city is fifty non-coordinated boroughs". You could make a clearer case for abolishing the boroughs (especially some of the more corrupt and incompetent ones) and running the city as a unitary whole.
The only reason the GLC was abolished in the first place was naked party politics.
> especially some of the more corrupt and incompetent ones
Do you have particular boroughs in mind?
The mayor of Tower Hamlets is one of the few people in the UK to have a conviction for electoral fraud. Somehow this didn't stop him getting elected again.
> and the pre-1985 council didn't have a mayor.
True but it had a council leader.
> Personally I'd enthusiastically vote for a return to the pre-2000 system as it's not at all clear to me what these people do for us or what we gain from giving them all this money.
A failing on your part. About half of it is TFL.
Budget https://www.london.gov.uk/media/100391/download?attachment
Unless different to the rest of the country though, not directly elected (to the leader role), which I assume was the point, since a mayor is.
Mind you, we don't vote for parties to govern or which member to lead them (and it needn't be an MP) either, but it doesn't stop people talking like we do. (I'm voting Labour - no you're not, you're voting for the Labour candidate in your area. I'm voting for Rishi Sunak - you're almost certainly not, the vast majority of people not being in his constituency. Etc.)
> Mind you, we don't vote for parties to govern or which member to lead them (and it needn't be an MP) either, but it doesn't stop people talking like we do.
You are technically correct, but those pesky people are onto something. In practice people that voted for Boris Johnson in 2019 did not vote for Liz Truss or Rishi Sunak, yet still were governed by them.
You are voting for a candidate, but their party might decide the next pm with the input of their members only.
The pre-2000 system happened because Thatcher didn't like having a London government that represented the views of London voters, which was far more left wing.
That it what it gives us: Representation in a region more populous than most countries which is politically often poorly aligned with the national government.
The 1985 power-grab by Thatcher was deeply anti-democratic.
regional coordination of services like transport is the big one. as a general example, if it were just the councils, Crossrail probably would not have gotten off the ground. And TfL is probably the only authority bucking the general British trend of bus services totally collapsing.
Fun fact: Brussels has the exact same structure, with a “Brussels City” smaller than “Brussels Capital Region”, different mayors for different boroughs etc.
CGP Grey has a delightful video explaining this:
"The Secret City inside of London Revealed" (2012) https://youtu.be/LrObZ_HZZUc
Highly recommended.
I am pretty sure that the CGP Grey video was the core inspiration for this article. Nearly every image in the article was featured in the YouTube video, which predates the article by ~4 years.
CPG Grey's videos re the City are a bit of fun that he slapped together in two or three days, not documentaries.
“Documentaries” on YouTube and not the best. Most of the time the images and background isn’t even the specific topic of discussion. For example, showing the wrong plane or car when the video is specifically about a certain fighter jet or war.
It made me realize the larger studios and productions have access to lots of accurate “fluff” like historical reels. They even have budgets to take real crews to locations. Makes me rethink the amount of time I spend on YouTube.
I consider "posted on YouTube" the same as "posted on the Internet". Youtube is basically a comm channel, they don't vet for accuracy nor do they claim to.
Look instead at the channel. Some channels make serious efforts to cite their sources and justify their claims; others do not. It's hard, but where you can, try to prefer the first.
I used to live in the City of London at the top end of Chancery Lane. I could therefore be in a different city (City of Westminster) by crossing the street to the west and leave the city entirely by crossing to the north (London Borough of Camden).
I used to live pretty close to the eastern end of the City in Aldgate/Whitechapel. It was pretty cool to go running and cycling around the City during the pandemic lockdowns, with almost no people or cars around.
Same with central London: I remember cycling though a completely deserted Leicester Square one day and hearing nothing but birds chirping in the trees!
During lockdown most hotels were closed, I ended up staying near Blackfriars and riding my Brompton to the west end. Very peaceful without so many taxis and vans and even it seemed fewer buses.
But then the city is hardly bustling on a Sunday either.
I walked through the City as a tourist one Sunday, and didn't realize I couldn't get any kind of lunch at all until I was past it.
(We were recreating Elizabeth I's procession from the Tower to Westminster, which passes through what is now The City.)
I think we ate the dreadful TESCO sandwiches in the City, near the hall when we visited. Almost no cars.
I lived in Chancery Lane in around 1998/1999. Weekends were eerily quiet and getting groceries was a nuisance.
Also I remember loafing around my flat watching the news about some May Day protests in London and when I turned the TV off I realised I could... hear the protesters. They were over on Fleet Street another very short walk away!
Did you get to vote in the Court of Aldermen elections? If so, are they much different to local elections in the rest of the country?
For me, the wildest fact about the City of London (the small, walled part), is that when the Romans left, some buildings were smashed up, but the roads and walls remained, and then the whole area was abandoned... for 470 years.
But besides the buildings, walls and the roads, "what did the Romans ever do for US?"
Also some pretty interesting tax and voting rules there ... Corporations get a vote, pretty much meaning they run the place.
https://www.thecollector.com/what-makes-the-city-of-london-u...
There's a good book called "treasure islands" all about tax havens... The city definitely features.
And it has the fewest residents of any London borough by a couple of orders of magnitude. So it probably makes sense that businesses have a bit more say.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/381055/london-population...
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City of London Ward Lists consist of c19,000 individuals, who have one vote each.
Corporations voting = urban myth
Some of those individuals are not residents but expressly included as nominees of their businesses, a form of franchise that exists nowhere else in the UK.
It's true that the vote is exercised by the company's nominee, not the company itself, but that's only because the company itself can't show up at the polling station. Business voters are expressly included to represent their organisations[0], and do.
[0]: https://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/about-us/voting-elections/bu...
"In fact, the City of London is so independent that it has its own flag, crest, police force, ceremonial armed forces, and a mayor who has a special title, the Right Honorable, the Lord Mayor of London. Oddly enough, if the monarch wants to enter the City of London, she first must ask the Lord Mayor for permission"
Are there some books that comprehensively cover several aspects around the City of London?
The City of London appeared quite often in Lee Kwan Yu's memoirs
Fact checking : the monarch does not have to ask permission to enter the City.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=City_of_London_...
That makes much of the sword part of the ceremony, but surely it's the "red cord raised by City police" that signifies some self-authority -- what other part of the country may purposefully and physically stop the monarch and receive no investigation or punishment?
> The City of London appeared quite often in Lee Kwan Yu's memoirs
Interesting - was it an inspiration for Singapore's governance as a city-state?
He was made a "Freeman" by the City of London.
He also hinted that Singapore's set-up as a good destination for finance was modeled after the City of London
Anybody, or anything, can have its own flag in England.
Yes, although there is a meaningful distinction of those which are registered under the https://www.college-of-arms.gov.uk/ or not.
Now I have to wonder is there a place where this is not true?
Of course anything can have its own flag. That’s how the British stole entire countries /s
https://youtu.be/hYeFcSq7Mxg
The City of London certainly has its own coat of arms. Phrasing that as "its own crest" is a bit weird. (The crest is only part, and by no means the most important part, of a heraldic achievement. The escutcheon is the important bit.)
Arms: Argent a cross gules, in the first quarter a sword in pale point upwards of the last.
Crest: On a wreath argent and gules a dragon's sinister wing argent charged on the underside with a cross throughout gules.
Supporters: On either side a dragon argent charged on the undersides of the wings with a cross throughout gules.
Yes. And local authorities in the UK routinely have grants of arms and banners/flags of them (albeit most of them are newer and less classy than the City's).
Ditto police forces: although most smaller authorities' police have merged into larger county or larger forces, there's nothing odd in principle about a municipal police force. The City's is strange, in that it's entirely enclaved within the Met, but there are plenty of oddities out there (the Mersey Tunnels Police, say).
There are several ancient cities with 'Lord' mayors, including York.
Interesting anecdote: the city of Baltimore, MD, USA is administratively distinct from the County of Baltimore, MD. The area is collectively referred to as Baltimore, but the county has no jurisdiction within the city. [1]
https://www.greektownbaltimore.org/what-the-difference-betwe...
Yes, and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, home of the Indianapolis 500, is located in Speedway, Indiana, which has its own local government and police force, in spite of the fact that it is both surrounded by Indianapolis and entirely contained within Marion County, whose government, aside from a few exceptions like Speedway, is entirely consolidated with the government of the city of Indianapolis[1].
Local government can be complicated.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unigov
Many states have a similar code, all of Maryland might. There are lots of pockets of sovereignty in the US that are misunderstood.
Basically the default behavior is that the state is a bigger government than the county and overrides everything, county bigger than city, city bigger than something smaller.
But non-default behavior is codified to make it the reverse.
Either its directly codified in state law or state constitution, or there is a symbioses for the state to maintain collective support and order.
Rules for rulers applies here.
Unusually, the county of New York (coextensive with Manhattan) is only 1 of 5 counties inside the city of New York (which of course inside the state of New York).
The FT did a recent - and very good - expose with more on how the city works in “Undemocratic, anachronistic, fantastic. How the City of London survives” [1] Paywalled but accessible via Google.
[1] https://www.ft.com/content/2b96763f-5cb2-475b-b20c-7c2d02050...
https://archive.is/Hgz5j
A person I know reasonably well is currently the Lord Mayor of London.
I suspect I could get him to do an AMA here if people would like to hear more about the City and its fascinating ways.
Seriously, we could actually do this!
Michael is a terrifically interesting fellow even if you ignore his role as Lord Mayor.
Absolutely! He’s a Star!
I was hoping it would be Oscar-nominated “Passport to Pimlico” (Ealing Studios, 1949).
The City of London is sort of a lobbying organization for the UK financial community. Or at least it thinks it is.[1] Its police force is not ceremonial - there's a sizable Economic Crime Directorate, handling fraud cases. They claim a 75% clearing rate.
[1] https://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/about-us/plans-policies/our-...
City of London is a separate legal entity to England but still under the king. Hence all the banking industry is located there, to add another step in the money train to tax heavens.
> City of London is a separate legal entity to England but still under the king
Not true. You're probably thinking of something like the Isle of Mann, or the Channel Islands, or arguably all of Canada or Australia.
The City of London is part of England.
This isn't meaningfully true: it's still subject to UK tax law and the law of England&Wales in general.
The Channel Islands and Man do fit that description and are not subject to English tax law.
Some beautiful old Roman buildings around near Threadneedle. There always seems to be some construction work going on around there though.
Unfortunately modern buildings in the city are designed for a 30 year lifespan, so there is always one being demolished and replaced.
The city within a city inside of a country inside of a country (London, London, England, UK)
I find the City of London (formerly the Corporation for London) to be fascinating for many reasons.
For one, the exact origins are unknown. the earliest record we have is from 1067 CE with the William Charter [1]. William granted the City rights in exchange for not attacking and the City recognizing him as King, which this article sort of mentions. But the interesting part is that William was simply recognizing the rights of something that already existed. For how long? Nobody knows. It's likely somewhere in the 7th or 8th century when Anglo-Saxons resettled the previously abandoned Roman walled city of Londinium after their departure in 410 CE.
It's also fascinating because it's managed to survive for nearly 1000 yaers since then, largely recognizable from its earlier form although there have been various changes and reforms. There have been efforts to disband it too but obviously they failed.
It also survived uncertain times like the Vikings would cojme along every now and again and burn down London Bridge.
London's development as a financial center goes back to 1066 too and a key part was likely due, at least in part, to the arrival of Jews during William's reign [2].
Why was this important? Well, Jews were prohibited from charging interest to other Jews. Muslims and Christians had similar constraints. But an oddity of Judaism was that Jews could charge interest to non-Jews [3]. This later likely contributed to conspiracy theories about Jews (eg blood libel) and antisemitism.
So ancient civil institutions like the Court of Aldermen still exist and certain rights given to the Freemen of the City of London still exist, like the ancient right to bring sheep in to the City over the bridge [4].
[1]: https://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/things-to-do/history-and-her...
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_England...
[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loans_and_interest_in_Judaism
[4]: https://www.euronews.com/culture/2022/09/27/unbaalievable-sh...
Is there a direct relation or something specific you were going to draw in mentioning the history of the Jews in England and the history and particularities of the City of London? That the Jews performed the interest loans on behalf of and/or within the City of London possibly or something like that?
Jews were historically associated with practices like moneylending largely due to the religious quirks I mentioned.
Go forward a few centuries and you have things like Shakespeare's moneylender from the Merchant of Venice, Shylock. This was no accident. It reveals both the reality of the time and attitudes towards Jews. This was such a powerful literary figure that the word "shylock" entered the lexicon.
Anyway here's another history [1]:
> The Jews came principally from Rouen - a great center of Jewish life in Northern France. It is well known that William brought them over as so called "feudal Jews" to be Royal serfs, the king's own chattels, providing him with financial services and income ...
> Though their principal function was to be money lenders, the London Jews did in reality they did follow a variety of other trades and callings
[1]: http://www.jtrails.org.uk/trails/the-city-of-london/history
I’m probably being overly pedantic but it’s not a secret
I'd go with something more like "secretive" than explicitly "secret". It's a weird & immensely powerful place in the UK, with some abstruse governing structures, hidden entirely in plain sight.
Secretive? As in run by Committees that meet in public with agendas and minutes published on the City's website in accordance with the Local Government Act 1972.
Please. I've read Dan Brown's novels and I know that those are just phony and for confuse the proles. But just how the Priory of Sion is involved is still not clear to me.
That's defensible.
The secret isn't that the city of london has existed for centuries. Articles like this are designed to elicit your response. The secret is to what extent the social-political order in the West determined by the Finance and the extent to which they exercise power over nominally sovereign entities.
Well, it's not now!
p.s. the first rule of London is we don't talk about London...
I'm gonna add that it is not super super well explained why did it stay that way either which was the curious part for me.
I’ve read this exact factoid at least a few hundred times. I’m mostly just amazed that it continues to surprise people.
Obligatory xkcd: 10,000.
I'm glad people are learning a neat new factoid but it really wasn't a secret.
Equally obligatory: link to the xkcd[0][1]
[0]https://xkcd.com/1053/ [1]https://m.xkcd.com/1053/
You get a pass; the title was being overly gratuitous.
Yup. I stopped reading when I got to the bit where they explained that the "secret city" was the City of London. That's tabloid crap.
But it’s such an unexpected power structure in a modern democracy some people don’t really believe it even when told.
They are right to disbelieve.
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The article you link to is using the 'City of London' to refer to London's financial sector, which is primarily located in the City of London (rather like the use of 'Washington' to refer to the US government). It's not talking about anything shady that the institutions of the City of London itself are doing.
Relevance? I haven't said whether I'm talking about the City of London's government or its financial institutions (as if there's a difference). None of which has to do with "secrecy" which is arguably the relevant topic. On that subject, whether it's the government or the financial institutions or both, if they're engaged in money laundering, which is more likely: They keep those matters secret, or they don't keep those matters secret?
The article we're all commenting on is talking about the City of London in the sense of the geographic area administered by the City of London Corporation.
The article you linked to is talking about the shenanigans of the UK's financial sector (mostly concentrated in the City of London).
The UK financial sector is regulated by the FCA. Corporations headquartered in the City of London are subject to English law just like corporations headquartered in any other part of the country. So the role that the City of London Corporation plays in money laundering is relatively minor and indirect. Of course, there may well be corruption that is worth investigating and exposing.
Unfortunately, the idea of the City of London as some kind of extraterritorial legal island within the UK is catnip to conspiracy theorists of various stripes. It is complete nonsense. However, that is not to say that the City of London Corporation is not in need of reform.
The article title includes "the secret City of London." Without clarification, it's left to readers to decide what that means. It could mean its government actively maintains a cloak of secrecy, it could just mean that it's not well known, say, to Americans, or it could mean something in between. The latter pole--that it's not well known, say, to Americans--has been established in this thread. What I'm trying to do is offer evidence to support the former pole. If there's corruption within the City of London, that supplies a motive for its financial institutions or its government (as if there's a difference) to shield the activities that occur there from scrutiny.
> The article title includes "the secret City of London." Without clarification, it's left to readers to decide what that means.
Generally speaking the etiquette on HN is to at least pretend that you've read the article. I've rarely seen someone so audaciously using the fact that they didn't read the article as a defense.
Whether or not there's an etiquette for HN, there's definitely guidelines for HN which among other things encourage commenters not to accuse each other of not reading the articles, and to give each other the benefit of the doubt.
As it happens, I did read the article before writing my first comment. That would be the article which uses the word "secret" in its title but neither "secret" nor "secrecy" anywhere else in the body. Put another way, having actually read the article, among the many interesting things it says, one thing I know it doesn't say is exactly what it means by its title
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
The UK financial services sector is involved in money laundering. That does not have much to do with its location in the City of London. The City of London Corporation is essentially just a local authority and does not have the kind of governing powers that would enable it to play a major role in money laundering. For example, it does not regulate financial transactions or pass laws (except the largely inconsequential local ‘byelaws’ that any UK local authority can pass).
Yes quite correct. The Corporation is a local council, it collects the bins and operates one primary school.
There's always this misconception that it's some sort of lawless wild west. If it was, I assure you every company in the world would be based there!
> The Corporation is a local council, it collects the bins and operates one primary school.
Is that all it runs?
> There's always this misconception that it's some sort of lawless wild west.
I don't view it that way.
> I assure you every company in the world would be based there!
How many financial companies in the world are based there?
> How many financial companies in the world are based there?
Many, for sure. Plenty more are headquartered in Canary Wharf, which is not in the City but in Tower Hamlets. These include Barclays, HSBC and Citigroup.
That's one way to put it. Another way to put it is "most". The City has the largest number of financial firms, the largest share of office space, and the largest share of trading volume and assets under management. It's home to the Bank of England and the London Stock Exchange, and will be home to HSBC when it finishes its move there from Canary Wharf.
Those firms have been accused--indirectly--of money laundering. If they're engaged in that vice, it's plausible to me they would add the additional vice of protecting it from scrutiny. I.e. engaging in "secrecy." It need not collude with the government to do so, but if it did it would hardly be the first time business and government colluded under a veil of secrecy.
As for what the actual City of London Corporation runs, since you didn't answer the question, I'll answer it for you. In addition to collecting bins and operating one school, it also runs a police department.
The firms you mention have certainly colluded with the government in Westminster, which is the one that regulates financial services. The City of London Corporation is merely a local authority (albeit a quirky one), and banks don't really need its cooperation in order to launder money. (HSBC did a fine job of it from Canary Wharf, for example.)
>it also runs a police department.
As do many other regions of the country. There's nothing surprising or sinister about this. There isn't any connection between this administrative fact and money laundering.
I'm not saying there's anything necessarily sinister or surprising about its police department. I'm just trying to be more complete. If we say the City just collects bins and runs one school, well that's not really giving the full picture, now is it?
Beyond that, consider this:
-The City has one of highest concentrations of global finance power in the world, if not the highest.
-That global finance power--global banking and commerce--has been accused of illicit activity, largely money laundering.
-If they do engage in that illicit activity, they probably collude with whatever governments they need to to advance their interests. It only makes sense.
-And, they probably would cloak these activities under a veil of secrecy. That also only makes sense.
Little if any of this is in dispute. What seems to be in dispute is the answer to these related questions:
Money laundering can happen anywhere, in Canary Wharf, in the Channel Islands, hell in New York and Delaware. But, is there something unique about the square mile? If so, what is it? Whatever conditions create a money laundering opportunity, are those conditions enhanced by what's unique about the City? And if it's not the Corporation, then what is it? If there's a high degree of money laundering there to go along with its high concentration of global finance power, then why is that? Because there hasn't been equivalent such accusations against New York and Delaware. The square mile has been called out as playing an outsized role in corruption. If that's true--supposing for the sake of argument it is--if that's true, then why? Is it just coincidence? Global finance and the vices it's indulged in had to land somewhere, and the City was as good a place as any?
Where is the UK financial services sector concentrated?
It's not well known in America. Recent conversations on congestion surcharges in NYC regularly confused the charges in City of London (miniscule) with London as a whole (huge), and then tried to draw the comparison to the now-canceled charges in NYC, which would have affected more than half of Manhattan, and a large portion of the most significant commercial areas of NYC.
People are either being completely disingenuous, or they don't understand that City of London is a relatively insignificant portion of greater London. This fact alone illustrates how absurd the comparison actually is:
> As of the 2011 census, the City of London has a population of 8,072 and area of 1.12 square miles.
(For context, Manhattan has a population of 1.65 million people, with about 73,000 people per square mile. Even setting aside that lower Manhattan is more densely populated than upper, and that a lot of people commute in from the outer boroughs, the congestion pricing scheme would have affected at least 800k resident people, or about 10% of NYCs total population.)
Aside from the points others have made that the congestion charge introduced by the mayor of the large urban area of London which covers the whole of central London[1] doesn't really have anything to do with the City of London boundaries or administration, I don't think "it's not well known in America" justifies the use of "secret"
The jurisdictions of San Mateo and Santa Clara aren't particularly well known in the UK but I'd still think any journalist referring to them as "secret" was being ludicrously hyperbolic...
[1]an area with approximately 17x the population of the City of London, and I suspect the ULEZ emissions charge which now covers all 9 million London residents also gets dragged into the US debate...
I never said anything about it being a "secret", nor did I even use the word.
You seem to be having an argument with the title of the piece, not with me.
The London congestion charge is a much larger area than the City
https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/driving/congestion-charge/congestio...
You're quibbling. The portion covered by the congestion charges is a tiny, tiny portion of the whole of London, comprising mostly business and entertainment areas.
The point I am making is that Americans use the naming confusion to draw the fundamentally misleading comparison.
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It's a fraction by area, but it's by far the densest and busiest part of the city. Comparisons to half of Manhattan are not unwarranted.
Only if you don't know anything about Manhattan other than "density".
The now-canceled project would have affected, at a minimum, about 10% of New York's entire resident population (~800k). A lot of New Yorkers actually live in Manhattan south of 60th. That's part of why it's dense.
A more reasonable comparison to the current London congestion area would be midtown -- the small area in the middle of Manhattan with the obvious skyscrapers, as well as Times Square, theaters, throngs of tourists, and the bulk of finance.
It's not canceled. They paused the plan.
It’s about 8 square miles - in Manhattan that would be about the area below 42nd street
You can't compare land areas directly. London is twice the size of New York. Population density, land uses, etc. are completely different.
For example, only about 140k people [1] live in the London area. Easily 800k live in the Manhattan area, and probably more (population density is higher on the lower half of the island, due to things like Central Park).
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_congestion_charge#Prese...
So higher density means fewer cars per person and more reason to have a congestion charge
The congestion charge in London has absolutely nothing to do with the City.
Yes the City of London has a population of around 10,000 but employs nearly 1 million by some estimates since the legal and financial capitals exist within it.
So, it's midtown Manhattan, which is a small portion of the area NYC proposed to meter.
What are you talking about the London congestion charge is analogous to the NYC one, covering the core central business district.
Only in the most broad definition of central business district.
The NYC one was just a toll, which would have created a variety of problems without really solving a bunch of others beyond revenue generation. The people gridlocking the west side to get on the tunnels aren't going to blink at a surcharge for the most part. The alternative in most cases is a $100 Uber, so a $25 toll is an annoying bargain. But massive industries, like specialty healthcare, would have been boned by patients who cannot handle the fare.
In the healthcare example, advocates would be like "not a problem! just get an exemption permit!". When my wife was being treated at MSK for an aggressive cancer, it took almost 5 months to get a NYC handicapped permit -- she unfortunately didn't live long enough to benefit. The street closures during COVID were often cited as a quality of life improvement... closures don't require a toll.
No, not even close. The NYC one covered all of Manhattan south of 60th, and almost every ingress/egress to the island. As I said in my comment, even if you only consider people who live in Manhattan (which is a fraction of the NYC residents affected by the proposed policy), it would have covered about 10% of the entire city -- about 800,000 people.
They may be confusing it with London's ULEZ (ultra low emissions zone), which was expanded last year with no democratic mandate and has been hugely controversial.
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Residents would largely not have to pay, if they follow the London model. The London congestion zone covers ~150K residents, but above 1 million commuters, not counting trade and tourists.
Sensible, but unfortunately, that's not how it was going to work in NYC. Any car entering the zone below 60th would be covered, regardless of residency. Taxis, ride shares, deliveries, etc., were all covered as well.
The area in NYC was little more than a new tax on residents, disguised as congestion pricing. I'd personally have little problem with a fee that made carve-outs for the people who actually live here (and I say that as someone who doesn't own a car).
Thanks for the numbers on residents in the London area.
You’re just wrong. I live in NYC right next to the congestion zone and it would affect me greatly. I also have lived temporarily in London with a car. They’re very much similar plans.
You clearly don’t like the NYC one which is fine, but that wasn’t the topic.
As for the NYC one it’s a fee for using a car, not a tax on residents. Those are two different things.
Also you’re factually wrong, as the east/west side highways were exempted. So you very much could transit the area, or from the Brooklyn Bridge to upstate or the Battery Tunnel to Washington Heights, for example.
I live in the congestion zone. It would affect me greatly, even though I don't own a car. That's my point. Nothing you've written addresses that point.
> As for the NYC one it’s a fee for using a car, not a tax on residents. Those are two different things.
Any fee on car traffic in the zone that does not exclude residents, is de facto, a tax on residents. Even if you never ever ever take a taxi or ride in a car, the billion dollars in projected annual revenues don't just magically disappear because they're being paid by the people who deliver the goods you need for daily existence, the businesses where you shop, or the services you utilize. They get passed down to you, in the form of higher prices.
This is basic economics.
> Also you’re factually wrong, as the east/west side highways were exempted. So you very much could transit the area, or from the Brooklyn Bridge to upstate or the Battery Tunnel to Washington Heights, for example.
You're arguing about something I didn't say and isn't relevant to my arugment, so I'm not sure how I'm "factually wrong".
Yes, the west side highway and the FDR were exempted. Regardless, if your destination was inside the congestion zone, or you ended up driving there to get somewhere else, you were going to be charged the fee. But I don't care if you can travel upstate from Brooklyn. I live in Manhattan, not upstate. My argument is about people living here.
Not incidentally, when you say "or from the Brooklyn Bridge to upstate" that's some incredibly slippery wording, because, in fact, that's the only direction you can go from the Brooklyn bridge without incurring a fee. Per the MTA [1]:
> Vehicles can travel from the FDR Drive to the Brooklyn Bridge, and from the Brooklyn Bridge to the FDR Drive northbound without hitting the street grid and so will not be tolled. Vehicles traveling from the Brooklyn Bridge to the FDR southbound, however, will be tolled, as that connection includes hitting the grid at Pearl Street.
[1] https://congestionreliefzone.mta.info/faqs