They used to say that the high tide of economic prosperity reached Newcastle (aka Geordieland) last and went out first. However, has the Blair-Brown spending given the NorthEast a post-industrial future – or is the economy still very precarious?
Outliers… Malcolm Gladwell’s book… would have a field day if you looked at Newcastle 1830 to 1870… the invention of electricity from coal-fired power stations… the invention of the railways… the invention of the light bulb…
But, Newcastle is reinventing itself as a world city – an Ideopolis – with embedded university, airport to anywhere… still the joie de vivre of a port town with sunny weather (remember the Romans didn’t settle Manchester because it rained too much!)
Check out the biggest thing happening in Newcastle this year: Thinking Digital- a British-born TED conference, hosted by an inspired Korean-American, Herb Kim, tasked with bringing cohesion and fighting spirit to the NorthEast’s digital business through his organisation Codeworks…
Have you spotted the announcement today of plans to use the old shipyards on the Tyne to build massive offshore wind turbines. See my blog – Industrial recalibration on the Tyne: http://bit.ly/DPwx