Financial
services have concentrated in London not as a result of a
conscious decision but for particular reasons which make it the optimal
location. By preventing EU businesses from making use of London-based
services, it is forcing them to employ consultants operating
sub-optimally, which will incur not only the cost of the initial
disruption but also ongoing additional costs; such is the foolishness of
the EU's trade policies. How things develop remains to be seen. Some of
the business may eventually return to London for the very reason it has
concentrated there in the first place.
The present over-concentration of financial services
in London is unhealthy and leads to a raft of problems. The departure of those businesses leaves
premises in London vacant. The owners of the buildings they occupied
will want to find tenants and so new opportunities will open up for
other commercial users; they could be involved in design or
technology-related activities. The important thing is that the owners do
not sit on their real estate and leave it vacant for years on end.
From the mid-nineteenth century until
the advent of the Nazis, European banking was concentrated in Berlin,
Vienna and Paris. That, too, happened for specific reasons which we are
not likely to see re-created. You can read the story in "The Hare with
the “Amber Eyes” by Edmund de Waal.
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