Special report: London

特別報道：倫敦

On a high

輝煌之顛

London is the very model of a global city—and thriving on it, says Emma Duncan. But there are threats to its future

艾瑪·鄧肯說，倫敦無疑是國際化大都市的典范，并受益于國際化。但仍存在許多因素威脅到它未來的發(fā)展。

Jun 30th 2012 | from the print edition of The Economist

譯者：newrobert

STEVE VARSANO, A New Yorker who sells private jets, moved from America to London a couple of years ago. His showroom, which is kitted out as a luxury aircraft interior—cream leather seats, snakeskin walls, mahogany trimmings—is on Hyde Park Corner.

史蒂夫·瓦薩諾，“商務噴氣機公司”老板，一個出售私人飛機的紐約客，幾年前就從美國遷到倫敦。他在倫敦的飛機銷售展廳，裝飾成豪華客機機艙的樣子，有奶油色皮椅，蟒皮花紋的墻面，紅木家具，位置就在海德公園角。

To some, Hyde Park Corner is a noisy roundabout. To Mr Varsano, it is an unbeatable location. Fifteen years ago, he says, 70% of the world?s private jets were sold in America. These days, maybe 35-40% are. “Anybody that can afford a jet comes to London. The only bits of London they know are Belgravia, Knightsbridge and Mayfair [the areas that converge on Hyde Park Corner]. They all have to stop at that light,” he says, pointing at the traffic light on the southern side of the roundabout. “As the car swings round, the guy in the back seat has to look into my showroom. I have the best window on four continents.”

對與某些人，海德公園角只是個嘈雜的街心環(huán)島，而對瓦薩諾而言，這兒的位置得天獨厚。他指出，15年前。美國市場占到全球私人噴氣機銷量的70%，今天，這個數(shù)字下降到35-40%。他說：“現(xiàn)在買得起噴氣機的人都來倫敦了。這些人對于倫敦就知道貝爾格萊維亞區(qū)、騎士橋和梅菲爾區(qū)（這些地方就在海德公園拐角周圍），他們都會在那個信號燈前停留，”他指著環(huán)島南邊的交通信號燈，“車沿著環(huán)島行駛，后座上的人就會看到我的銷售展廳，我擁有全世界最好的櫥窗?！?/p>

Mr Varsano is not alone in his enthusiasm for the city. Over the past quarter-century, unprecedented numbers of foreigners have come to live, work and invest in the city. Largely as a result, London has had an astonishing period of growth that has survived the recession in Britain and the economic crisis in Europe. It feels unstoppable; but that?s how it felt a century ago, and it turned out not to be.

瓦薩諾并不是唯一對這座城市情有獨鐘的人，在過去的四分之一世紀里，空前多的海外人士來到這座城市生活、工作、投資。其結(jié)果是給這座城市帶來了空前繁榮，倫敦因此躲過了英國的衰退和席卷整個歐洲的經(jīng)濟危機。它發(fā)展的勢頭好像勢不可擋，但就像一個世紀前的情況一樣，事情的發(fā)展總是事與愿違。

Out of darkness

走出黑暗

London has been the centre of politics, administration, business and fun in Britain since the 11th century, but it was the Victorian age that made it great. The industrial revolution combined with the empire to supercharge London?s economy. Raw materials from the colonies were shipped into the docks and manufactured goods shipped out. The banking system which grew up in the City of London channelled private savings into productive enterprises all over the globe.

從11世紀起，倫敦就成為英國的政治、行政、商業(yè)、文藝中心，但是在維多利亞時代倫敦才享譽世界。工業(yè)革命及帝國的興起使得倫敦經(jīng)濟發(fā)展突飛猛進。那時候碼頭上堆滿了從世界各個角落的殖民地運來的原材料，而工業(yè)產(chǎn)品也從這里裝船銷往世界。倫敦市發(fā)展起來的銀行系統(tǒng)將私人儲蓄借貸給全球的制造企業(yè)。

As London produced goods, so it sucked in people. Its population grew from 1m in 1800, when it was already by far the biggest city in Europe, to 6.5m in 1900. That huge expansion spawned a massive construction boom. Most of the city?s housing is Victorian, as are its great buildings. Confident in the greatness of their age, the Victorians had little time for the past. Between 1830 and 1901, 23 churches, 18 of them built by Sir Christopher Wren, the architect of St Paul?s Cathedral in the City, were demolished. Suburbs ate up the countryside: William Morris, a 19th-century artist, designer and thinker, called the place a “spreading sore”.

倫敦制造業(yè)擴大的同時，吸收了大量勞動力。倫敦人口在19世紀初期是100萬，已是那個時期歐洲首屈一指的大都市了。到了20世界初期，人口增長到650萬。人口的擴張帶來建筑業(yè)的繁榮。大多數(shù)城市住宅，包括那些著名建筑，都是維多利亞時期建設的。出于對自己所處時代的自信，維多利亞時代的英國人對以前的事物不那么關(guān)注。從1830年到1901年，有23座教堂被拆除，其中18座還是由城內(nèi)圣保羅大教堂的設計者克里斯托弗·雷恩爵士設計建造的。城市的擴展使得鄉(xiāng)村淪為郊區(qū)。19世紀藝術(shù)家、設計師、思想家威廉·莫里斯輕蔑的稱之為“擴散的膿瘡”。

In 1939 its population hit 8.6m. By then the belief that London was at once too rich and too poor, as well as too powerful, had taken hold. So whole neighbourhoods were bulldozed to clear slums; a Green Belt was established to stop it spreading; the construction of offices in central London was, in effect, banned. Meanwhile war battered the city, driving out people and industry. Manufacturing started to decline. The docks, London?s core industry, were destroyed by container ships too deep for the river and by militant unions. The city went into a vicious cycle of decline. Schools emptied, crime rose and aspiring people left. By the late 1980s it had lost a quarter of its inhabitants.

到1939年倫敦人口達到860萬。那時，人們堅信倫敦不是太富有就是太貧窮，同時影響力也太大了，所以應該適可而止。因此附近的貧民區(qū)被推土機鏟平清除，修建綠化帶來限制城市的擴張，倫敦主要街區(qū)禁止建設辦公樓。恰巧那時，戰(zhàn)爭爆發(fā)了，由于受到戰(zhàn)爭的影響，倫敦人口和工業(yè)被迫分散到各地，導致制造業(yè)開始下滑。因為現(xiàn)代集裝箱船吃水太深無法駛?cè)雮惗卮a頭，同時受到激進的工會影響，倫敦的主要產(chǎn)業(yè)船塢業(yè)也遭到嚴重破壞。整個城市陷入下滑的惡性循環(huán)，學校生源嚴重不足，犯罪率上升，人才流失。到20世紀80年代末期，倫敦人口減少了四分之一。

Phoenix reborn

鳳凰涅磐

Then the population started rising again. Nobody really knows why. It may simply be that the economic factors that had caused it to shrink—the closure of the docks and the disappearance of manufacturing industry—had run their course, the policies designed to empty the place out had been abandoned and the gravitational pull of a great city had reasserted itself.

然后倫敦人口不知什么緣故又開始增長了。很可能僅僅是因為導致人口萎縮的經(jīng)濟因素如碼頭關(guān)閉和制造業(yè)削減已經(jīng)完成了它們的進程，影響人口增長的政策也已被廢止，倫敦又要向世界展示自己的偉大了。

Cities are powerful networks. According to Geoffrey West, a physicist at the Santa Fe Institute who has looked into the maths of cities, there is an urban constant that holds good the world over: every doubling in the size of a city brings a 15-20% increase in wages, patent output, the employment of “supercreative” people, the efficiency of transport systems and many other good things associated with cities. There is a similar increase in crime and pollution, but the benefits of higher wages and greater opportunities evidently outweigh those disadvantages.

城市具有巨大的能量。圣非學院物理學家杰弗里·韋斯特運用數(shù)學工具研究城市問題，他發(fā)現(xiàn)，存在一種城市常量，在世界任一個城市中都發(fā)揮作用。每當城市規(guī)模增大一倍，其居民工資收入，專利數(shù)量、創(chuàng)造性人才、運輸系統(tǒng)的有效性及城市其他良性因素都會有15-20%的相應增長。當然，犯罪數(shù)量和污染也會有類似增長，但相對與收入和發(fā)展機會的增加，就不算什么了。

And London had a great deal going for it: international connections, a useful time zone and, by the 1980s, a free-market government. In 1986 the Big Bang, which deregulated the City?s financial services, set off a spate of growth that restored London to its place as one of the world?s great financial centres. Growth drew in foreigners, who have arrived in ever larger numbers, bringing money (sometimes), skills (often) and a willingness to work harder than the natives (usually).

倫敦自身具有很多得天獨厚的優(yōu)勢：它是國際樞紐，它所在的時區(qū)優(yōu)勢，在20世紀80年代，它已經(jīng)擁有一個信奉自由市場主義的政府。1986年城市金融服務業(yè)發(fā)生巨大變革，金融政策放寬，倫敦又逐漸重新成為全球金融中心之一。城市發(fā)展吸引了前所未有的大批移民，他們帶來資金（有時是）、技術(shù)（經(jīng)常是）和比本土居民更加努力工作的熱情（通常是）。

Some come for jobs, some for sanctuary, some for fun. London has a creative buzz that makes it feel more like New York than Paris or Rome. It may be the result of the density of art colleges or the mildly anarchic street culture, but it has been heightened by the arrival of young foreigners escaping more conventional or oppressive societies, and coming to find themselves and each other. The art world, where language is no barrier to communication, is flourishing as never before.

一些人來倫敦求職，一些人來此避難，一些人來此尋找樂趣。倫敦具有的創(chuàng)造性氛圍使它更像美國的紐約而不是歐洲的巴黎或羅馬，或許是因為藝術(shù)院校云集，或溫和的無政府主義街頭文化，但是可以肯定地是，這種氛圍因為那些來自保守和壓迫社會，到倫敦實現(xiàn)自我價值的年輕移民的到來而更加濃厚了。不存在語言交流障礙的藝術(shù)世界空前繁榮。

Study 'The Knowledge', our interactive guide to London's demography and economy

學習“情報”—關(guān)于倫敦市人口統(tǒng)計和經(jīng)濟的互動指南。

The city has got better in duller ways, too. Devolution has improved its infrastructure. London?s mayoralty, established in 2000, has far less power than those in, for instance, France or America. Yet the mayor can make a great deal of difference to transport, and has done so. Getting around the city is not quite as painful an experience as it was ten years ago.

倫敦發(fā)展的另一面就顯得有些乏味了。權(quán)力下放促進了基礎設施的發(fā)展。在2000年建立了市長制，倫敦市長的權(quán)力要遠小于法國和美國市長。但是倫敦市長起碼有權(quán)在交通運輸方面做許多工作，事實上他們也這么做了?，F(xiàn)在，市內(nèi)交通的體驗可不像十年前那么痛苦了。

The vicious cycle has turned virtuous, most visibly in education. Whereas private education in London was excellent, the state schools used to be particularly dreadful. But under both the previous and the current governments, money and effort have been concentrated on the capital. The academies programme, under which schools get more freedom and help from private-sector sponsors, has made most impact in London. The two most successful groups of academies, ARK and Harris, are there. The effects are showing up in the exam results.

現(xiàn)在，惡性循環(huán)轉(zhuǎn)變?yōu)榱夹匝h(huán)最明顯的體現(xiàn)在教育方面。過去，比起私立學校的良好口碑，倫敦公立學校的水平相差甚遠。在以前和現(xiàn)在政府任職期間，倫敦吸收了大量資金和其它投入。學校規(guī)劃對倫敦市發(fā)展影響甚大，在規(guī)劃中，學校可以更靈活的獲得私人贊助。ARK和哈里斯是倫敦市兩個最成功的教育集團?？荚嚦煽兊奶嵘从沉私逃叩某?/p>

功。

Partly thanks to better education, fewer Britons are leaving the city. At the same time, foreigners are still coming and, because of recent immigrants? high fertility, the birth rate is accelerating. So the population is rising fast (see chart 1).

部分歸功于更好的教育環(huán)境，現(xiàn)在很少有倫敦居民會移居其它地方。與此同時，海外移民紛至沓來，由于他們較高的生育率，倫敦整體人口出生率不斷上升，直接導致倫敦人口的快速增長（見圖表1）。

As Mr West?s urban maths suggests, London?s contribution to the country?s economy has grown faster than its population. In 1997, the capital?s gross value added per person was one-and-a-half times that of Britain as a whole; by 2010 the ratio had risen to nearly one-and-three-quarters. Londoners are also better paid and better qualified than their compatriots. And although the economic crisis has hit financial services hard, the city as a whole has got off relatively lightly.

正如杰弗里·韋斯特的城市數(shù)學理論所說，倫敦對全國經(jīng)濟貢獻的增長幅度要高于其人口的增長。1997年，倫敦市人均生產(chǎn)總值是英國平均水平的一倍半，到2010年，增長為一又四分之三。倫敦居民收入和受教育水平也高于全國其他地區(qū)。盡管經(jīng)濟危機重創(chuàng)了金融服務業(yè)，倫敦整體經(jīng)濟受到的影響依然較小。

London subsidises the rest of the country by around ￡15 billion a year; only the south-east and east of the country, whose prosperity is largely derived from their proximity to London,

are also in surplus. Altogether, the greater south-east contributes around ￡40 billion a year to the rest of the country?s finances.

倫敦每年向英國其它地區(qū)補貼約150億英鎊?，F(xiàn)在全國只有東南地區(qū)和東部地區(qū)，因為臨近倫敦的地理優(yōu)勢，經(jīng)濟形勢良好，財政尚有盈余。總的來說，英國整個東南部地區(qū)每年向其他地區(qū)貢獻約400億英鎊補貼。

Internationally, London also stands out. Whereas Britain has dropped down the GDP per person league to 7th, London is still 5th among cities in terms of GDP, and comes top or second in most of the rankings that include less measurable factors.

在國際背景下，倫敦市仍然可以脫穎而出。盡管英國人均GDP（人均國內(nèi)生產(chǎn)總值）排名下滑到第7位，倫敦在全球城市中GDP水平仍然處在第5位，在包括某些不可測量因素在內(nèi)的大多數(shù)指標方面?zhèn)惗囟伎梢耘旁诘谝幻虻诙?/p>

But London is not just a bunch of impressive numbers; it is also an astonishing human artefact. A city that a generation ago was on the skids has become a place where the world meets to study, work, create, invent, make friends and fall in love. It is Britain?s economic and cultural powerhouse, Europe?s only properly global city and a magnet for rich and poor, from anywhere and everywhere. Londoners know they are living through something extraordinary. Many novelists have tried to capture the sense of heightened experience that comes from living at the centre of the world—John Lanchester in “Capital”, Sebastian Faulks in “A Week in December”, Oliver Harris in “The Hollow Man”, for instance—with varying degrees of success. The uneasy excitement that pervades the city is hard to bottle.

但是倫敦的發(fā)展不僅僅體現(xiàn)在一堆枯燥但印象深刻的數(shù)據(jù)，它是令人嘆奇的人工制品。這個城市僅僅在一代人之前還處在滑坡中，現(xiàn)在卻吸引了世界各地的人來此學習、工作、創(chuàng)作、發(fā)明、交友及墜入愛河。它是不列顛經(jīng)濟及文化的動力源泉，歐洲唯一一個真正的國際大都市，吸引著世界各地的有錢人及貧困者。倫敦人知道他們生活的環(huán)境與眾不同。許多小說家嘗試表達這種生活在世界中心的那種巔峰體驗。—就像約翰·蘭切斯特的《首都》，塞巴斯蒂安??？怂沟摹妒辉碌囊粋€星期》，奧利弗?哈里斯的《透明人》所表達的那樣—倫敦市內(nèi)到處彌漫著成功后的興奮和優(yōu)越感。

It seems inconceivable that a gravitational pull as strong as London?s should weaken, but the city?s moment will, inevitably, pass. Its core industry, financial services, grew because of the accumulation of capital and trade flows. These days, capital is accumulating elsewhere, and the fastest-growing trade flows are not between the rich world and emerging countries but between different parts of the emerging world.

倫敦也會衰落？這種想法現(xiàn)在看來好像是不可思議，但是，這個城市的輝煌終將逝去，其核心產(chǎn)業(yè)—金融服務業(yè)的增長，靠的是資金和貿(mào)易流的累積。但今天，資金流向其它地區(qū)，而貿(mào)易流增長最快的地方不是在發(fā)達國家和新興市場國家之間，而是在新興市場國家與新興市場國家之間。

Yet London is not entirely at the mercy of external forces. Policies matter. Just as the British government unwittingly accelerated London?s decline after the second world war, so politicians today risk driving away some of the people on whom this city, and this country, depend for their future prosperity.

然而，外部因素畢竟不是主因，國家政策才是決定因素。就像二戰(zhàn)后英國政府的行為不經(jīng)意加速了倫敦的衰落一樣，今天，政客趕走了生活在這座城市的一些人，殊不知，這座城市和這個國家的前途也許就寄托在他們的未來成就之上。

from the print edition | Special report

背景資料：

Belgravia：倫敦的上流住宅區(qū)

Mayfair：倫敦西區(qū)高級住宅區(qū)