Of course the actual place continues to exist so the local authority will continue to exist in another form, this time with fewer major capital assets and they're paying rents to the people who now own them instead.

As pointed out in the article you could see this happen when something entirely out of the authorities control (e.g. spending on SEND children due to the massive increase in eligible children in Central Bedfordshire's case) causes it too.

Which may be perceived as a actual goal of this mandate if you have enough of tinfoil in your hat.

It's the standard neoliberal playbook - defund and cripple public services, complain they're not working, then insist the only solution is for-profit privatisation because it's "more efficient".

The result is that all utilities and much of the infrastructure are being run down for profit, and have to be regularly bailed out by central government at vast expense.

Which is fine, because this creates a transfer of wealth from tax payers to the already wealthy.

The aristocracy literally cannot imagine a country which isn't run for their personal benefit. And the consequence is that many of the areas in the UK are now poorer than anywhere in Europe, or even the US deep south.

By far the poorest state in the US, Mississippi (the deepest south you can get) has a GDP per capita just $1,500 less than Germany.

The 2nd and 3rd and 4th poorest states (all southern), West Virginia, Arkansas, and Alabama, have GDPs per capita $6k higher than Germany.

Georgia and Tennessee, 2 other states in the Deep South have GDPs per capita higher than all European countries except Luxembourg, Switzerland, Ireland, Norway and Iceland.

https://www.euronews.com/business/2025/01/03/the-poorest-us-...

By all of those measures, the poorest states in the Deep South rank higher than many European countries.

So saying "poorer than anywhere Europe, or even the US Deep South", implies that you think the Deep South is poorer than anywhere in Europe. This is an absurd statement because the poorest places in Europe are much poorer than the poorest places in the US.

If you take the poorest zip code in the United States and look at the median income, 1st quartile income, (or even percent of people under the global poverty line adjusted for PPP), it's not even close to last place among European countries.

People have a very skewed view of the Deep South. Because parts of it are poorer than average for the rest of the country doesn't mean it's objectively poor when compared to the rest of the world.

HDI and Inequality adjusted HDI are not an objective measurement?

I can’t find IHDI by state, but given that the US only drops a few spots between HDI and IHDI, Mississippi isn’t likely to be anywhere near the bottom.

All southern states except Mississippi rank in the top 50% of European counties by HDI btw.

My point stands.

> My point stands.

Funny stuff.

It’s a skewed European attitude to look down on the southern US as the poorest place they can think of outside of Africa or Asia. When in fact the vast majority of the South is better off than economically than 90% of European countries.

I once talked to someone traveling to Atlanta ask “do you get CNN down there?” CNN is based in Atlanta.

SEND = "Special educational needs and disabilities"

I can't help feeling like this is a vicious cycle - the lack of community facilities is causing greater isolation, causing a rise in health needs and so on.

and child is being looked after by barely qualified minimum wage worker (often actually paid below minimum wage if you add unpaid overtime and foreign workers not knowing the laws), meanwhile owners of care services live opulent lifestyles in places like Dubai. UK services market is not free, which is part of the problem.

This is also a cultural issue. In large cities, people often don't feel as being part of the community and they don't take pride in their surroundings. They put rubbish everywhere, vandalise. There is little done to change that. They see neighbour has nice flowers in the garden? Instead of admiring, they will cut them off.

I don't think this aligns with the lived-experience of most Britons. The big cities are mostly litter-free areas, and people can have well tended gardens go unmolested by neighbours.

Vandalism is a difficult one. But it's likely because the people doing it don't have anything better to do, no hobbies, jobs, families, responsibilities, etc. And also, broken window syndrome.

But then you look at e.g. east or southeast asia and they have things like neat closed off bus stops with heating and you're like, "Why can't we have nice things?". We're stuck with glass booths with a beam for leaning against at best. Glass so that people in there are visible and don't use it as a public toilet, uncomfortable seating so people don't use it as a hang-out or sleeping spot. But the design adapts to a problem, one which the government has little interest in fixing - or which would infringe on people's rights.

This just isn't true. The council takes taxes at pain of going to jail to eventually pay for this service. Saying "make it free and the behaviour will change" is just nonsense. Things can't all be free. People need to make an effort to keep their neighbourhoods nice.

If they don't feel that a neighbourhood is "theirs" - that's more likely to be a problem.

We also have free bulky waste collection, so again, we actually already have that. You just have to arrange for it. You are very poorly informed.

There are also free council run recycling centres (previously known as tips), where you can take stuff yourself. Some have a charge for hardcore, that's about it. Businesses cannot use them though and must pay for waste disposal themselves.

Fly tipping is fairly rare in the UK, I saw an armchair fly tipped on a train journey yesterday and it was notable because you rarely see that sort of thing.

There are areas with fly tipping problems, but usually because those people are lazy, not because of cost. And the council will clear it up (at least eventually depending on the area).

We are having a problem with councils struggling to perform their usual role at the moment. Running out of money. Potholes are a hot topic.

This is actually because our councils are mandated to provide care for old people, and the cost has sky rocketed in the last 2 decades, while they've been capped on how much they can raise their tax. So now almost 90% of my council tax gets spent on old person care instead of what most people might think it was for, bins, schools, parks, etc..

[1] It's not worth going into different taxes here, think of it as a state tax instead of a federal tax. In fact the UK government have a large degree of control in that they force the councils to spend most of it on mandated services and can dictate how much the councils are allowed to raise it by

The common denominator is education and poverty, not skin colour or religion or whatever you imagine it to be.

Is everyone in Japan wealthy and educated?

This is because America's alleged welfare queens are undocumented, whereas Britain's are there legally and the government actually has very good data on which groups are a net boon and which are a net draw on the economy.

I'm not a Brit and I could care less at the end of the day, but it does seem kind of bonkers to me to be importing people while your own country suffers.

All this is a direct result of bad, ideological law making combined with a biased judiciary that interprets it in bad, ideological ways. Unfortunately it's the ideology Labour is in thrall too and they're in power for several years at minimum and maybe much longer if the right stays split, so the state of Britain's infrastructure will continue to sharply decline.

Where can I read about this?

https://grok.com/share/bGVnYWN5_d7ff3a8f-9cf7-4ff3-837a-0bbb...

Although Grok thinks the problem lies in "deep rooted inequalities", whereas I'd say it's pretty normal for jobs like bin men to be paid more than cleaners. It's one of the most dangerous jobs you can do, due to the frequency with which they get hit by cars.

The summary did not support your claim court cases and equity laws said any gender pay gap was the result of discrimination. It said the plaintiffs argued successfully they were paid less for work of equal value. It was not clear cleaning and refuse collection were determined equal value. The summary mentioned also contract clauses.

It sounds like the real issue is you disagree with the value of work calculated for some jobs.

paywall bypass: https://archive.is/MLC49

It only mentions councils in passing and doesn't cover them going bankrupt over it, but it covers the issue at hand, which affects the private sector as well.