Wednesday 18 November 2009

San Francisco versus Birmingham

I am in San Francisco for work. I am reminded of research by my colleagues Paul Cheshire and Christian Hilber that reports that commercial rents in Birmingham are twice those in San Francisco (mostly because Birmingham's planning restrictions are more restrictive than San Francisco - itself a highly regulated city for the US).

Rather than risk offending anyone, let me simply finish with a couple of pictures for you to compare and contrast for yourselves.

Birmingham:



San Fran: