London and New York real estate experts predict where the cities’ relationship will be in five years’ time
Camille Douglas, managing director, LeFrak
Low growth is a new normal in this world, with income inequality, political dysfunction, social unrest and populism.
London and New York will continue to be bubbles in this world.
Also, they will continue to have aligned interests in the private rental sector, in the changing office sector and in the disruption of technology to our lives and to real estate. We will remain financial capitals, centres of liberal thinking and globalisation. Brexit won’t change that.
Michael Spies, senior managing director of Europe and India at Tishman Speyer
One area where there is a shared interest regardless of politics is around infrastructure investment.
It has been denied and ignored as an obvious solution to growth, as have the environment and the systems to borrow and to long-term invest in infrastructure assets, when they should be major programmes.
The logic of it nobody denies and London and New York should be ready to be major beneficiaries.
Investment in infrastructure must be approached strategically though, and not frittered away in cities that are marginalised but tied to cities with key growth strategies.
Crossrail has been one of the key drivers of our investment strategy, but we should recognise it took 30 years. Hopefully the next projects will not.
Sir Edward Lister, special adviser to the Department for International Trade and chairman of the Homes and Communities Agency
It’s all about events. In a European context, there are general elections in Germany, France and Holland, and probably a rerun of the presidential election in Austria, plus there’s a banking crisis in Italy. In that context, London and New York become stable places in a difficult world and we shouldn’t underestimate that.
Carl Weisbrod, director of the New York City Department of City Planning and chairman of the New York City Planning Commission
London and New York will continue to march ahead in lockstep, forward. Both cities have been remarkable beneficiaries of globalisation and if we enter a period of anti globalisation we will see the bubbles that insulate us as either points of light or we may both suffer.
London is far more ahead than New York on the infrastructure front, but at least both presidential candidates have given some attention to the need for infrastructure and they are both New Yorkers.
Stephen Down, head of central London and International Investment, Savills
London and New York have big responsibilities in terms of the wealth they can spread to the rest of their countries and we need to see our government commit to infrastructure in a major way now.
Also, besides the financial, we need to make sure things like cultural, media and other links are maintained.
Finally, occasionally in England you drive down a country lane and you come across a you come across a village that is twinned with an unpronounceable French town.
We should do the same for London, but twin it with New York. I think it would be great symbolism to link them with each other.
Woody Heller, executive managing director and group head of capital transactions, Savills Studley
The big chang we are going to see is the way the tech tenants are interacting with space. As they mature their tolerance for being in buildings that are less functional is going to wane. We need to figure out a more successful way to integrate the efficiencies of new buildings while also capturing the spirit these tenants are being drawn to in old buildings.
Plus, the co-working thing will lead to so many interesting changes going forward.
Will WeWork cause us to create another term or modifier for square feet, net rentable income, etc? Will there be new categories for space you sit in versus space you have access to, and will we have a new term for it? If we do it will reflect an acceptance of f a new norm and that’s not so far away.
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