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It's even worse when paired with the ability for a local authority to go bankrupt when it can't cover the bills and be forced to sell off major capital assets (e.g. buildings, sometimes of significant public interest like concerts halls, leisure centres and other community venues).

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.

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Muromec 14 days ago | parent [-]

>It's even worse when paired with the ability for a local authority to go bankrupt when it can't cover the bills and be forced to sell off major capital assets (e.g. buildings, sometimes of significant public interest like concerts halls, leisure centres and other community venues).

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

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TheOtherHobbes 14 days ago | parent [-]

Given that the UK is promoting corporate-owned no-democracy "enterprise zones" it's not tinfoil hat at all.

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.

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sarchertech 14 days ago | parent [-]

> 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-...

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justin66 14 days ago | parent | next [-]

You are not thinking clearly about the post you're responding to and you're not thinking clearly about the problems faced by the places you're describing. The person you're responding to probably thinks having a lot of deeply impoverished people makes a place "poor." You: some bullshit about GDP.

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sarchertech 14 days ago | parent [-]

Look at any other objective measurement. Percent of people living below the global poverty line adjusted for PPP. Median income, 25th percentile income.

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.

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munjak 14 days ago | parent [-]

>Look at any other objective measurement. Percent of people living below the global poverty line adjusted for PPP. Median income, 25th percentile income.

HDI and Inequality adjusted HDI are not an objective measurement?

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sarchertech 14 days ago | parent [-]

If you’re looking at HDI, Mississippi (the lowest scoring state in the US), would rank 25 out of 41 European countries.

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.

	▲	justin66 11 days ago \| parent [-]
		You ought to go on a road tour, tell all the people with nothing that on average they’re not poor. > My point stands. Funny stuff.

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carlob 14 days ago | parent | prev [-]

your point being?

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sarchertech 14 days ago | parent [-]

That it’s ridiculous to say “poorer than anywhere in Europe or even the US Deep South”. The poorest parts of Europe are so much more impoverished than anywhere in the Deep South that that is an absurd statement.

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.

	▲	carlob 11 days ago \| parent [-]
		But what you are saying is only true if your measure of poverty is GDP per capita, which is not very good when comparing different levels of inequality or different public policies. Are you sure your claim stands up when you look at things like food insecurity, access to health services and education, percentage of unhoused or under houser...