[URBAN NOTE] "As London Bickers Over `Brexit,' History Shows a City Can Fade"

[rfmcdonald]

Bloomberg's Matthew Campbell makes the excellent point often missed by Brexit proponents, that cities can fade. Quite frankly, anti-cosmopolitanism can't be fine-tuned: a United Kingdom that rejects the European Union is hardly going to be automatically receptive to the rest of the planet, Commonwealth or otherwise.

Cities don’t stay on top forever. Just look at Venice in the 15th century, Philadelphia in the 18th or even Vienna in the 19th.

It’s a lesson some Londoners worry is being forgotten when it comes to the U.K.’s membership of the European Union. As banks underpinning London’s wealth raise the alarm over leaving, the man who runs the city disagrees: Mayor Boris Johnson has declared support for the “out” campaign, as has his aspiring replacement, Zac Goldsmith.

There’s no doubting London’s standing. Its $650 billion economy accounts for almost a quarter of Britain’s output and rivals that of Argentina or Poland. The crux of the anti-EU argument is that its success as a center of business, finance and ideas is global and enduring, regardless of changing circumstances.

“I’m sure the Venetian bankers were saying the same,” said Christopher Cummings, chief executive officer of TheCityUK, which lobbies on behalf of the financial industry. “Icebergs melt from the bottom, and these things can slowly get away from us.”