Aberdeen, Aspc Stats

[The McGlashan]

Boom!

RoS latest figures.

http://www.ros.gov.uk/pdfs/la_jul_09.pdf

Ouch. +3.7% monthly increase.

Still -8% down from July 07 peak and -6% YoY

Volume +19% (boom!) from last month, down about -20% from last year and about -60% from peak volume.

[geneer]

Boom!

RoS latest figures.

http://www.ros.gov.uk/pdfs/la_jul_09.pdf

Ouch. +3.7% monthly increase.

Still -8% down from July 07 peak and -6% YoY

Volume +19% (boom!) from last month, down about -20% from last year and about -60% from peak volume.

Looking at the trends, one might expect to see a similar fall in August.

[The McGlashan]

Astonishingly, there were two consecutive TV programmes with Aberdeen's built environment as their subject last night.

Channel 4

Phil & Kirsty

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/locatio...ion/4od#2934675

BBC4

Johnathan Meades

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00ml...lter_Episode_1/

Guess which one I watched!

Edited September 10, 2009 by The McGlashan

[aberdeen07]

Isn't this about the time the students start moving in?

No, this (mid-September) is about the time the students start coming (back) to Aberdeen.

FYI, the University of Aberdeen ran out of accommodation (halls/flats/houses) for its students in August.

Since then, all Uni of Aberdeen students have had to look for private-sector accommodation.

There are about 14,000 students at the University of Aberdeen, with about 7,000 full-time students at RGU.

In all there are about 21,000 full-time students at the 2 Aberdeen universities, about 10% of the total city population.

There's no shortage of students, just a shortage of accommodation for them.

[Tob the Blether]

No, this (mid-September) is about the time the students start coming (back) to Aberdeen.

FYI, the University of Aberdeen ran out of accommodation (halls/flats/houses) for its students in August.

.............

There's no shortage of students, just a shortage of accommodation for them.

Nothing new or different about that.

What is new and different (over the last 2 decades) is the levels of debt and impoverishment students find themselves in.

Edited September 11, 2009 by Tob the Blether

[thirdeye]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/north_east/8286963.stm

Up or down. Nationwide versus ASPC

City house prices claim disputed

Figures suggesting that house prices in Aberdeen have fallen sharply recently have been disputed.

The Nationwide Building Society said Scotland had the lowest annual rate of decline in the UK but that Aberdeen had suffered over the last three months.

Prices in the city were said to have fallen 14% in the past year.

However the Aberdeen Solicitors' Property Centre (ASPC) said its own figures for the third quarter were likely to show a healthy market.

The Nationwide said UK house prices to the end of September had now recovered to the level they were a year ago.

'Modest rise'

It said although most areas of Scotland had seen an improvement in prices, Aberdeen was still seeing big price falls, of 9% in the last quarter, due to a slowdown in the oil industry.

However ASPC chairman John MacRae told BBC Scotland: "After a very slow start to the year in the first quarter the second quarter saw a rise of 7%.

"We are just about to process our data for the third quarter and I am estimating a modest rise of 3%."

The ASPC had previously revealed the average property price for the second quarter of the year was £196,088, compared to £181,587 between January and March.

Edited October 2, 2009 by thirdeye

[The McGlashan]

Latest RoS figures - August

http://www.ros.gov.uk/pdfs/la_aug_09.pdf

Still increasing in Aberdeen. I'll have to change my avatar, as the YoY change has now turned positive

[Scunnered]

Latest RoS figures - August

http://www.ros.gov.uk/pdfs/la_aug_09.pdf

Still increasing in Aberdeen. I'll have to change my avatar, as the YoY change has now turned positive

Where's Hamish when you need him? He'd love this.

Edited October 3, 2009 by Scunnered

[geneer]

I've bumped into Hamish elsewhere.

He's recently decided he doesn't live in Aberdeen, but that he actually lives in Aberdeen (Council Area) - on account of more preferential figures. Oh, and he now only considers any crash in relation to the exact month he bought his second pad.

Though the nationwide press release got him into a bit of a tizz, showing a -9% YOY fall.

Nationwides been his favourite index for a while you see.

The fact that it was incorrectly reported as a -9% quarterly fall by the BBC must've got his **** flapping.

The linked article was followed up by a Spamish special wall of text.

Edited October 3, 2009 by geneer

[cashinmattress]

Aberdeen City Council set to axe 600 jobs

Cash-strapped bosses at the city council, which employs 11,000 people, are looking to dramatically cut the size of their workforce.

Aberdeen City Council has started consultations with staff and trade unions amid fears of a public spending squeeze by the Scottish Government.

The city council said it will only consider redundancies as a “last resort” if there are “too few volunteers” for voluntary severance or early retirement, reductions in hours and redeployment.

Aberdeen City Council Chief executive Sue Bruce said: “We are committed to working closely with our staff and the trade unions to minimise the impact of job reductions.”

Of course these will all be front line staff. Binmen, sanitation workers, groundskeepers, clerks, etc....

Sign of the times for the 'Deen. Without big investment and turnover in the North Sea, it is after all, just a fishing village.

Edited October 9, 2009 by cashinmattress

[The McGlashan]

ASPC For sale

Today (9 Oct 2009)

For sale : 1080

Added in last week : 108 (10%) Continued rise in units coming on to market

Added in last month : 379 (35%)

Over a month : 716 (65%)

compared to last month (3 Sept 2009)

For sale : 1095

Added in last week : 93 (8.5%)

Added in last month : 370 (34%)

Over a month : 725 (66%)

ASPC for lease

For lease today : 216

Added in last week : 24 (11%)

Added in last month : 83 (99%)

Over a month : 133 (61%)

compared to last month (3 Sept 2009)

For lease: 284

Added in last week : 25 (9%)

Added in last month : 140 (49%)

Over a month : 144 (51%)

Looks like some who thought they'd "rent it out instead" are now trying to sell.

[abdn]

"Banchory and the surrounding area, where house prices fell in the second quarter of the year, has seen one of the best recoveries, with prices rising by an average of £80,397, or 31%."

had to chuckle at that one 'one of the best recoveries' .....classic

P&J

[Dive Stations]

"Banchory and the surrounding area, where house prices fell in the second quarter of the year, has seen one of the best recoveries, with prices rising by an average of £80,397, or 31%."

had to chuckle at that one 'one of the best recoveries' .....classic

P&J

And with one large bound all was well with the property market once more....

Sampling anomaly perhaps? - I think so.....

[geneer]

oops

Edited October 18, 2009 by geneer

[The McGlashan]

"Banchory and the surrounding area, where house prices fell in the second quarter of the year, has seen one of the best recoveries, with prices rising by an average of £80,397, or 31%."

had to chuckle at that one 'one of the best recoveries' .....classic

P&J

I can't decide who VI cherrypicking like this makes more of a fool of - those who promulgate it or the credulous public who are only to happy to swallow this sort of crap because it saves them from the frightening prospect of actually having to think for themselves.

The ASPC quarterly report has not yet been published to the ASPC house price information web pages, but it does appear on the Cooncil website here.

A more circumspect look at the report shows that house prices in non-suburban Aberdeen actually dropped during the quarter. Study of historic quarterly reports shows that prices in the city have only risen during one quarter in the last year-and-a-half. Hell will freeze over before Aberdeen Journals report inconvenient truths like these, though.

More inconvenient truths from ASPC's Q3 2009 report:

Prices in non-suburban Aberdeen have declined 8% from their peak, and continue to decline by 1% this quarter.

Westhill/Kintore/Blackburn/Kemnay fell 5% on the quarter.

Year-on-year, Newmacher leads the decline in the Aberdeen housing area, showing an astonishingly high annual drop of 23.5%

Prices on Lower Deeside have crashed more than 25% since their Q4 2008 peak, and continue to plummet with a 5.3% plunge this quarter.

Bucksburn prices are being hammered down to near-affordable levels; down more than 20% from their peak and continuing to slump 7.4% year-on-year.

So, all things considered, the news for aspiring home-buyers in Aberdeen is much better that the P&J would have you believe.

It would be better for the people of Aberdeen (whom they supposedly serve) were Aberdeen Journals to report these statistics in a more circumspect and balanced fashion. To suggest that prices have recovered and indeed are booming is irresponsible and runs the risk of hoodwinking the credulous Aberdonian reader into a lifetime of unnecessarily high and unaffordable debt.

Edit.

To be fair, the P&J did report the 5% drop in Westhill/Kintore/Blackburn/Kemnay. But they reported it as 'bad news for homeowners'. It is nothing of the sort. It is bad news for highly-leveraged mortgage-debtors with little equity who may be forced onto higher rates. It is bad news for house-sellers; speculators, commercial house-builders and property-developers. It is bad news for solicitors and estate agents. It is bad news for the editors of 'property pages', who may find their budgets constrained by a fall in advertising revenue. But 'bad news for homeowners'? No, I think not. Owners have nothing to fear from falling prices unless they're looking to sell. By contrast, this 5% drop is 'good news for homebuyers', but will we ever see such a headline in our local press? Nah. I can't see that ever happening.

I fear that the P&J's attitude is, like so many things civic in and around Aberdeen, anachronistic. They believe that it's still 2007 (or that it should be); they haven't noticed that the the ground has shifted beneath their feet and that the world has changed. They continue to mistake debt for ownership, to conflate consumption with happiness and to confuse buying a lifestyle with actually leading a life. Haven't they read a [proper] newspaper in the last 2 years?

In my opinion, the last year has seen a sort of 'phoney war' over the implications of the banking crisis for the business cycle. At the risk of cliche, I don't think we've even seen 'the end of the beginning' yet. That point will only be reached when the Chancellor in a new, post-election government delivers the necessary 'emergency budget' which will be the first item of business for the new administration.

'There is no way in which one can buck the market.' Who was it said that, again?

Edited October 18, 2009 by The McGlashan

[the coming storm]

Aberdeen's Press and Journal -

Cost of luxury homes at Newmachar slashed

Prices reduced by more than £150,000

By Catriona Webster

Published: 21/10/2009

THE price of houses on a luxury development at Newmachar have been slashed by more than £150,000.

The five premium homes at Small Glebe, in Corseduick Road, were on the market for £650,000.

They have been reduced to £499,000 – a 23% drop.

The five-bedroom properties, at the edge of the village, were built by developer Greenbrae Homes and are being marketed by solicitors Aberdein Considine.

The price drop has come as a surprise after data released last week revealed that the price of an average house at Newmachar has risen by 3% in the third quarter of this year.

The figures from the Aberdeen Solicitors Property Centre showed the average price of a house in the village was now £213,955.

Yesterday, Bob Fraser, senior property partner at Aberdein Considine, said that while north-east prices are recovering month on month, the Small Glebe cut must be looked at in the context of the post-credit crunch property market.

Mr Fraser said: “I think the reduction just reflects the way the market has gone. The original price of £650,000 reflected what properties were selling for at that time. We expect them to sell quite well now the price reflects the current market value.”

Mr Fraser added: “Newmachar and most areas of the north-east are seeing good activity in all price sectors.

“Over the past couple of months we have seen a growth and recovery from the lowest prices and following the credit crunch we are now seeing a gentle uplift.”

[The McGlashan]

Aberdeen's Press and Journal -

Cost of luxury homes at Newmachar slashed

Prices reduced by more than £150,000

By Catriona Webster

Published: 21/10/2009

THE price of houses on a luxury development at Newmachar have been slashed by more than £150,000.

The five premium homes at Small Glebe, in Corseduick Road, were on the market for £650,000.

They have been reduced to £499,000 – a 23% drop.

The five-bedroom properties, at the edge of the village, were built by developer Greenbrae Homes and are being marketed by solicitors Aberdein Considine.

The price drop has come as a surprise after data released last week revealed that the price of an average house at Newmachar has risen by 3% in the third quarter of this year.

The figures from the Aberdeen Solicitors Property Centre showed the average price of a house in the village was now £213,955.

Yesterday, Bob Fraser, senior property partner at Aberdein Considine, spouted some entirely predictable vested interest platitudes.

While Catrioina shows her usual perspicacity in pointing out the statistically insignificant 3% increase in Newmacher prices, she disingenuously fails to point out that prices have only risen there during 2 quarters in the last 8 and have thus declined to levels which haven't been seen since 2006.

Similarly she fails to point out that the 23% discount on these properties almost exactly matches the 23.3% YoY crash in Newmacher prices. Well, fancy that!

As an interesting side-note, the Small Glebe houses are listed on ASPC here:

Ugh! Another foul new-build designed by an accountant! Mind your head!

While 7 houses are for sale, there is only one listing on ASPC. So, if we search 'Newmacher' ASPC returns 12 properties for sale, whereas the actual figures is 18.

[cashinmattress]

Aberdeen prepares for when oil runs out

ABERDEEN (Reuters) - Offshore supply vessels resembling large, floating flat-backed trucks fill Victoria Dock, unable to find charters in a sign of the downturn in Britain's oil industry.

With UK North Sea oil and gas production 44 percent below its peak, self-styled oil capital of Europe Aberdeen fears the slowdown is not simply cyclical: it is targeting diversification into areas including green energy.

Throughout a hydrocarbon heyday that has run to almost five decades, the city has to some extent been preparing for the end.

The oil industry that at one stage sparked talk of Scotland as "the Kuwait of the West" has already outlived most predictions.

"I'm steering my kids away from anything to do with oil," said John Irvine, a lorry driver who used to work on the rigs. "It's not going to last forever."

BMWs and Mercedes are plentiful in the traffic jams that clog the roads at rush hour and Jaguar, Aston Martin and Porsche sports cars with personalised licence plates are evident in the city of around 200,000 inhabitants.

The North Sea industry, with output of 2.5 million barrels of oil equivalent per day currently, pays more to UK government coffers than any other industry, is one of the highest spenders on goods and services and an important employer.

Around 40 percent of Aberdeen area's 10.5 billion pounds economy is reliant on the industry, according to the Aberdeen and Grampian Chamber of Commerce.

Oil has pushed unemployment in the Granite City, as Aberdeen is known for the hard, volcanic rock from which most of its buildings are constructed, to less than half the UK average.

But with Brent crude at around $80 a barrel, nearly half where it was a year ago, the port authority says the harbour is quieter now.

Dock workers say some ship owners are so pessimistic of getting a charter soon, they won't even pay to dock at the harbour. A dozen vessels are moored a few miles off Aberdeen's sandy coast. Normally one might see one or two, oil men said.

Aberdeen has seen hundreds of layoffs and engineering graduates from local universities have, for the first time in years, struggled to find jobs as big oil companies such as BP and Royal Dutch Shell cut spending.

The result already is vacant shops on Union Street, the city's main thoroughfare, while bars, restaurants and taxi drivers say business is slacker than a year ago.

RENEWABLE HOPES

Tourism, life sciences, and the export of oil services around the world are among Aberdeen's targeted substitutes for North sea oil and gas -- but for many the biggest prize would be to use its offshore oil expertise to build a renewable energy industry as big as oil.

The city aims to use its experience to become a leader in offshore wind, tidal power and carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS0 -- industries it hopes will receive a boost from global climate change talks in Copenhagen in December.

"We have to harness that expertise and turn Aberdeen into the energy capital of Europe and not just the oil capital of Europe," said Mike Rumbles, West Aberdeenshire Member of the Scottish Parliament, echoing a broad city marketing shift.

Alex Salmond, head of the devolved Scottish government, told a conference in Aberdeen last month the market for wind power could be worth 130 billion pounds, while Scotland could be the "Saudi Arabia of tidal power."

"We're seeing the emergence of an offshore energy market that is comparable in scale to the market we've seen in offshore oil and gas in the last 40 years," he said.

Tidal power remains at the testing stage, and the economic viability of new offshore wind projects has been questioned even by current investors such as utility E.ON.

CCS technology could also see the development of an industry filling depleted North Sea fields with carbon dioxide, although oil men doubt any Copenhagen treaty would provide sufficient incentives to make this activity profitable.

Another area of focus, tourism, has previously been hindered by the presence of oil.

"The hoteliers got lazy," said taxi driver Jim Moir. "They were full Monday to Friday with oil workers so they never bothered attracting tourists."

Eager to put Aberdeen on the international tourist map, local business has strongly backed a plan by U.S. real estate tycoon Donald Trump for a luxury housing and golf project 12 km (8 miles) north of the city, even though it means building on a nature reserve.

Trump is currently locked in dispute with land owners who refuse to sell to him and hopes local authorities will, if necessary, invoke compulsory purchase powers to facilitate the development.

The city also hopes to reorientate its vibrant oil services industry towards emerging offshore oil centres such as Brazil.

"Just because the production in the North Sea starts to decline doesn't mean that Aberdeen as a global centre also declines," said Robert Collier, Chamber of Commerce Chief Executive. "That expertise can still stay here and be exported around the world."

Local companies plying their wares to international buyers at the Offshore Europe exhibition and conference last month said the shift in focus was already underway.

"Ninety percent of our production is exported," said Equalizer International Managing Director Ian McCormick, standing beside a yellow mock-up pipeline, to which were attached samples of his company's stainless steel clamps.

Decommissioning itself will be another opportunity.

When the oil finally does run out, the hundreds of offshore platforms and thousands of pipelines will need to be disassembled and returned to shore for disposal, a market worth at least 23 billion pounds, estimates industry lobby Oil and Gas UK.

"It could be the beginning of a whole new industry," said Lewis MacDonald, MSP for Aberdeen Central.

[The McGlashan]

Aberdeen prepares for when oil runs out

Great article - well found.

It always disappoints me that the North-East's greatest permanent asset is ignored when hands are wrung about the future. The majority of Aberdonians are only two generations removed from working the land which their grandparents thrived upon. Is it that we look down our nose on our own peasant heritage? Our local produce is world class and internationally renowned; Grampian Country Foods banks twice as much money in the city than Wood Group and McPhee of Glenbervie has customers in more countries.

Similarly, Aberdeen's greatest ever success story never hits the headlines; First Group is far-and-away the largest and most diverse privately-owned public transport operator in the world. As the tide turns away from personal transportation in favour of mass-transit systems, First is very well-placed to benefit.

But what of the sectors examined in the Reuters article?

Renewables:

I don't hold out great hope for the renewable energy sector sustaining the Aberdeen bubble economy at it's current or recent levels. By definition, such activities are whole orders of magnitude less capital intense than the oil patch. For instance, OpenHydro's new tidal turbine installation barge for the Pentland Firth cost £1m delivered, commissioned and owned. A mobile offshore drilling unit for the oil patch cost $1m PER DAY to lease at the height of last year's North Sea Bubble.

Tourism:

Hahahahahahahaha. Again when we look at this in context, it is clearly nonsense. In 2008 the entire tourism sector in the whole of Scotland turned over £4bn. First Group has revenues of £6.2 bn.

Getting your tartan trews on and tugging your forelock at Japanese golfers is no replacement for the O&G industry.

Exporting O&G expertise:

It is true that up to 2007, Aberdeen-based O&G service companies generated about 40% of their turnover overseas. However, business sense dictates that if markets are abroad, in the absence of capital controls, capital will inevitably migrate overseas.

Decommissioning:

Aberdeen lacks the most obvious requirement for offshore decommissioning operations - that being a sheltered deepwater haven. Dundee, Invergordon and Peterhead are far better placed to exploit this once-only market. Indeed, drilling rig decommissioning already takes place in Dundee and Invergordon, and ASCO leads the Peterhead Decommissioning Ltd consortium.

Indeed, it seems that Aberdeenshire Council, the Scottish Government, Scottish Enterprise and key private-sector O&G players have already made the decision that Peterhead should be the center of excellence for the decommissioning effort. Along with the CCS pilot project to be based at Boddam power station and St Fergus, there's only one way house prices in Peterhead are going!

It is very depressing that decommissioning is often held out as the great hope for industry in Aberdeen. Clearly the destruction of fixed capital is not a sustainable field. It is reckoned that the market will be worth about £0.75bn/year over the next 20 years. That's not actually that much; to put it in context, it's less than half of what John Wood Group currently turns over.

Edited October 22, 2009 by The McGlashan

[The McGlashan]

Wahay!

I'm absolutely delighted to report that RoS figures for Aberdeen have turned negative.

http://www.ros.gov.uk/public/news/press_release_flash/28day.pdf

The rolling weekly 28day survey now shows -3.3% for Aberdeen, -3.6% for the 'Shire and (just for Redhat) -4.9% for Moray.

Happy days are here again!

[Democorruptcy]

Wahay!

I'm absolutely delighted to report that RoS figures for Aberdeen have turned negative.

http://www.ros.gov.uk/public/news/press_release_flash/28day.pdf

The rolling weekly 28day survey now shows -3.3% for Aberdeen, -3.6% for the 'Shire and (just for Redhat) -4.9% for Moray.

Happy days are here again!

Make sure this news is delivered to the masses, including estate agents and vendors.

[Democorruptcy]

Here's a Moray anecdotal for you.

Feb 2008 a house came on near to us for £189k. We went and had a look outside but didn't fancy it. It vanished from the market after about a month but never showed as under offer or sold. About a month later we just happened to bump into the chap who owned it and he said he had removed it from the market because someone had bought a plot immediately next door to build a house. He said he wanted that built before he sold. This new house has now been built and to my mind makes the chap's house less attractive as it dwarfs it.

This morning I've just bumped into the same chap again. He has had 3 agents round to value his house and he is putting it on the market for £240k! A mere 27% rise on a house that now has one next door.

[cashinmattress]

We all knew it was coming. Going to be some tuned down crimbo parties this year.

Shell to shed 250 Scots jobs in major restructuring

Aberdeen predicted to bear brunt of cuts to oil giant’s workforce

By Ian Forsyth

Published: 30/10/2009

Oil giant Shell revealed yesterday that up to 250 jobs are to go in Scotland – most of them in Aberdeen.

The posts are being lost in a major worldwide restructuring of the oil giant.

The jobs, which are mostly management and non-operational, are in Shell’s upstream international business north of the border.

A spokeswoman in Aberdeen said it was already known that 180 of the posts were going, as they were included in cuts revealed in April, 2008.

The Scottish losses announced yesterday will mainly impact the Granite City, but St Fergus and Mossmorran will also be affected.

Shell confirmed yesterday that about 5,000 out of 50,000 posts will go worldwide in the divisions affected by the restructuring.

Fifteen thousand employees are having to reapply for 10,000 roles.

Half the posts to go will be spread between the Netherlands, the US and the UK.

Shell currently has more than 2,000 people working from Aberdeen.

One city worker, who asked not to be named, said: “My application is now in and it is just a case of waiting to see what happens.

“I had heard we should get news by the start of December. Obviously everyone is apprehensive.”

workforce

Shell, which employs 100,000 people in its worldwide operations, said in July it had already cut around 150 top management positions.

As recently as February this year, the company said it was not planning any further job cuts among its Aberdeen workforce.

That denial came after it emerged the company had intensified cost-cutting efforts in response to the fall in oil prices.

The company warned yesterday that it would be a long haul to recovery after reporting a 73% slide in profits between July and September.

Shell’s third-quarter earnings fell to £1.83billion as a result of weaker oil prices and the ailing global economy.

Chief executive Peter Voser said there were indications that energy demand and pricing were picking up, but said the outlook remained uncertain and that his company had ruled out a quick recovery in the trading conditions.

Yesterday’s figures were better than market expectations, but the upside was far short of the margin by which BP results exceeded City hopes on Tuesday.

Investors reacted with disappointment to Shell’s update, with the company’s shares falling.

Richard Hunter, head of UK equities at Hargreaves Lansdown Stockbrokers, said the preferred company within the sector remained BP.

He added: “In comparative terms, Shell was always going to have a mountain to climb following BP’s stellar performance earlier in the week. Unfortunately, these numbers leave it some way short of the summit.

“The outlook is decidedly cautious, while rival BP has a head start in terms of streamlining the business, with the associated cost savings.”

Read more: http://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/Article.aspx/1461181/#ixzz0VPBDmYQr

[The McGlashan]

I've just returned from a trip into town, and I'm struggling to express how I feel about what I've seen on Guild St - Aberdeen's new main street. I am, of course, referring to the new shopping mall, the rationale behind it's creation and it's effect upon the urban environment and residents of Aberdeen.

Apparently, there was a torch-lit parade of primary schoolchildren led by a pipe band, between St Nicholas St and the new mall, to 'celebrate' it's opening.

Apparently, police had to intervene to prevent crush injuries at the door of the new Apple Store.

Apparently,according to the P&J, "those who arrive now by bus or train are greeted by a ... city very much on the up. Gloom and depression has been replaced by a colourful array of shops and restaurants".

Frankly, I'm a bit nonplussed by all this jubilation - anyone would think that something really important and good had happened. This shopping scheme is not a major piece of capital coming to the city. No necessities will be manufactured or distributed. No capital goods will be created or provided. Rather, this mall represents a large imposition of what economists call a 'sink sector'. That is, the provision of luxury goods is an area of economic activity which (like military expenditure) does not contribute to endogenous growth, but is by contrast a sector of the economy which soaks up excess value in the form of unnecessary consumption.

I find it particularly ironic that this development replaces a large and well equipped rail-freight terminal which was fully integrated with the adjacent sea-port. Now that WAS growth-generating capital. So, we can see that the city fathers have allowed commercial property developers to replace a facility through which capital arrived in the city with one which will permanently suck capital out. Great.

It is, of course, an easy analysis to make if I point out that, rather than indicating that the North east's economy is 'very much on the up', this shopping scheme is a manifestation of the economic prosperity of 2007, when the funding for it was put in place along with other developments which form Aberdeen's very own version of 'the skyscraper index'.

(Park Inn Hotel, International School, Hotel Ibis, Marischall College, Trump, Blairs, Citigate, Aberdeen Gateway, AWPR, Community Stadium etc, etc).

Apparently, almost 60,000 people showed up to greet the arrival of these new retail opportunities: opportunities where they can exercise their god-given right of consumer choice. Trading civic virtue for credit rating they measure their self-worth by the ticket-price and up-to-datedness of their possessions; mistaking buying a lifestyle for leading a life they have swapped shopping for thinking and having for being. Are there any bookshops in this new shopping scheme? No, of course not, there's a huge cinema multiplex. Why would you read a book when you can see the film?

Stupid fat slaves.

Edited October 30, 2009 by The McGlashan

[Coldberry]

I've just returned from a trip into town, and I'm struggling to express how I feel about what I've seen on Guild St - Aberdeen's new main street. I am, of course, referring to the new shopping mall, the rationale behind it's creation and it's effect upon the urban environment and residents of Aberdeen.

Apparently, there was a torch-lit parade of primary schoolchildren led by a pipe band, between St Nicholas St and the new mall, to 'celebrate' it's opening.

Apparently, police had to intervene to prevent crush injuries at the door of the new Apple Store.

Apparently,according to the P&J, "those who arrive now by bus or train are greeted by a ... city very much on the up. Gloom and depression has been replaced by a colourful array of shops and restaurants".

Frankly, I'm a bit nonplussed by all this jubilation - anyone would think that something really important and good had happened. This shopping scheme is not a major piece of capital coming to the city. No necessities will be manufactured or distributed. No capital goods will be created or provided. Rather, this mall represents a large imposition of what economists call a 'sink sector'. That is, the provision of luxury goods is an area of economic activity which (like military expenditure) does not contribute to endogenous growth, but is by contrast a sector of the economy which soaks up excess value in the form of unnecessary consumption.

I find it particularly ironic that this development replaces a large and well equipped rail-freight terminal which was fully integrated with the adjacent sea-port. Now that WAS growth-generating capital. So, we can see that the city fathers have allowed commercial property developers to replace a facility through which capital arrived in the city with one which will permanently suck capital out. Great.

It is, of course, an easy analysis to make if I point out that, rather than indicating that the North east's economy is 'very much on the up', this shopping scheme is a manifestation of the economic prosperity of 2007, when the funding for it was put in place along with other developments which form Aberdeen's very own version of 'the skyscraper index'.

(Park Inn Hotel, International School, Hotel Ibis, Marischall College, Trump, Blairs, Citigate, Aberdeen Gateway, AWPR, Community Stadium etc, etc).

Apparently, almost 60,000 people showed up to greet the arrival of these new retail opportunities: opportunities where they can exercise their god-given right of consumer choice. Trading civic virtue for credit rating they measure their self-worth by the ticket-price and up-to-datedness of their possessions; mistaking buying a lifestyle for leading a life they have swapped shopping for thinking and having for being. Are there any bookshops in this new shopping scheme? No, of course not, there's a huge cinema multiplex. Why would you read a book when you can see the film?

Stupid fat slaves.

Good post....... the traffic was a nightmare too.