歷史的輝煌與沉淪 看大倫敦的未來

London’s future is up for grabs. When you try to imagine what direction the city might go in, it’s useful to think about Vienna. A century ago the capital of the Austro-Hungarian empire was a rich cosmopolitan metropolis. It was an incubator of modernity, attracting people from all over, some of them nuts. Here are a few of Vienna’s residents in 1913 (as listed by BBC radio’s Today programme): Sigmund Freud, Hitler, Stalin, Trotsky, Archduke Franz Ferdinand and a young automobile worker named Josip Broz, who eventually became the Yugoslav dictator Tito.

倫敦的未來是一片紛亂。當你試圖想象這座城市可能前進的方向時，想一想維也納會有所幫助。一個世紀前，這座奧匈帝國(Austro-Hungarian empire)的首都曾是一個富裕的國際化大都市。它是現代性的孵化器，吸引着世界各地的人們，其中一些是瘋子。這裏是部分1913年在維也納居住過的人士（名單由BBC電臺《今日》(Today)節目列出）：西格蒙德•弗洛伊德(Sigmund Freud)、希特勒(Hitler)、斯大林(Stalin)、托洛茨基(Trotsky)、弗朗茨•斐迪南大公(Archduke Franz Ferdinand)以及一個名叫約瑟普•布羅茲(Josip Broz)的年輕汽車工人，也就是最終成爲南斯拉夫獨裁者的鐵托(Tito)。

But by 1918, the Austro-Hungarian empire was gone. Today most Freuds live in London, and Vienna is a backwater.

但到了1918年，奧匈帝國已灰飛煙滅。如今，大多數“弗洛伊德們”生活在倫敦，維也納成了一潭死水。

A century from now, London could be a backwater too. The city faces its own set of threats. Most pressingly, few people can afford to raise families there any more. London may become a gated playground for the super-rich. However, there’s an alternative scenario in which the place just keeps getting more successful. Already the contours are emerging of a future London: the city as a giant drop-in office for millions of occasional workers who live far away, often in other countries. A ring of satellite cities ranging from Manchester to Rotterdam would turn into a new set of suburbs for London.

一個世紀之後，倫敦也可能成爲一潭死水。這個城市面臨着自己的一系列威脅。最緊迫的是，已經沒有多少人有能力在那裏撫育子女了。倫敦可能會成爲超級富豪們封閉的遊憩聖地。然而，還有一個可能性是，倫敦只會變得越來越成功。這樣一種未來的輪廓已經開始顯現：倫敦會變成一個巨型的流動辦公室，數百萬居住地離它十萬八千里、往往在另一個國家的臨時工作者隨來隨走。從曼徹斯特到鹿特丹，一連串衛星城將變成新的倫敦郊區。

The problem London needs to solve, says Andrew Adonis, Londoner, Labour peer and writer, is, “Housing, housing, housing.” What’s happening in London’s housing market can no longer be described as gentrification. That was the ousting of the city’s working class and bohemians. Now many upper-middle-class people are being forced out too. Michel Mossessian, a French architect in London whose firm employs lots of nationalities, sees something of a “seven-year cycle”: people work for seven years in London but then often leave once they have children. It’s not just that the average three-bedroom home in London now costs £1.1m, according to . It’s also that London’s state schools — despite vast recent improvements — will probably never meet the standards of the world’s most aspirational parents. Simply being the best state schools in England isn’t enough.

作家安德魯•阿多尼斯(Andrew Adonis)說，倫敦需要解決的問題，“除了住房還是住房”。阿多尼斯是倫敦人，工黨成員，已受封貴族。倫敦房地產市場發生的事情，已不再能被稱爲中產階級化。那是一場對生活在那個城市的勞動者階層和文化藝術人士的驅逐。現在，許多中產階級上層人士也被迫離開。法國建築師米歇爾•莫賽西昂(Michel Mossessian)在倫敦的事務所僱傭了很多不同國籍的員工，他發現“七年是個坎兒”：人們在倫敦工作七年，一旦有了孩子，通常就會離開。這不僅是因爲如今倫敦一套三居室的房子一般要110萬英鎊（網站數據）。還因爲倫敦的公立學校（儘管近期有巨大改善）很可能永遠無法達到世界上最望子成龍的父母們的標準。僅僅進入英格蘭最好的公立學校是不夠的。

The solution: London needs to adopt satellite cities that can house a new tribe of “occasional Londoners”. In the Victorian era, the coming of the Tube and trains allowed London workers to move to suburbs. Soon high-speed trains will allow occasional London workers to live hundreds of miles away, around Britain or abroad.

解決方案是：倫敦需要設立衛星城，以容納一羣新的“臨時倫敦人”。在維多利亞時代，倫敦地鐵(the Tube)和火車的到來，讓在倫敦工作的人們得以搬到郊區居住。很快，高鐵將讓臨時的倫敦通勤者得以生活在數百英里之外的英國各地或其他國家。

The UK currently has just 68 miles of high-speed rail line, from London to the Channel tunnel. But when the High Speed 2 line opens over the next 20 years, Birmingham will be 49 minutes from London, and Manchester just over an hour. “That’s hugely exciting,” says Adonis.

英國目前僅有長68英里、連接倫敦和英吉利海峽隧道(The Channel Tunnel)的高鐵。但高鐵2號線(High Speed 2 line)將在未來20年內貫通，屆時從倫敦到伯明翰只要49分鐘，到曼徹斯特僅一個多小時。阿多尼斯稱：“這非常令人興奮。”

Already cities such as Paris, Lille and Brussels are joining the Londonsphere. I live in Paris. Sometimes I drop the kids off at school at 8.30am and later that morning meet someone for coffee near King’s Cross. I will probably never live in London again but I don’t mind. London and Paris are now perhaps the two most connected cross-border metropoles in history, an unprecedentedly creative network with trains carrying ideas back and forth. But I also know people who live in Germany or Spain and work in London a couple of days a week.

巴黎、里爾以及布魯塞爾這樣的城市已經加入了倫敦生活圈(Londonsphere)。我住在巴黎。有時，早上8點半我開車把孩子送到學校，當天上午晚些時候我就在國王十字車站(King's Cross)附近和別人喝咖啡了。我很可能永遠不會再住在倫敦，但我並不介意。如今，倫敦和巴黎可能是有史以來兩個聯繫最緊密的跨境大都會，在這個具有空前創新性的網絡上，火車將各種觀念來回傳送。不過我也知道有住在德國或西班牙的人，每週到倫敦工作兩天。

London companies will need to strike a new deal with occasional workers: live somewhere else but drop in on us regularly. The companies won’t need to pay these people the “London premium” on salaries, or rent lots of expensive office space. The trains that carry occasional Londoners will themselves act as de facto offices: the Eurostar, French TGVs and Thalys, in utter contrast to suburban commuting trains, guarantee you a seat and a fold-out table. Sometimes the WiFi even works. Trains also free you from the Dilbertian timewasting of office life: the colleagues loafing around your desk grumbling about the commute, the boss or José Mourinho.

倫敦的企業需要與臨時勞動者達成一個新協議：住在別的地方，但定期來我們這兒。這些企業無需在工資方面向他們支付“倫敦溢價”，也無需租很多昂貴的辦公室。臨時倫敦人乘坐的火車本身就將充當事實上的辦公室：與郊區通勤列車完全不同的是，歐洲之星(Eurostar)、法國TGV高速列車和大力士高速列車(Thalys)可以保證你有一個座位和一張摺疊桌板。有時WiFi甚至能用。火車還可以把你從呆伯特式(Dilbertian)浪費時間的辦公室生活中解放出來：同事們無所事事地圍在你的桌子旁，抱怨通勤，抱怨老闆，或抱怨若澤•穆里尼奧(José Mourinho)。

Occasional Londoners can buy a family home in Lille or Rotterdam, spend £15,000 a year travelling to London for work and fun for 40 years and still be better off than if they’d spent that £1.1m on a house in London. And they won’t have to school their kids there. Homeshare websites such as Airbnb are solving London’s shortage of affordable hotel rooms while allowing the city’s large population of slacker-heirs to monetise their only asset.

臨時倫敦人可以在里爾或鹿特丹爲家人購置一套房子，每年花1.5萬英鎊用於前往倫敦工作和娛樂，這樣40年下來他們仍將比當初花110萬英鎊在倫敦購買一所房子要過得富裕。而且，他們不必讓孩子在倫敦上學。包括Airbnb在內的租房網站正在解決倫敦平價旅館客房短缺的問題，同時又可以讓倫敦大量不思進取的土著用自己唯一的資產取得收入。

In this scenario, London becomes not Vienna but Tokyo. Specifically: Greater Tokyo, brilliantly served by bullet trains, and today the biggest metropolitan area in history with about 36 million inhabitants. That’s a nice target for the Londonsphere. London would then be the capital of a new informal empire spanning several countries.

在這種情形下，倫敦不會變成維也納，而是會變成東京。準確地說是變成大東京地區(Greater Tokyo)：子彈頭列車提供了極其便捷的交通，如今它是有史以來最大的都市圈，擁有約3600萬居民。這對倫敦生活圈來說是一個很好的目標。倫敦將成爲一個新的橫跨多國的非正式帝國的首都。

London as giant drop-in office could be a reality within 20 years. That may seem improbable. But just over 20 years ago, nobody imagined that this grey city with 1960s Tube trains, separated from the continent only by a long traffic jam to Heathrow and then hours of dead time, could ever exert such attraction that a three-bedroom house would cost £1.1m.

倫敦成爲一個巨大的流動辦公室，這也許會在20年內變成現實。看上去或許不可能。但就在20年前，也沒人想到這座擁有上世紀60年代的地鐵系統、與歐洲大陸之間隔着一條通往希思羅機場的長長的擁堵車流、以及數小時失聯時間的灰暗城市，能夠展現出這樣的吸引力，以至於一套三居室的房子要賣110萬英鎊。