25/08/2011 Newsnight Scotland

Tonight on Newsnight Scotland, the tram proposal voted on by Edinburgh

councillors which has left everybody stand. No road past

Haymarket, nothing to St Andrews Square, complete waste of time of

the words that spring to mind. Is there no end to the farce? And the

man from Harvard that is here to tell us that what we really need

are more high rises. And he says that cities are better for the

environment and rural areas and suburbs.

When you have a straight choice between competing your plan or

abandoning it, why not surprise everyone and make a preferred

choice that nobody wants? That happened in Edinburgh today went

councillors voted to spend �700 million on a tram system that takes

you from the airport very nearly to somewhere you want to go, and the

new terminus at Haymarket means that passengers will be lugging

their suitcase onto a bus or track -- taxi. The SNP failed to back the

Liberal Democrats on this. It should have been a project to

make a capital city proud. It should have brought some civic

pride. The like the construction of the New Town in the 18th century.

The completion of Waverley station in the 19th century. Those are

trams on Princes Street, by the way. But instead, today's trams project

has brought bigamy and disgrace, just like the national monument

The councillors got the costing wrong. It was then agreed not to

approve extra spending of 230 million, it would have allowed

trams to run from the airport to the city centre, St Andrew's Square.

Instead they will run only as far as the West End, Haymarket, well

short of allowing air passengers this death on step of service into

the heart of the city. -- stepped on, step off. Is this the worst

possible solution? What you always feared would happen has just

happened. They could have cancelled at a cost and buried the whole idea.

Or they could have invested more and provided a link to Princes

Street which would have generated usable revenues. One estimate is

that this new limited line will lose money. The vote ensured that

the Lib Dems wanted the extra borrowing, the coalition partners

the SNP abstained, and the Labour motion was approved with the help

of the Tories. It is a devastating decision for the city. Either

people wilfully misunderstood the information they were given, or

they genuinely did not understand the repercussions of the decision.

Lines are laid on Princes Street, and as for taking the line down

Leith Walk, the original plan, you will need to get the bus.

Completion in 2014 will mean 700 million has been spent, and the

original estimate was half that. Will they be able to strike a deal

with the contractors on the shorter route? We believe the Haymarket

option can be negotiated with the contractor. We gave that to the

official to get on with that and get the contract sorted out before

the end of August. And then there are the voters. It will be

problematic. The initial plan was there. Why have we wasted the

money? Where has the public expenditure gone? It is a joke. So

much money wasted. They should have thought about it years ago. I have

seen trams, but I am not for them. They should have asked us and we

would have said no. Who will they blame in the local elections next

May? Edinburgh city Council's transport

councillor joins me from the capital, along with the F S -- SNP

MSP Marco Biagi. Presumably you agree that this is devastating?

is potentially the worst of all possible options to take this

decision. Labour and the Conservatives have come together

today and it beggars belief. Explain the implications from a

financial point of view. Do you agree that building a line to

Haymarket will not be profit- making? Yes. They are going to have

to borrow �170 million. They are going to make an annual loss on

that, and it will be something like �7 million per year. The option to

go to St Andrew's Square was less, �4.8 million per year. Even if the

contract debt agrees to play ball, and we are talking about a �161

million gamble that Labour and Conservatives are taking, even if

they agree to play ball, the Edinburgh public will be more out

of public than if we had gone to St Andrew's Square. Just explain what

the risks are here. What did she mean after the meeting when she

said that if the contractor walks away they will have to find �161

million this financial year, which would be impossible? What did she

mean? The cancellation costs for this are �161 million, which is the

figure we have got from the contractor to walk away. It is not

a binding cost. It could go up but it is of that order. We don't have

an asset to borrow against. Local Government rules so that you have

to have an asset or you cannot borrow. We would then have to pay

it this year, which would mean an 18% hike in council tax. It has an

absolute nightmare for us to we are at the mercy of the contractor. If

they play ball, then as I say, we will be building a loss-making tram.

Is it up to be contracted to decide whether they want to go along with

it now? A have to get a deal with the contractor in something like

five or six days. I just want to be clear. Can the contractor now say

that they are fed up with it all and they are leaving? Therefore

would you have to pay the �161 million. Is that in their gift?

is potentially there. We have got to examine the detail of the Labour

amendment today. It is potentially there. It is very difficult to see

how we can get to an agreement in six days when it has taken a couple

of months and more to negotiate the agreement that we got to go to St

Andrew's Square. There is going to have to be a lot of give and take

on the side of the contractor first to make the deadline. I hope that

they do and I hope they will work within it. We have been working

hard to build relationships with them and this test will be severe.

Marco Biagi, everybody seems to agree that this is about the worst

of all possible worlds. You are the council leadership in Edinburgh,

along with the Liberal Democrats. Why did you not support of the

council officials were suggesting? The tram project has ever been a

question of council leadership and council administration. -- never.

The tram project is backed by Labour, the Lib Dems and the

conservative. Am I wrong in thinking you are in the leadership?

We are part of the coalition but we have agreed to disagree. And as a

coalition why are you not supporting council policy? We did

not believe in a tram project from the start. We voted that way. It

would be hypocritical to take up a position of backing it just as soon

as we get into power. Hang on. You are seriously trying to tell me

that you have formed a coalition with the Liberal Democrats, but

that you refuse to take responsibility for the main project

that the city of Edinburgh is engaged in? And you think that is

what the SNP think political leadership is? The political

leadership from the SNP was to send this tram project into the bin at

the start. It would be in a better position right now if we had.

this is going beyond absurd now. This is like Nick Clegg and the

Liberal Democrats when David Cameron eventually does a

compromise on his health proposals turning up in Parliament and saying

they will abstain because they don't care what happens to the

coalition, even though we are members of it. I don't agree with

your analysis at all. If we had supported the trams, it would be

more like the Lib Dems and what they did on tuition fees. The

council works on this basis, they set up the project that managed the

tram and we stayed out of that organisation because we thought it

was the wrong decision to take. you explain to people watching this

in Edinburgh in what meaningful sense the Scottish National Party

is in any sense a leader of Edinburgh city party? There are

many aspects to the Council's budget where the Lib Dems and

ourselves are in agreement. We have been working to improve the city

for the last four years. We have disagreed over the trams. The way

the council is split, four evenly sized parties, it was the only way

to have any leadership at all. it code for you will end to the

wheelie bins but you will not take responsibility for the most

significant construction project in the city's history? People have a

dim view of people that compromise on key principles. We work through

each issue and look at where we agree. That is the approach we have

taken largely and there is only one major issue on which we disagree.

We have offered the councillors in the city of Edinburgh Council four

separate opportunity to hold this project and they have not backed us

on any occasion. Gordon MacKenzie, why are you still an alliance with

the Scottish National Party? You have conspicuously failed to be

backed up by then. Our coalition deal excluded the tram. There is

something like a �1.5 billion budget that we have and the tramp

was something like �15 million, so we cover a huge range of services

of. Can you see the absurdity of this? The tram project is a

national joke another city politics are a national joke. We give very

clear leadership on this. And Liberal Democrats, we said the

right deal was to go to St Andrew's Square and we said the same thing

back in June. It is for other parties to answer why they have not

gone with this. The decision today is a result of the Labour and

Conservative Party getting together and choosing perhaps the worst of

all possible options. You heard Marco defend his position for the

SNP. It is not for me to defend the SNP. I am very clear. The Liberal

Democrats put before the Council the best option, in my opinion, and

it was supported by the Green Party and the Edinburgh businesses.

is clearly something dysfunctional going on here, to put it mildly. As

Liberal Democrats, why don't you walk out of this coalition? You

have had your proposals voted down. You have told me it is a

devastating decision that does not work. Why are you still the

transport convenor? The tram project was not part of the

coalition agreement... But you don't want to be a transport on the

enough. It was agreed that we would go separate ways. This was a

decision by the Labour and Conservative parties. It is for

them to ask the people of Edinburgh why they made this appalling

decision. You are not taking this in the right way. I am not

suggesting you are a disgrace and you should set -- step down. Why as

somebody whose policy has been voted down by the council and your

politicians' partners... You cannot possibly want to stay on in your

job implementing a policy that you We have a great responsibility to

get the best position for Edinburgh. It was a very bad decision. We have

got to try to rescue the position for the people of Edinburgh, for

the damage that potentially has been done to the city. We have to

leave it there. Thank you very much. For those of you living in urban

areas he would rather be sunning yourself in the countryside, here

are a few propositions to cheer you up. Big cities, not computers, are

the engines of creativity. The idea we can thrive on ebusiness set in

the countryside is bunk. What's more, big cities are better for the

environment than rural areas. And the ideas that troubled areas can

save themselves with projects like the Commonwealth Games, for example,

is bunker, too. All ideas from the latest book, Triumph Of The City,

from the Harvard economist, Edward Glaeser.

I met with Professor Glaeser at the top of Calton Hill in Edinburgh.

With its panoramic views of their high price city eighteenth-century

style, and its memorials to the architects and philosophers who

inspired it. His argument is that eighteenth-century Edinburgh is a

better model for the 21st century than developments like Prince

Charles' Poundbury. First of all, you write about bigger cities,

saying they are the way of the future. We should concentrate more

on them. It reminds us of how challenging cities are. Cities are

capable of creating incredible miracles, like the wonders of the

Scottish Enlightenment, to Facebook. They also require management. If

people are close enough to exchange an idea, they are also close enough

to give each other and infectious disease. Riots are a long-standing

urban phenomenon and they are a curse that cities have had to deal

with four centuries. Sometimes good things can come out of things like

riots. Think about the revolution that just formed in Cairo. But the

current rates in England remind us of how enormously challenging

density can be, and when cities are not manage property, -- properly,

when they do not have enough good Government. What are the big -- one

of the arguments in your book appears to be that some cities have

just outlived their usefulness. Detroit is an example you focus on,

and to some extent New Orleans. Are you saying that in places like that

it would be better to build a few parks and allowed the population to

decline? The important thing is to invest on the population. Every

city rests on human capital. Skills, not structures. Every time Detroit

invest in a monstrosity like the monorail, that glides over an

essentially empty street, it is neglecting the children of the city.

The important thing is that those children have a brighter future,

whether or not it is in Detroit or Atlanta. A crucial point of your

argument seems to be that we should not be trying to necessarily save a

city like Detroit. It might be better if people just moved out.

is there that need the case that we have often -- it is certainly the

case that we have often engaged in projects thinking we could bring

Detroit back as if that was crucial. It is not crucial that any spot on

this planet be an economic hub of activity. It is crucial that every

child has an economic future. When we put places ahead of people we

are making a crucial mistake. We should not think that the goal is

just to erect a shiny building and declare that Cleveland is back.

would not be a big fan of projects like building all the

infrastructure for the London Olympics, or building the

infrastructure for the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow? I think when you

think about infrastructure projects you really need to look at all of

them on a cost-benefit analysis bases and ask whether or not the

added advantages in terms of enabling people to move around

quickly offset the tremendous cost. Often, and I do not want to make a

blanket statement, the usual thing is that the cost is vastly higher

than the benefit. Often these projects are said to help a great

city began even greater and that often distracts us from the real

job of counting pounds and pence and figuring out whether or not

this project makes sense. One of the things in your book that again

people will find most surprising is your argument that high density

high rise buildings in big cities like Hong Kong, Tokyo, New York or,

potentially, here in Edinburgh or in Glasgow, are actually more

environmentally friendly than the model of people living in Prince

Charles-style towns like Poundbury with their own individual gardens

and all the rest. The problem with low-density living is that it tends

to involve larger housing units and cars and this means that the

environmental impact of low density living tends to be a lot higher

than living in high-density skyscrapers. It is not that

skyscrapers themselves are friendly but they tend to involve smaller

units and people using elevators or walking to get to work which is

more environmentally sensitive then taking a car. The fact in the US is

the average apartment, the average single family detached house uses

83 % more electricity than the average a pram up. -- average

apartment. There are dramatic differences in energy the space

both from driving and high a home energy use. It is important for us

to seek skyscrapers not as an enemy of the environment but of a great

way to make sure we move around the less -- move around less and become

more environmentally sensitive. There is an assumption in this

country that building more houses means greenfield sites with

everyone having... Perhaps with mixed density, but the whole idea

of let's build a few more skyscrapers in London, ebusiness,

Glasgow or Edinburgh did not even arise. The key here is not to have

a Government planned skyscraper, saying, we are going to have a

skyscraper here. The key is to respond to market demand. If you

look at London, it is clear that people want to live there. The same

with Edinburgh. Look at the beautiful scene behind us. It is a

stunning city, a model of how urban areas can be successful, exciting,

fun. In Glasgow, a lot of people have a bias against high rise

buildings because in Glasgow high- rise buildings, essentially, apart

from the 19th century ones, work tower blocks, which were council

flats, which were part of slum clearance, which were built with a

low amenities in the area and bludgeons and people hated then in

a way that the buildings but the blame rather than the social

environment. Absolutely. It was top-down and did not follow the

economic needs of the area. There is no reason why that does not have

to be true. Many skyscraper areas are some of the most exciting areas

into the world because that density can support amazing entertainments,

museums, restaurants. Skyscrapers provides and the that is exciting,

part of the urban environment. Edinburgh was a place with an

enormous history of height. They were building 11 story buildings

here. They were part of Edinburgh's past. Building up is so natural

here that it is hard to imagine you could not do it in make way that

makes Edinburgh more beautiful. Tomorrow's newspapers. The Scotsman

And a picture of Nick Clegg there after someone threw paint around in