One of the things which fascinates me about Cambridge as a sociologist (and frustrates me as a resident) is the economic geography of the city. In spite of its familiar image as a sleepy scholastic town, this platform city is actually at the cutting edge of British capitalism through the university, the life sciences, computing and high-tech manufacturing. It’s rate of growth has vastly outpaced the rest of the UK for years while housing and infrastructure have failed to keep up. The result is a city which is as dysfunctional as it is beautiful, as cacophonous as it is twee and one which I no longer want to live in. These videos from an event I attended earlier in the week gives a lot of insights into the dynamics driving this transformation:
Cambridge as the cutting edge of British capitalism
Mark Carrigan 