How was penicillin able to eliminate 80% of WWII battlefield deaths? Why did nails once make up 0.4% of US GDP? In The Origins of Efficiency, Brian Potter unpacks how production efficiency happens, and why it is of civilizational importance. Preorder: press.stripe.com/origins-of-eff…

Manchester had a population of less than 10,000 in 1700 and lacked the legal status even of a town. Daniel Defoe called it in the 1720s ‘the greatest mere village in the whole of England’.

I have read this book in manuscript form and it is extraordinarily good. I will be very excited to have the published version in my hands.

We submitted a planning application last week for a five storey apartment scheme on a vacant site in Manchester City centre. Architecture & Tradition YIMBYLAND Strong Towns The Mill

The most important point in this thread is that CfDs are totally opaque. Few in policy completely understand their effects on prices. We should probably stop using them.

There are still two surviving Georgian toll bridges over the Thames: Swinford, just outside Oxford, which charges 5p for a car and 10p per axle to a lorry; and Whitchurch, near Reading, which charges 60p.

Sir Frederick Eden surveyed the English poor in the 1790s. Here is the annual budget of a gardener in Ealing (then a satellite of London, inbetween where this map marks Acton and Hanwell). Note how he spends money on sugar, tea, beer, meat and school fees!

Why did cities decline in the twentieth century? Surprisingly, the answer is not cars, and in Europe, the answer isn't even crime!

🚨 NEW: Our analysis shows the Government is on track to miss its 1.5m housing target by nearly half a million homes

Dangerous drivers who kill or seriously injure others are routinely let back on the road in England & Wales. Lifetime bans are VERY rare. Even the most deadly repeat offenders who kill while driving *more than once* avoid lifetime bans. Stats and case studies below. 1/10