All posts tagged: capitals

The East London area once branded a ‘no-go area’ that’s now one of the capital’s hottest places to live

The East London area once branded a ‘no-go area’ that’s now one of the capital’s hottest places to live

Published by Sam Flores

There was a time when the words “London Fields” came with a warning rather than a recommendation. Today, it’s more likely to appear on a list of London’s most desirable postcodes than in tales of places to avoid. But for the people who remember what London Fields used to be, the transformation tells a more complicated story than trendy cafés and soaring property values ever could. It is no understatement to say that London has changed significantly over the last 20 years. As the population has grown and more people have called the capital home, areas have changed. Several areas, such as Walthamstow and Peckham, are examples of gentrification and change. Another would be Hackney but in particular, London Fields. Hackney, as a whole, used to be a place where, back in the 80s, 90s, and 2000s, people would say ‘don’t ever go to Hackney’ because it was classed as dangerous. Now, it is one of the most in-demand areas to live in London. This area is now one of the London’s most in demand …

How London’s once-abandoned Strand became the capital’s chi-chi mile

How London’s once-abandoned Strand became the capital’s chi-chi mile

Published by Daniella Wilson

Sign up to IndyEat’s free newsletter for weekly recipes, foodie features and cookbook releases Get our food and drink newsletter for free Get our food and drink newsletter for free The Strand has many of the ingredients of a great London street: the Savoy Hotel and Somerset House, theatres, churches, universities, the river just behind it and Trafalgar Square at one end. For years, it also had the atmosphere of somewhere between more interesting places. It is a road of handsome stonework at first-floor level and disappointing decisions below it, where convenience shops, luggage, fast food and interchangeable restaurants have served a passing population without giving many of them a reason to stop. But over the last few years, that has changed. Whether it is Soho House’s 180 Strand branch, Nick Jones’s new hotel St Clement or the silver carvings, trolleys are moving through Simpson’s in the Strand once again. This long-abandoned stretch in the heart of London is becoming the capital’s chi-chi mile. It is difficult to imagine a more convincing advertisement for the …

Dimension Capital’s 0M third fund shows the intersection of science and compute is booming

Dimension Capital’s $800M third fund shows the intersection of science and compute is booming

Published by skeptic

While many newer VC firms are still struggling to raise fresh capital, Dimension Capital, founded in late 2022, has been raising increasingly larger funds in quick succession.  On Tuesday, the New York firm — which invests at the intersection of science and compute — announced an $800 million fund, which is 60% larger than its $500 million second vehicle announced just 18 months ago. When Zavian Dar and Adam Goulburn — formerly partners at Lux Capital —teamed up with Obvious Ventures alum Nan Li to launch the firm four years ago, they bet that founders would increasingly want to build deep-tech companies that crossed the boundaries of biotech and software. Now, the three partners admit to being impressed by how quickly their thesis has played out. In 2024, they co-led a $30 million seed investment in Chai Discovery. The startup, which is developing open-source AI foundation models for drug development, announced last week that it raised $400 million at a $3.8 billion valuation. The firm also backed anti-aging startup New Limit at its Series A round in January …

Thiel Capital’s Jack Selby nabs stakes in hot startups like Etched through Arizona connections

Thiel Capital’s Jack Selby nabs stakes in hot startups like Etched through Arizona connections

Published by skeptic

Nvidia competitor Etched announced this week that TSMC had manufactured its first chip earlier this year. While the four-year-old startup valued at $5 billion is getting ready to ship systems powered by that chip to customers later this summer, scaling production may prove challenging. Like other chip designers, Etched must compete for limited capacity at TSMC’s Taiwan factories. Copper Sky Capital, one of Etched’s early investors, is hopeful that the chipmaker will find a solution to its manufacturing constraints by eventually producing chips at Arizona’s TSMC facility. When the four-year-old VC firm invested in Etched’s $120 million Series A two years ago, founder Jack Selby secured an allocation in part by promising to help the startup eventually reshore its chip fabrication to Arizona. Selby, a former PayPal exec and longtime managing director to Peter Thiel’s family office, Thiel Capital, founded Phoenix-based Copper Sky in 2021 (formerly known as AZ-VC). The firm’s first $115 million fund focused primarily on startups based in Arizona and the Southwest. Selby’s thesis was that most coastal startups, particularly those based …

Who were the stars who stole the show at Capital’s Summertime Ball with Barclaycard 2026?

Who were the stars who stole the show at Capital’s Summertime Ball with Barclaycard 2026?

Published by Sam Flores

On Saturday night (06.06.26), over 80,000 fans descended on London’s Wembley Stadium for one of the biggest parties of the summer – Capital’s Summertime Ball with Barclaycard.The Capital Breakfast hosts Jordan North, Sian Welby and Chris Stark were on hand to welcome the performers, but just which stars stole the show on the night? Source link

London is now a no-go zone for developers, warns capital’s biggest housebuilder after shopping centre plan rejected

London is now a no-go zone for developers, warns capital’s biggest housebuilder after shopping centre plan rejected

Published by Sam Flores

Developers “can no longer invest in new London sites”, the capital’s biggest housebuilder has claimed after its plan to bulldoze an old shopping centre for almost 900 homes was rejected. Berkeley Group‘s bid to knockdown the Aylesham Centre in Peckham was dismissed by the planning inspector this week. The scheme would have seen 867 new flats, 77 of which would be affordable. While the planning inspector said the development would bring “social and economic benefits” and ease Southwark’s “acute” housing shortage, it ruled this would “not outweigh the harm to the relevant designated heritage assets important to the area”. Rob Perrins, Executive Chair at Berkeley Group, said: “This decision demonstrates the extreme uncertainty developers continue to experience within the planning system.” The proposed development at the Aylesham Centre in Peckham (Berkeley Homes) He added: “How can we be allowed to build next to world heritage assets like Tower Bridge, but not here? “If we’re no longer permitted to meet housing needs on brownfield land then where should we build? It would take hundreds of acres …

Capitals cool on Brussels age-check app  – POLITICO

Capitals cool on Brussels age-check app  – POLITICO

Published by Sam Flores

Digital ID kerfuffle  The app the Commission issued this month is the latest hiccup in a years-long effort to get tech apps up and running to check the age of internet users.   Brussels and EU member capitals have already spent two years working on “digital identity wallets,” which should be available across Europe by the end of 2026.   But the EU executive announced last July it would roll out a “mini-wallet” designed to help tech platforms check the age of their users, as worries mounted about the impact of social media on the health of children. The mini-wallet was meant to come out before the broader digital ID apps; it’s the one the Commission showcased in mid-April and is officially recommending to countries this week.   Countries that were already working on their own digital ID apps, like Denmark, France, Greece and Spain, were selected to be frontrunners in testing the mini-wallet.   According to Poland’s Digital Affairs State Secretary Dariusz Standerski, the new app is “secondary” and “complementary” to the broader digital ID wallet the country has been working on. That wallet “will always be the primary way” to verify people’s age online, he said in an interview. The Commission’s tech architecture underlying the app is designed to ensure that national applications …

Spain defends EU’s flagship climate law against attacks from other capitals – POLITICO

Spain defends EU’s flagship climate law against attacks from other capitals – POLITICO

Published by Sam Flores

Sánchez sent the paper to European Council President António Costa on Thursday, just as Italy launched a blistering attack on the ETS. Rome called for its suspension until after the reform is completed, claiming that the carbon price is driving up energy costs and acting as a “tax” on manufacturers. The Spanish paper takes the opposite view. “Dismantling the emissions trading system is the wrong answer to high energy prices,” the paper reads. “While some adjustments to the current system to reduce [price] volatility could [be] welcome, a misguided and rushed reform would risk distorting the price signal it has successfully been sending without bringing competitiveness gains.” Madrid joins Sweden in defending the system, which regulates around half of the bloc’s emissions and has successfully slashed pollution in half since 2005. In general, Spain writes, “we must advance and accelerate, not dilute, the green agenda. This is not just a moral imperative, but a lever for sustained, long-term competitiveness … Any slowdown in decarbonisation would play directly into our competitors’ hands.” Madrid also positions itself …

Europeans want Brussels to hand border control back to capitals, poll finds – POLITICO

Europeans want Brussels to hand border control back to capitals, poll finds – POLITICO

Published by Sam Flores

Secondary movements aren’t a Schengen problem, he argued — they only mean that the bloc needs to cooperate better and strengthen controls on its external borders. “The illegal migration does not take place between Luxembourg and Germany,” Gloden said. The small country has lodged a complaint against migration-linked checks on Germany’s borders, which have landed the thousands of commuters that enter Luxembourg on a daily basis in major traffic jams. When the Schengen zone was built, it was “not linked to migration … [It] should facilitate the free movement of people, not hinder [it],” he said. FGS interviewed 11,714 adults from 23 European Union countries between Nov. 10 and Nov. 23, 2025. A minimum of 500 interviews were conducted in each of the following countries: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden. Interviews were conducted online and the data was weighted to be nationally representative of each country by gender, age, income, region and socio-economic group. Data from …

London tops list of world’s slowest capitals for driving | UK News

London tops list of world’s slowest capitals for driving | UK News

Published by Sam Flores

Widespread 20mph speed limits have been blamed for London topping the list of the world’s slowest driving capitals, according to research. It took an average of three minutes and 38 seconds to travel one kilometre (0.6 miles) in the centre of the city last year, mapping technology company TomTom said. Reducing speed limits from 30mph to 20mph has been one of Sir Sadiq Khan’s main transport policies as mayor, as he aims to reduce road casualties. More than half of the capital’s roads now have a 20mph limit, according to Transport for London’s website. It says that a person is five times more likely to be killed if they are hit by a vehicle travelling at 30mph rather than 20mph. You need javascript enabled to view this content Enable javascript to share Share New rules for drivers over 70 Meanwhile, drivers lost an average of 141 hours stuck in rush hour traffic in 2025, the analysis found. The worst day of congestion in London, on 10 September last year, coincided with a Tube strike. Read …