It&#x27;s not like the UK government isn&#x27;t trying. The whole &quot;Northern Powerhouse&quot; and such.<p>The basic problem is that people, by and large, want to live and work in London rather than Manchester (which is I think the only credible competitor to London for mega-city status right now).<p>Building Crossrail isn&#x27;t something where you can just sort of pick and choose where to drop it. London transport is horribly overcrowded already. If it doesn&#x27;t keep up with demand then it&#x27;s not like everyone will just say, oh well, we&#x27;ll all just move en-masse to a different city. If that were going to happen it&#x27;d have happened already. Instead they&#x27;ll just keep packing in like sardines and feel miserable.<p>The UK already borrows huge sums of money. It&#x27;s only cheap because so many countries have been or are printing money to fund public spending, which means it&#x27;s not really anywhere near as cheap as it looks.