Why the Rich Always Live in the West

Think of the city you live in. Picture the expensive side. There's a good chance it's the west. London has its West End and its East End. Paris has a richer west and a poorer north-east. And a hundred and fifty years ago, the wind helped decide it. Some people say the rule goes all the way up: the rich live in the west of the city, the south of the country and the West of the world. So we put that rule on trial, in six rounds, from a single street to the whole planet. Make your guess before each verdict. You'll see the Victorian smoke that pushed the rich west, the 2021 study of 5,000 factory chimneys in 70 English cities, the city where the rich and the poor swapped places, how the Cold War turned Bavaria from Germany's poorhouse into its richest corner, the machine that built the American South, why warm weather doesn't make you rich, the reversal of fortune of the last 500 years, Singapore's air conditioner, the map that made Europe look big, and where the money is going next. Chapters 0:00 Your city 1:00 Round 1: the smoke 3:21 Round 2: the swap 4:40 Round 3: the poorhouse that got rich 7:46 Round 4: ask Greece 8:59 Round 5: the equator 12:12 Round 6: "the West" 13:01 The verdict, and where the money goes next Sources and further reading Heblich, Trew and Zylberberg, "East Side Story: Historical Pollution and Persistent Neighborhood Sorting", Journal of Political Economy (2021) Gallup, Sachs and Mellinger, "Geography and Economic Development" (1999) Acemoglu, Johnson and Robinson, "Reversal of Fortune" (2002); Nobel Prize in Economics 2024 Burke, Hsiang and Miguel, "Global non-linear effect of temperature on economic production", Nature (2015) Raymond Arsenault, "The End of the Long Hot Summer: The Air Conditioner and Southern Culture" (1984) Income maps: IMF World Economic Outlook (October 2026), ONS, BEA, Statistikportal, ISTAT/OECD, RBI/MOSPI, NBS China. City maps © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL). The opinions in this video are marked as opinions ("here's my take"). The facts under them are sourced. Music Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com): Thinking Music, Investigations, Industrial Revolution, Hidden Agenda, Gymnopedie No 1, Night on the Docks - Sax, Moorland, Sneaky Snitch, The Builder, Wallpaper. Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... Scott Buckley: Echoes of Home, Penumbra, Shoulders Of Giants, Memories of Stone, The Great Sea, Aphelion, Last And First Light, Juggernaut. Released under CC-BY 4.0. www.scottbuckley.com.au Beethoven, Egmont Overture: Musopen Symphony (public domain). Sound effects: Freesound (CC0). #Geography #History #Economics