Edition 13 Global Property Scene

GLOBAL

PROPERTY SCENE ISSUE NO. 013

The Number One Buy-to-Let Magazine | www.globalpropertyscene.com

This issue: Should I move to Las Vegas? | Creative office spaces | The US presidential election Is climate engineering the future? | A guide to eco-housing

FOCUS ON : SPAIN

DAY OF THE DEAD MEXICO’S FAMOUS FESTIVAL

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INSIDE Features

16 The United States elections

39 Building a different future

49 Is Eco house building the future?

63 Is Airbnb the future for travellers?

Can it ever be possible to become president of The United States when two thirds of its population dislike you and over half actively despise you? We’re about to find out because Donald Trump, the most unpopular presidential candidate in history, is about to reach the final stretch of a presidential campaign that could charitably be called slightly shambolic.

The effects of man-made climate change are fast outstripping the direst predictions from climate experts. We are heating the earth up too much and too quickly and it looks likely that the planet will become inhospitable to our current society within our lifetime.

The current global property market is massively energy inefficient. It is estimated that the world’s buildings consume 40-60% of global energy and 25% of water. Many believe that it is paramount that eco building becomes more of a worldwide priority in the coming years, as buildings have so much energy saving potential.

From humble beginnings in a San Francisco loft apartment, to a tourist’s pocket accommodation hub.

This is one venture that, alongside sensational growth and global recognition, has directly impacted on the industries it shares the market with.

Regular Articles

Listings (sponsored)

07 Market in Focus: Spain

90 UK

THE DAY OF THE DEAD

There were similar attitudes across Spain to those in the UK where home ownership was seen as an essential part of a fulfilling adult journey.

84 Should I move to Las Vegas?

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Shameless, unrelenting and unapologetic, Las Vegas is a city of idiosyncrasies and overt ostentatiousness.

The home of the Industrial Revolution, the UK has long been established as a major commercial centre, benefiting from strong trade links with companies on every continent. With a long history in international cooperation, the country is an attractive place for investors both foreign and domestic.

Knight Knox has sold thousands of properties. We have experts on the ground that can help to find your perfect property. Why purchase with anybody else?

ISSUE 013 GLOBAL

PROPERTY SCENE ISSUE NO. 013

EDITOR’S NOTE

The Number One Buy-to-Let Magazine | www.globalpropertyscene.com

This issue: Should I move to Las Vegas? | Creative office spaces | The US presidential election Is climate engineering the future? | A guide to eco-housing

FOCUS ON : SPAIN

DAY OF THE DEAD MEXICO’S FAMOUS FESTIVAL

One of said too good to be true opportunities was the Spanish property market, which, instead of suffering the boom and bust times of the late 80’s and early 90’s, enjoyed consistent and staggering growth, across both construction and house prices for over ten years. Sadly, this all came to an end like most things in 2007, as the markets closed up shop. With investment beginning to return, we take a look at the current possibilities.

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*Where Sold UK £4.99 USA $8.99 Europe €7.99 Hong Kong $67.00 Malaysia 31.00 MYR UAE 36.00 AED Singapore $11.00 SGD

If you google the term investment you’re faced with over 810 million results. This insurmountable number illustrates what many investors face, too much choice. Investors often choose to register with both investment publications and mailing lists, all of which often claim to have the greatest opportunities going. How does one pick through all this information and come to a decision?

Simple, don’t be tempted by anything too good to be true.

Contact +44(0)161 772 1394 info@globalpropertyscene.com www.globalpropertyscene.com

Credits Individual Samantha Jones, Hannah Wilde, Rachel Sharman, Alex Timperley, Will Leyland, Emma Martin, Richard Ellis, Alistair McGovern, Suzanne Todd, Callum Whiteley, John Power, Martin Copeland, Michael Vickers, Mark Williams Commercial Knight Knox, X1, Fortis Developments, Forshaw Land & Property Group, Buy Association, INTUS Lettings, Gold Key Media, Shutterstock, Property Investor, Starin Red Spot Media Solutions, CODA Studios Ltd

Many governments are coming under increasing pressure to improve their environmental impact, and one of the first on the pecking order is how to improve global housing, which is one of the most energy inefficient. It is estimated that the world’s buildings consume between 40 and 60 percent of global energy, along with 25 percent of water stocks. With eco house building becoming more essential we discuss the pros and cons.

Dia de Muertos, the Day of the Dead, is an important part of Mexican culture and one of the most anticipated events in the annual calendar.

With this event fast approaching GPS thought it time to cover this fascinating country.

And finally we look into the food behind the renowned Michelin Guide book, whose ratings have been making and breaking the world of fine dining for over 100 years.

Thank you for picking up the latest edition, we hope you enjoy number 13.

Editor-in-chief Michael Smith

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Enquire today to discuss this opportunity

MARKET IN FOCUS Spain

Words : Will Leyland | View : Sorbis

In the picturesque rolling hills of the Valencian countryside the peace and splendour of the orange groves provide a perfect setting to enjoy the culture of an area of Spain that has been subject to some of the most tumultuous economic times since the civil war that engulfed the country in the 1950’s.

To visit the region now is a genuine pleasure with its diverse culture and fiercely proud history. Valencia is known internationally for the Falles (Las Fallas), a local festival held in March, and for Paella Valenciana, traditional Valencian ceramics, intricate traditional dress, and the architecture of the City of Arts and Sciences designed by Santiago Calatrava and Félix Candela. La Tomatina, an annual tomato fight, draws vast crowds to the nearby town of Buñol in August. There are also a number of well-preserved traditional Catholic festivities throughout the year. Holy Week celebrations in Valencia are considered some of the most colourful in Spain.

Valencia wasn’t the only area to experience economic hardship of course, but provides perhaps the most striking example of the rollercoaster ride that the entire country went through from the mid 1980’s all the way through to the financial collapse of 2007 and eventually to today.

The peace and relative calm that presides over the region now belies an

almost unstoppable property boom that began somewhere in 1985 as the effects of government policy encouraging home ownership from the 60’s and 70’s took hold of the national psyche. There were similar attitudes across Spain to those in the UK where home ownership was seen as an essential part of a fulfilling adult journey and, in support of this the Spanish government offered generous tax breaks to home owners with 15% of mortgage payments deductible from personal income taxes and the oldest apartments controlled by non-inflation-adjusted rent-controls. Eviction was slow, thereby discouraging renting. Banks offered 40-year and, more recently, 50-year mortgages.

Governments across Europe and over the Atlantic have often used home ownership and house prices to encourage and stimulate economic prosperity dating back to the early 20th century in America and Western Europe. Ownership was often seen by the population as a security and a right rather than a profit driven decision, and so up until the 80’s property prices remained fairly stable and grew gradually across Spain and the Western World – until 1979.

In 1979 the world economy was introduced to two of the most radical thinkers in generations when Margaret Thatcher, and later in 1981 Ronald Reagan, rose to power in the UK and US. In the new Prime Minister and President respectively, the post-war consensus that saw both

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Valencia, Spain

governments presiding over a slowly progressing and mixed economy was As investment and outside interest took hold in the Spanish property torn up and thrown aside in favour of full blown free-market capitalism and market, construction went berserk. In the years between 1997 and 2006, what many now call neo-liberalism. property developments initiated and completed nearly doubled. That is a staggering statistic considering that the majority of these new build Hyper-capitalism had now arrived in the West and with it came prosperity, properties were being sold to foreign investors from the UK, Germany, the money, and eventually greed. In the years preceding the ‘90s just about Nordic countries and America. everything was privatised or turned in to a profit making machine and the wheels had been set in motion for property to follow the trend. Spain was As the economic boom took hold across Spain it seemed that the good no different and property in the Mediterranean was subject to interest and times could never end. Instead of the boom and bust times of the late 80’s investment from across the world in increasing and large measures. and early 90’s there had been consistent growth across both construction In the boom years of this form of capitalism (1987-1991), Spanish property and house prices for over ten years. In 1997 roughly 310,000 new values rose a staggering 100%, doubling in price. Annual price growth was residential properties were constructed in Spain per year, but by the end of 19.5%. Following Black Tuesday in the UK and a global slowdown, property 2006 that figure had risen to an astonishing 760,000. Not all of them were across the country was depressed but still, against the odds, managed to completed, but, rather than the slow, measured construction practices of grow 6% from 92 to 97. before, developers were now throwing up new projects practically daily with little or no guarantee of buyers ahead of time.

It was, however, in the years following 1997 that property all across Europe and the US began to really take off and house prices not only shot through On the South-East coast of Spain, from Valencia to Marbella especially, the roof but, due to unprecedented demand, construction across Spain entire towns had been built in a little less than ten years. The face of the began to go into overdrive. It was the age of the expat and figures country was changing rapidly and it was creating a very wealthy population updated last year show a massive 310,000 Brits moved over to Spain in in Spain and abroad. the boom years following ‘97 and peaking in the early noughties.

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As the good times were rolling though, something insidious was happening back in Valencia that was beginning to sour the otherwise mutually beneficial arrangements that expats had with the Spanish. Brits especially were being hit by a bizarre law in the municipality that meant that local councils and developers could essentially steal land that already had properties on without having to provide any compensation. It was called the ‘land grab law’, and generated outrage across Europe.

number of developers and local authorities to exploit the situation, principally in coastal areas where land was in shorter supply and values were at their highest. As in the UK, notices of intent had to be published, but just 15 working days were allowed to present an alternative plan or an objection. Since many landowners were absentee and foreign, this caused a breakdown in the process and this is where there were endless problems with the law.

The Spanish land grab law came into force in the Valencia region in 1994.

The issue revolved around three classifications of land – land already urbanised, land suitable for urbanisation and rural land. Spanish rural land is sometimes re-classified by the local authorities as suitable for urbanisation (development). The law was introduced in Spain to prevent individual owners of rural property in areas that had been re-classified standing in the way of developments that would benefit the community as a whole, by improving services or creating affordable local housing.

Because the value of their property would increase significantly, the law obliged these rural owners to contribute with cash and/or part of their land towards bringing in benefits such as mains water, sewerage, new roads etc., even though they may not want them.

Horror stories were emerging from all over the region, of British people who had built their dream home in the Valencian countryside having their land reclassified as ready for development, which often meant eviction notices providing just a few weeks’ notice. If expats failed to vacate their properties the local government simply sent a digger to crush the house and knock it down in full view of the previous owners.

Unfortunately, in Valencia the law was badly drafted, allowing a small

Whilst the laws were not a directly anti-British move and, certainly, other nationalities were affected, it is widely accepted that the British expats in the region were disproportionally affected by land grabs.

The environment was souring and, if anything, it acted as a precursor for the retribution to these levels of greed that were bubbling on the horizon in America, the UK and across Europe as a whole. By the definition of a

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Area: 505,990 km2 Population: 46,423,064 Per capita: $36,143

Barcelona, Spain

housing bubble. Spain was the absolute textbook example and, as news started to filter through that banks were in bad shape across the pond, the property market in the country started to slowly unravel.

The main cause of Spain’s crisis was the housing bubble and the accompanying unsustainably high GDP growth rate. The ballooning tax revenues from the booming property investment and construction sectors kept the Spanish government’s revenue in surplus, despite strong increases in expenditure, until 2007.

The Spanish government supported the critical development by relaxing supervision of the financial sector and thereby allowing the banks to violate International Accounting Standards Board standards. The banks in Spain were able to hide losses and earnings volatility, mislead regulators, analysts, and investors, and thereby finance the Spanish real estate bubble.

The results of the crisis were devastating for Spain, including a strong economic downturn, a severe increase in unemployment, and bankruptcies of major companies. According to Eurostat, between June 2007 and June 2008 Spain was the European country with the sharpest plunge in construction, with actual sales down an average 25.3%. Some regions have been more affected than others - Catalonia was ahead in this regard with a 42.2% sales plunge.

Despite the heady days of the early and mid-2000s, Spain’s property bubble, like those across Europe, had burst in spectacular style and nearly taken everything else down with it. Construction ground to a halt and, everywhere across Spain, building sites were simply abandoned overnight. Even today in areas of the Valencian and coastal regions there are numerous half-finished building projects gathering dust and weeds. As for employment, the entire economy was about to suffer.

After having completed substantial improvements over the second half of the 1990s and during the 2000s, which put a few regions on the brink of full employment, Spain suffered a severe setback in October 2008 when it saw its unemployment rate surging to 1996 levels. Between October 2007 and October 2008, Spain had its unemployment rate climb by 36%. In October 2008, Spain suffered its worst unemployment rise ever recorded and the country suffered Europe’s biggest unemployment crisis since the economic collapse. Spain’s unemployment rate hit 17.4% at the end of March 2009 with the jobless total having doubled over 12 months when two million people lost their jobs. By July 2009, it had shed 1.2 million jobs in one year and was to have the same number of jobless as France and Italy combined. By March 2012, Spain’s unemployment rate reached 24.4%, twice the Eurozone average.

In the throes of the worst recession to hit it in a century, Spain’s economy nearly collapsed entirely until the European Central Bank agreed to bail out the country and its’ banks with hundreds of millions of Euros through loans. Over time there have been slow and rocky improvements across the economy.

Spain finally officially came out of recession in 2014 when its’ GDP grew by a modest 1.4% and then an impressive 3.2% in 2015. The recovery, according to the OECD, is projected to continue in 2016 and 2017, although at a more moderate pace. Low borrowing rates for businesses and households will keep providing support. Some positive forces, including lower oil and other commodity prices and a mildly positive fiscal stimulus, will boost consumption in 2016 but then fade in 2017.

The prices in Spanish property never truly crashed through the floor and, in truth, actually hovered stagnantly around the same price for almost eight years in a row. There are encouraging signs now that construction and price growth are on the rise in a steady and measured way.

Spain is a country “high up” among the hierarchy of global powers in culture, history, and experience, but a country that once felt itself untouchable was burnt badly and lastingly in the crisis of 2008. If you’re lucky enough to take some time to sit on the rolling hills of Valencia soon you should be able to enjoy the peace, tranquillity, and laid back atmosphere the Spanish are famous for and maybe you’ll be able to see an economy that’s learnt its lessons enjoying slow and strong growth.

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Financial District, Madrid

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THE UNITED STATES ELECTION With the vote growing ever closer, America is faced with a difficult decision

Words : Will Leyland | View : Barone Firenze

Can it ever be possible to become president of The United States when two thirds of its population dislike you and over half actively despise you? We’re about to find out because Donald Trump, the most unpopular presidential candidate in history, is about to reach the final stretch of a presidential campaign that could charitably be called slightly shambolic.

In isolation the figures are staggering. The wider American public are not ‘Trumpeteers’ based on the polls. How could such a candidate make it as the nominee from a major US political party with such terrible numbers?

Well, firstly, this isn’t just any candidate; this candidate is Donald J Trump.

To some, Trump is the epitome of a Marmite politician in that some love him and some utterly hate him but, to many, Trump represents the proverbial ‘snot sandwich’ politican – slimy and unwanted.

Fascist, racist, bigot, fraudster, con man, intellectually bankrupt, and many other insults have been levelled at Trump and arguably some of them are true, but there is one description for Trump that is objectively true: he’s box office. He’s also captured the feelings of anger represented by a mass movement.

Remarkably, his Democratic rival for the presidency, Hillary Clinton, is barely more popular than Mr Trump himself. An ABC News/Washington Post poll showed that 56 percent of respondents had a “strongly unfavourable” opinion of Trump, compared to just 15 percent who had a

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“strongly favourable” opinion. In the Bloomberg poll, 51 percent had a “very unfavourable” opinion of Trump, with only 11 percent having a “very favourable” opinion. If these numbers had been recorded against a rival who was popular, one might feel inclined to call the race over, done and dusted even, but Clinton is struggling to cement any sort of popularity or shake off her bad image (41 percent favourable/54 percent unfavourable).

To many, Clinton is seen as a Wall Street shill and simply untrustworthy.

The e-mail scandal which has dogged her campaign certainly hasn’t helped her cause. As Trump demolished his rivals in the primaries Clinton struggled to defeat the veteran senator Bernie Sanders who was, by all accounts, a cult hero.

So just where is American politics going wrong? Why do people appear so angry and switched off by mainstream politicians? A good place to start would be February 2007.

On February 10, 2007, Barack Obama announced his candidacy for President of the United States in front of the Old State Capitol building in Springfield, Illinois. The choice of the announcement site was viewed as symbolic because it was also where Abraham Lincoln delivered his historic “House Divided” speech in 1858. On November 4, Obama won the presidency with 365 electoral votes to 173 received by McCain.

Obama won 52.9% of the popular vote to McCain’s 45.7%. He became the first African American to be elected president. Obama delivered his

The White House, Washington

Washington Monument, Washington

victory speech before hundreds of thousands of supporters in Chicago’s Grant Park.

In 2008 I was the tender age of 19 but I remember thinking he was probably the finest and most inspiring public speaker since Kennedy. I still hold onto a couple of magazine covers and newspaper front pages marking the moment when a nation that had embraced slavery chose a black man to be its President. Barack Obama’s election in 2008 “swept away the last racial barrier in American politics with ease,” The New York Times reported. The New Yorker, with its cover of a glowing Lincoln Memorial, heralded “the resurgence of America’s ability to astonish and inspire.” They sensed “the beginning of a new era.”

Judgements of Obama’s presidency vary wildly across the political spectrum. Those on the left hail the likes of Obamacare as some of the most progressive policies seen in a generation or more. Conservatives lament a president who has overseen shaky and inconsistent foreign policy as well as a watering down of so called ‘American values’.

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In terms of the reality of the results of Obama’s Presidency, things aren’t as rosy as those famous headlines had hoped. The most recent figures released by the Census Bureau revealed that over 40 million Americans “live in poverty.” In the richest country in the world this could be considered shocking and a big failure by the Obama administration but closer inspection reveals that, in fact, the typical American defined as poor by the Census Bureau has a car, air conditioning, and cable or satellite TV. Half of the poor have computers, 43 percent have Internet, and 40 percent have a wide-screen plasma or LCD TV. Far from being overcrowded, poor Americans have more living space in their home than the average non-poor person in Western Europe. Some 42 percent of all poor households actually own their own homes. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, only 4 percent of poor children were hungry for even a single day in the prior year because the family could not afford food. So what is the truth? It’s reasonable to expect that it’s somewhere in the middle. In a vastly rich and developed nation if you’re not pushing standards up then you’re going backwards. Wages and opportunities have stagnated and tensions are running high.

Right now America sits on the brink of electing the most right-wing and unstable president in its history. Could it be that despite all the headline figures that things haven’t tangibly improved? Much of the country now appears more openly intolerant, quick to hate and outright nasty. One reaction to Obama, it seems, has been the rise of an opposition party that is a home for xenophobes, defeatists and alarmists.

Obama’s true legacy is impossible to predict in a country that feels more divided and polarised than at any other time in modern memory. It could be argued that, in a similar way to the UK, that ordinary people are being told that the economy has recovered and they see no tangible benefit.

Trust in politics and politicians is at an all-time low.

It seems from the comfort of the other side of the Atlantic that the tolerance, hope and progress that had been achieved since Obama’s election is slowly evaporating and giving way to right-wing extremism defined by Trump’s hilariously poor proposal to build a huge wall between the US and Mexico paid for by the Mexican government. The Republican

Party, its leaders like to say, is a party of ideas. Ideas about the character of the state, the future of freedom, and the meaning of virtue.

Unfortunately for the party establishment the sensible conservative approach used by the likes of Ronald Reagan, George Bush Snr & Jnr, and heavyweights like Mitt Romney is being dismantled and cast aside for reckless snap policy decisions such as the infamous wall and a blanket ban on Muslims entering the US (although it’s unclear how Trump plans to combat somebody simply lying about their religion). To those who treasure living in an open and inclusive democracy there was little initial concern when Trump started his campaign as many saw his policies as worthy of ridicule and derision. To their complete horror, the intolerance, anger and incoherent bigotry that has come to define a candidate barely able to watch an hour go by without hitting the headlines for a perceived outrage appears to have galvanised the grass-roots Republican movement.

As Britain staggered, punch drunk, towards the exit from the European Union, many journalists and political commentators lamented the dawning

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Donald Trump Republican Candidate Former: Businessman Delegate result: 1,543 (30 remaining) Current poll: 43.6% Win Figures stated from: 23 September 2016

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Hyperloop

Hilary Clinton Democratic Candidate Former: Secretary of State Delegate result: 2,814 (56 remaining) Current poll: 44% Win Figures stated from: 23 September 2016

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of a post-fact era. ‘We’re sick of experts’ the UK was famously told by Michael Gove shortly before his team won the vote and his attempt to become Prime Minister ended in abrupt humiliation. ‘The mainstream media are biased’, ‘the establishment’ aren’t to be trusted. The message from the public seems to be clear – there’s no interest in facts or evidence anymore.

In America, an eerily similar mood seems to be emerging. The media, political commentators and politicians themselves hold no public trust anymore. In a recent sketch for a YouTube comedy show, a Donald Trump supporter was asked why she liked ‘The Donald’ “Because he’s not a politician” came the reply.

Hillary Clinton is possibly one of the least inspiring candidates in multiple generations from a party of orating greats such as Franklin D Roosevelt, John F Kennedy, Barack Obama and, of course, Bill Clinton. Untrustworthy is the charge levelled at Clinton after a string of allegations – the worst of which is that she put national security at grave risk through complete incompetence.

For the four years she was `secretary of State, Clinton never used an official state.gov email address. Instead, she relied exclusively on a private email account housed on her own personal server to conduct her government business. Those facts went unnoticed—or at least unaddressed—by the State Department until recently, when agency officials were responding to a request for documents from congressional investigators and realized they couldn’t find a single email to or from a Clinton government email address. Clinton turned over 30,490 messages to the agency that she and her team deemed to be possibly work-related.

Clinton and her staff, though, say they also destroyed 31,830 messages that they decided were personal. The private server was then subsequently wiped clean. Since Clinton and her team decided for themselves which messages to turn over and which ones to delete—and since they’ve never fully explained how such decisions were made— there’s no way to know with any certainty that everything erased was actually OK to erase.

The problem with this, of course, is that the federal government routinely archives official records so it can provide an accurate and comprehensive account of administrative decision-making—for the government, for the courts, and for the American public. The government can’t keep records it doesn’t have. It’s argued that it’s inconceivable that Hillary did not know this.

Regardless of your perception of the rights and wrongs of the case it looks, at best, totally incompetent and naïve and at worst completely corrupt. In what should be a slam dunk for the Clinton campaign they’re doing their best to snap defeat from the jaws of victory it seems.

The charismatic socialist Bernie Sanders caused a national storm of his own in the Democratic primaries by promising free college education as well as a raft of socialist policies. The young of America turned out in droves to hear him speak and when he lost, in part, due to the bizarre electoral system of the presidential primaries many of his supporters were unhappy. In order to appease them Clinton has had to take a decisive shift to the left. 90% of Bernie’s supporters polled said they would support her so, for now, it appears to be working.

Ultimately though this seems like an election with no winners. Trump is a dividing individual who appears to lack the sort of temperament, decision-making skills and intellect to run a bath, let alone the largest democracy in the world.

It’s also inescapable that rather than winning the presidency through hope, opportunity and an ability to “astonish and inspire” Clinton is simply being handed victory through the incompetence of a man who appears to be crumbling under the pressure of the daily spotlight.

In my research for the election I came across “Hard Choices”, the memoirs of Hillary Rodham Clinton. In one of the chapters she writes “All of us face hard choices in our lives. Some face more than their share.

Life is about making such choices. Our choices and how we handle them shape the people we become. For leaders and nations, they can mean the difference between war and peace, poverty and prosperity.” For the American people November will be a time to decide whether Clinton is the ‘least bad’ choice and it may be a lot closer than most dare to consider.

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US Capitol Building, Washington

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Annual NET returns are projected at 5.0%

£69,950

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DAY OF THE DEAD Mexico has long been seen as one of the world’s most significant up and coming nations.

Words : Alex Timperley | View : Rafal Kubiak

The 31st of October marks the beginning of Dia de Muertos, the Mexican Day of the Dead. It is one of the most important dates in the Mexican calendar and is celebrated throughout the country. For the 13th edition of Global Property Scene, we decided to look closely at the country of Mexico as their special occasion approaches.

Mexico has long been seen as one of the world’s most significant up and coming nations. The country itself mixes modern Western sensibilities with pre-Hispanic traditions dating back hundreds and thousands of years, lending Mexico an incredibly deep culture. The 10,000km of coastline bound everything from rainforests to snow topped mountains and megacities. It is an intriguing country - welcome to Mexico...

Dia de Muertos Dia de Muertos, the Day of the Dead, is an important part of Mexican culture and one of the most anticipated events in the annual calendar. At first glance it perhaps sounds like a somewhat morbid occasion concerned with death, and there is some truth to that. Any event which is focussed on those who have passed on will always be sad to a degree, but the Day of the Dead is first and foremost a celebration of life. People pray for and remember friends and family who have died and help support

their spiritual journey through the afterlife. It is a humbling concept and shows the high value placed on the lives of other people in Mexico.

The 31st October sees children make a children’s altar to invite the angelitos – the souls of dead children – back for a visit. The 1st November is for adult spirits to visit family and friends left behind and is known as All Saints Day. The 2nd November is All Souls Day where people visit and decorate the graves of their relatives, sharing anecdotes about them and other treasured memories.

The Day of the Dead developed out of traditions from pre-Columbian cultures and its origins can be traced back thousands of years. Originally taking place at the beginning of summer, it was an Aztec festival dedicated to Micteacacihuatl, the Queen of Mictal, the Aztec underworld.

The Lady of the Dead was born and then sacrificed as an infant and was represented as a defleshed skeleton with her jaw agape in order to swallow the stars during the day – dark origins indeed. The Aztec cultures which began all this committed themselves to a month-long annual celebration, but, even though it was so extravagant, Dia de Muertos was not known in the North of Mexico until the 20th Century.

Today, the entire country celebrates together, but individually. While there are some consistencies such as the visage of La Calavera Catrina, the

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modern Lady of the Dead based on a parody of an upper class Mexican woman, each person or family’s individual celebrations are deeply personal. Many go to cemeteries to be with the souls of the departed, building private alters with favourite food and drink and pictures to encourage the spirit of the deceased to visit. In this way they hope that the spirit in question will hear the prayers and remembrances of the living, and maybe find a greater level of peace in the knowledge that they are still known and loved. Toys are a regular sight at the graves of children and adults can expect tequila or mezcal along with the marigolds, which have become so synonymous with death that they are known as flor de muerto, death’s flower. Some people spend all night by the graves, others leave sugar skulls and bread, and others have picnics. The key is that it is personal and meaningful to those involved, both the living and the dead.

The shadow of death The shadow of death lays over Mexico thanks to more than just their folk traditions. It is a sad fact that Mexico might be more famous for its relationship with the illegal drug trade than for anything else, and that trade has been hurting the country for many, many years.

The Mexican front in the global ‘war on drugs’ is a particularly bloody one. The appetite for cocaine, crystal meth, heroin and other heavy drugs across the USA and Europe especially is voracious and the Mexican drug cartels have been getting extremely rich off the back of supplying the wealthier nations of the world with various powders and pills. Overall it is estimated that the cartels earn anywhere between $20bn and $50bn dollars annually from their illicit trade, the majority of which flows over the Rio Grande from the United States of America.

The misery visited on people around the world by drugs is reflected in the severe hardships inflicted on the people of Mexico by the cartels and the government’s response to them. In areas of Mexico the cartels effectively operate an alternative government, ruling the land and the lives of the people who live there. Cities such as Juarez, Reynosa and Matamoros have dark reputations. Over 100,000 Mexicans have been killed as a direct result of the drug trade, including thousands of soldiers, police and civilians, many public officials including 100 local mayors, and vast numbers of cartel employees, and that is not to mention the tens of thousands of people who are officially missing and unlikely to return home in time for dinner.

The government’s response to the cartels has been brutal, though not decisive. Long standing suspicions of drug related corruption have dogged elected officials from the lowest, local levels up to the very top, including political party leaders and regional governors such as Humberto Moreira, the former head of the Institutional Revolutionary Party and Governor of Coahuila. 15 other Governors have also been taken down for cartel related corruption. There is also a widespread suspicion that the military cannot defeat the cartels simply because it does not want to - the bribes for ignoring border crossings, kidnappings, killing and all the rest are, allegedly, far too large to pass up.

This has created a situation where no ambiguity is possible, a situation where police, military and politicians are assumed corrupt until proven otherwise. Two successive Presidents, Felipe Calderón and Enrique Peña Nieto, have waged all-out war against the cartels which has come at a steep human cost on both sides of the conflict. If you prosecute a war in the face of a systematic restructuring of the state by the cartels, then you inevitably have to act in an incredibly brutal way in order to avoid accusations of being on their side. It is a standard counter-terrorism approach, but with little to no focus on winning the hearts and minds of the populace - all of the bullets and none of the love; all of the law enforcement, none of the concern for human rights; all of the answers before the right questions have even been asked.

It is not a coincidence that the people of Mexico suffer from one of the highest rates of extrajudicial killings in the world, with both sides of the conflict getting in on the act and making life miserable for innocent civilians.

Economic policies, both those of Mexico and the United States, have also conspired to work in favour of the cartels, with the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) being a particularly bad offender. NAFTA works against growth in the Mexican economy and the country itself has not dealt with huge inequality and economic hardship. If young people are offered no legitimate way out then the cartels can begin to look like

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Day of the Dead festival, Mexico City

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Palace of fine arts, Mexico City

a very attractive option. As protestors have pointed out, in this war against the cartels the USA provides the money and the guns, Mexico provides the bodies.

Despite all of this cost which the Mexican people have been asked to bear, the war is not being won and the murder rate has again risen so far in 2016. The human sacrifice practised widely in the region by ancient cultures has, in many ways, come back with a vengeance in recent years due to the heavily armed geo-political mess which is the global ‘war on drugs’.

Government and politics So, what sort of government does Mexico have?

The Mexican War of Independence kicked off in 1810 and began the process of self-determination for a country desperate to escape the yoke of Spanish colonial rule. Over a decade later, the Army of the Three Guarantees led by Augustín de Iturbide marched into Mexico City and declared independence. The current political system would end up being

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formed approximately 100 years later in with the Mexican Constitution of 1917 being enacted following the Mexican Revolution of 1910. The Revolution began in response to the 35 year reign of Porfirio Díaz, a former soldier whose rule was characterised by extreme levels of bloodshed and corruption on a scale previously unprecedented in Mexican history. Further regimes and counter-revolutionary dictatorships would follow and the armed conflict went on until 1920, but ultimately the agrarian revolution led by the peasantry, the middle classes and organised labour proved triumphant. Mexico was on the path to modernity.

Today, the country is run via a federal presidential representative democratic republic system. In practice that means the government is made up of a federal congressional system where the President is both head of state and head of the government. The power inherent in this position is offset by the fact that no-one can serve as President for more than a single six year term – even someone who has served as a caretaker President is prohibited from running for the office in the future. Suffrage is universal, free and direct, putting Mexico ahead of countries such as the UK and USA when it comes to voter registration issues. Voting is compulsory, though this does not tend to be enforced by the authorities.

Mexican politics is dominated by three main parties: the National Action Party (PAN), the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) and the Institutional Revolution Party (PRI). Of these, the PRI is by far the most successful party in Mexican political history having ruled uninterrupted for 71 years between 1929 and 2000. They lost the first two elections of the 21st Century to the PAN, led first by Vicente Fox and then by Felipe Calderón, but have since regained power under the Presidency of Enrique Peña Nieto, who is set to be President until 2018.

President Nieto is just past the halfway point of his six year term and his fortunes have, so far, been mixed. As the Financial Times puts it: “Mexico is in crisis; Mexico is not in crisis. Both statements are true”. There is a very real sense that Mexico is at a national inflection point – it will either continue to modernise and become a true 21st Century powerhouse or it will devolve further into what president Nieto describes as a land of “incredulity and distrust” if the government doesn’t reconsider where the country is headed.

In many ways, Mexico is in something of a bad place at the moment. The drug wars have taken their toll on the populace and patience is wearing

very thin. The killing of 43 students in Guerrero in 2014 was linked to local gangs and police and became something of a turning point for a people who are tired of war. On top of this, the cloud of corruption which has settled on Mexico over decades refuses to dissipate, for instance the mansion built for the President and First Lady by a developer who had won huge state contracts worth $500m around the same time led to accusations of quid pro quo deals being made against the interests of the Mexican people yet again. At the same time, the economy has begun to stagnate quite seriously. These troubles on the home front threaten to ruin the Pacto por México, the agreement of all three main parties to work together for the benefit of Mexico which was a historically significant achievement.

However, this is not to imply that President Nieto’s term in office has been a failure.

President Nieto’s administration has enacted a reformist agenda which aims to push Mexico forward as a modern economy. One of the most significant moves undertaken so far has been the forced breakup of the telecom monopolies which had previously dominated Mexico and ruled

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out any competition. Carlos Slim, who previously controlled the Mexican telecommunications oligopoly, was the world’s richest man between 2010 and 2013. Going against a man so entrenched in the national infrastructure with a personal net worth equivalent to 6% of Mexico’s GDP is not a task to be undertaken lightly, and yet Slim has announced that he will be divesting some of his telecommunications assets to avoid new anti-trust lawsuits.

Similarly, President Nieto moved to close corporate tax loopholes beloved of Mexico’s oligarchs which met with the usual full spectrum resistance deployed against any move to make the global elites pay their fair share of tax.

Moves have also been made to break up the previously state-owned energy companies. While these companies did indeed represent a cash cow for the state, energy prices could be up to 80% higher than those in the USA, and for people who earn significantly less than their American counterparts. Opening the state energy industries to private finance also aims to boost the native oil industry which has been in decline in recent years, due to both a decrease in production and environmental concerns.

Along similar lines, the Mexican Congress has announced plans to open up the country’s shale gas fields and deepwater oil fields to foreign investment.

This latter point is important as it reflects a more general trend towards welcoming foreign investment and opening up the Mexican economy to the rest of the world more than it has been until now. Previous reforms of this nature under President Carlos Salinas in the late 1980s led to Mexico’s membership of NAFTA and were heavily criticised for accruing the newfound benefits in the pockets of the very few instead of the many.

President Nieto’s new reforms are reaching legislative completion but are a long way from becoming reality for ordinary Mexicans. Confidence in the government would likely be helped by a bit less theory and a bit more practice - spades in the ground, essentially, are what people want to see instead of yet more pens on paper.

Talk of welcoming foreign investment is all well and good, but if President Nieto cannot clear up the corruption and crime endemic to Mexico then it might all be for naught. Mexico’s former Finance Minister, Luis Videgaray Caso, has said that solving such problems is worth “10 energy reforms”, but how can this be done? As discussed previously, many Mexicans have no faith in their police force and military. Replacing corrupt state officials will be a long process and until that is done it is hard to see how Mexico can fully escape its present situation. Is the leader of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, a party which for years was a byword for corruption, really in the position to believably enforce these new rules? And all of that is without considering what might well become the biggest curveball of all in the near future: the USA. As the US Presidential race begins to enter its final stages it is clear that Republican nominee Donald Trump has a serious chance of becoming President of the United States. This would not bode well for Mexico. Trump has a well-publicised dislike of Mexicans, blaming them for any problem which crosses his mind in order to win votes. Among many other things, he has falsely asserted that Mexican immigrants go to America to steal, murder and rape and has a plan to build an 85 foot tall giant wall across the entire 1,933 miles of the American-Mexican border, which Mexico is apparently going to pay for. Trump recently met President Nieto to affect some sort of peace talks but both men have different accounts of the meeting, including what was discussed – none of that bodes well for the future if Trump is elected. President Nieto’s already poor approval ratings plummeted even further following the meeting, showing the absolute toxicity of Donald Trump to Mexico and, in turn, the near impossibility of the country dealing constructively with its giant neighbour were the Republican candidate to win the election.

Land of light and dark Mexico is a land heavy with fascinating history and almost drowning under modern contradictions. In so many ways it is the epitomy of a modern, forward thinking nation, but in so much else it is badly lacking. The big question over the next few years is whether the pace and momentum of reform can be carried on and whether the huge question marks over corruption and the war against the cartels can be effectively answered.

The most optimistic projections see Mexico overtaking Russia as an economic power by the latter half of the 21st Century. How realistic those predictions are is entirely in the hands of a political class with a new flair for healthy cooperation and a people who are tired of being trodden on.

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Mazatlan, Mexico

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CREATIVE OFFICE SPACE Could a creative office space be the best way to attract the brightest people?

Words : Hannah Wilde | View : Kiev Victor

When contemplating the perfect office space, what do you think would top the list—plenty of meeting rooms? More desks and chairs than you can shake a stick at? Banks of computers as far as the eye can see? Well in this new era of creative working, office spaces are changing in line with social, cultural and technological advances—now is the dawn of the flexible working spaces.

What are flexible working spaces? As the name suggests, they are working spaces completely unique to the company it represents, with enough spaces across the whole site to have different areas fit for very different purposes. Traditional board rooms and meeting spaces would seamlessly rub shoulders with recreation areas for the staff, including ‘chill-out zones’ and cafeterias, both known for being impromptu employee meeting hubs.

The idea behind flexible working spaces is that offices can be transformed into a space that works for them. If the company thrives on internal socialising and collaboration, expansive open-plan offices and ‘hot-desks’ (constant employee rotation with no fixed desks) may help foster creativity and innovation. However, if the company work mostly with external clients, a space with plenty of private meeting rooms to serve different purposes (one-on-one meetings, larger conference-style meetings, conference calls etc) would better fit the bill. The key word in the world of flexible offices is customisation—your office space is your own, so why not make it the best it can possibly be? Airbnb are just one in a myriad of companies who have joined this flexible office revolution, with

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its co-founder Joe Gebbia justifying: “We spend the majority of our lives at work—why shouldn’t it be as comfortable or as inspiring as your own home?”

Naturally, some of the biggest and best companies in the world have jumped on the flexible office bandwagon. However, some have truly gone above and beyond to not just accommodate meeting areas and collaborative spaces, but have instead designed what can almost be described as ‘adult playgrounds’ for their workers. The ultimate quest is to create what they think are the perfect conditions to garner innovative ideas, with their theory being that if their employees are working in a space that’s designed outside the box, it’s more likely that their thinking will reflect the same free-thinking mentality.

Google certainly got the memo: they’re a company renowned for their quirky office spaces, with their sleeping pods and kooky collaboration spaces becoming a thing of legend. While Google prides itself on the fact that each and every one of its offices around the world is unique (of which there are around 70 worldwide), a standout office space can be found in Switzerland. Google’s Zurich office leads the pack when it comes to creative spaces, with entire rooms dedicated to sports, singing and dancing, getting a massage, a sky lounge, a movie room, and even an aquarium (which you can enjoy from inside one of a long line of foam-filled baths). However, perhaps the most impressive feature of this office is the distinctive cable cars dotted around the office, in which the individual gondolas have been repurposed to become intimate collaborative

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Youtube headquarters, USA

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meeting spaces or areas for workers to relax and unwind for some much-needed downtime.

Also gaining a legendary status is the fabled rule that nobody at Google is allowed to be more than 100 metres away from food at any given time, which the company’s multiple headquarters have no problem adhering to. Each office is well-stocked with plenty of cafeterias, micro-kitchens and restaurants—complete with on-site chef who provides employees with three free meals per day—to encourage collaboration on a full stomach. It’s clear to see that Google are leagues ahead in the creative office stakes. Architect Stefan Camenzind, responsible for creating the Google Tel Aviv office, included employees in the design process to get a space that best suits their individual needs. Feedback was unanimous: “In interviews and steering groups, Googlers wanted a strong emphasis on communal space rather than on personal office space”. So the architect certainly listened and delivered, with communication rooms, conference areas and communal recreation facilities making up over 50% of Google Tel Aviv’s floor-plan.

YouTube employees also benefit from the “business and pleasure rolled into one” mentality that its parent company Google so freely embraces.

YouTube’s offices have been thoroughly ‘Googled’ after the takeover completed in 2006, with its California San Bruno employees now able to enjoy perks such as in-office putting, gaming, swimming and gym activities among other recreational activities in a typical working day.

What’s more, if employees are tired out after a working day filled with all manner of activity, workers can rest their weary legs by roaming around the office on Segways, taking flexibility to a whole new level.

Not one to be outdone, Zuckerberg’s Facebook is another company that have gone to the Google school of design when it comes to decking out their offices. Its California base in Palo Alto used their website to conduct polls asking what employees wanted from their office, and then created a flexible working space to adhere to their requests. The end result? Big open spaces to work from, juxtaposed with amazing relaxation areas to get the creative juices flowing, complete with an indoor skate park and DJ area.

Although big Fortune-500 tech companies like Google, Facebook and YouTube are already making their mark by creating some of the best innovative working environments in the world, other companies are following in their footsteps aiming to emulate their success. One such company is the aptly-named “Inventionland” in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, home to invention firm Davison Design and Development. Their office space leaves nothing to be desired—in a stroke of architectural genius, the company’s state-of-the-art sound, video and animation studios are all housed in one of 15 sets within the confines of their purpose-built 70,000sqft design facility. And yes, by “set” I do mean bespoke scenery used in the making of films for the silver screen. These backdrops range from the weird to the wonderful, including a fully-equipped pirate ship (doubling as the home of high-tech products and games), a motor speedway course (the birthplace of the company’s automotive product ideas) and a treehouse (described by its owners as “a safe haven for idea exploration”) among others. Even their boardroom is something to behold: a million miles away from a traditional boardroom, the Inventalot Castle—round table, coat of arms and moat included—looks more like from the pages of King Arthur than from the pages of Richard Branson’s autobiography. Even more incredibly, the design of this office resonates much further than just the innovative design of their space—Employees of this designer’s Disneyland are known as “creationeers”, and traverse all around their majestic office in lab coats in preparation for ‘inventing’ a new idea.

This goes to show that creative office spaces that defy belief (and in some cases even logic) are not strictly limited to big multinational conglomerates—but one thing it does require is money…and lots of it.

These offices aren’t for the faint of heart and pocket, with some of the most innovative office spaces commanding hundreds of thousands of pounds. But for many who dare to venture down the route of creative working, these spaces become a statement of intent more than anything else, showing the company’s ability to flex their financial muscles to show the world what innovative and creative things they’re capable of.

However, naturally there are some people who may be cynical of this way of work and of life, quick to ask the question: “Are creative spaces really conductive to working life, or nothing more than the reckless folly of companies with more money than sense?” Well research does heavily

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Google Headquarters, USA

lean in favour of Google and co., showing that there is well and truly method in their madness. A recent study from the British Council of Offices revealed that over 54% of people felt their corporate culture did not support their wellbeing, so amalgamating work and play within an “everything under one roof” environment is perhaps the most comprehensive way to ensure a happy workforce. Further evidence shows that if the workforce feel sufficiently motivated their performance will improve, with Business Zone attesting: “engaging and enlightening spaces is one of the best relationships a business can offer its employees, asserting value, fostering personal connections and enhancing wellbeing”.

Furthermore, in terms of the space itself, furniture expert Kevin Kuske from Turnstone says companies should embrace ‘urban zoning’, which splits an office space into clearly-defined areas fit for specific tasks—“it makes for better collaboration because people have a choice [of where to work]”.

The next consideration is that there are options for all kinds of creativity: is there a place for someone who likes to engage with lots of people at once? Is there a place for visual thinkers? Is there a space for concentrated workers?

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Particularly in digital companies, there’s a new revelation that companies want to encourage in their staff: “casual collisions” or “unplanned collaborations”. Much like the engineering of a creative Big Bang, these casual encounters rely on an unplanned collision of creative entities that leads to an innovative idea. This explains why there is much onus on collaborative and communal spaces in creative offices: Top executive bigwigs want to encourage chance happenings between employees that will result in something bigger. Yahoo even verifies that “some of the best decisions and insights come from hallway and cafeteria discussions”.

These theories go some way to proving that the likes of Google, Facebook and YouTube are onto something with their innovative offices.

Of course flexible and innovative offices aren’t for everyone. Ball-pits, slides and all manner of recreational indulgences could perhaps be seen as “too casual” for a law firm and “too whimsical” for a finance company, but for a company who specialises in innovation, creation and design, these spaces are—to borrow a phrase from an old children’s classic—“just right”. It is not by coincidence that established and up-and-coming companies in the design, fashion, media and particularly tech worlds are the ones embracing creative office spaces with open arms. These sectors

in particular have thrived in the madness of creative spaces because they are the companies who have the designers, free-thinking workforce and crucially the financial backing available at the drop of a hat to create a space that defies reason and flips the traditional office space well and truly on its head. Let’s face it—would you trust a law firm if, when asking for the way to the boardroom, you were faced with the answer: “Take a left at the pool table, down the fireman’s pole into the bar, then take a right before you get to the basketball court”?

2. Airbnb—in their San Francisco HQ, Airbnb take their brand identity to a whole new level, with each room decorated to resemble a real Airbnb listing.

The creative office space is certainly an acquired taste, but one that is taking the working world by storm. What’s next in this kooky trend nobody knows, but one thing is for sure—it will be more weird and wonderful than the last. Watch this space…

4. Zappos—online shoe and clothing gurus Zappos created a truly one-of-a-kind meeting space, championing a UFO-shaped conference room in the courtyard of its Las Vegas base.

The top 5 coolest office design features: 1. Pixar—reimagining the typical and lacklustre office cubicle, each employee at Pixar’s Emeryville office gets a customisable shed as their personal space.

3. Square—anything but square, this ecommerce company has a fleet of webcam-enabled robots that roam around the office, allowing remote employees the ability to wander around the office, interact with co-workers and attend meetings as normal.

5. Missguided—the only UK office to make the list, online fashion retailer Missguided have revolutionised their space in Manchester to include floating meeting rooms, a dedicated champagne room, a real Chinese blossom tree and even a ‘selfie tunnel’ to create what owner Nitin Passi calls “the most ‘Instagrammable’ office there’s ever been”.

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We create fantastic places for people, for inspired living.

Forshaw Land & Property Group

For more information and details upon products contact Tel: 0161 772 1394 | Web: www.forshawland.com

BUILDING A DIFFERENT FUTURE As the population grows do we look to alter the planet’s future?

Words : Alex Timperley | View : Sebastien Burel

The effects of man-made climate change are fast outstripping the direst predictions from climate experts. We are heating the earth up too much and too quickly and it looks likely that the planet will become inhospitable to our current society within our lifetime.

The climate change we are seeing is a direct result of there being too much of certain greenhouse gases in the earth’s atmosphere – primarily Carbon Dioxide (CO2). Greenhouse gases act as a blanket which traps heat inside the atmosphere and warms the planet, a particular problem when there are more humans burning more fuel than ever before. Our atmosphere is becoming saturated by CO2 as we burn coal, oil and gas and rapidly deforest the planet in aid of logging and the creation of more and more agricultural land.

Global warming caused by climate change is a vital and urgent problem, not because it will cause us irreversible problems today or tomorrow, but because it is almost guaranteed to ruin our future unless drastic, extreme measures are undertaken by us right now. The issue with greenhouse gases is that they stay in the atmosphere for hundreds of years and their effects are compounded, becoming many times worse the longer we ignore the problem. The levels of CO2 and other greenhouse gases

released into the atmosphere have risen exponentially since the industrial revolution and continue to increase every year.

Every day that we do not take action is a day’s damage which will have a multiplier effect in years to come, and its effects will be dealt with by future generations who have not yet been born. Among many other things, a warming world will see changes to weather patterns which we do not understand, melting ice caps, rising seas and failing crops.

And make no mistake – the planet is warming up to dangerous levels.

At the same time as 200 countries agreed at the 2015 Paris Agreement to “[hold] the increase in global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels,” while “pursuing” efforts to keep it under 1.5°C, we are living through a period of time where every year sees a new record set for global temperature. 2016 is set to break the record set in 2015. In the first six months of the year, the earth’s temperature was a massive 1.3°C above pre-industrial times. The odds on that figure improving over the second half of 2016 are not good.

We are entering what the International Union of Geological Sciences has dubbed the Anthropocene Age – the age where humanity does not just

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Melting Ice-cap, North Pole

exist in nature, but is the key force forming it. Our influence is now so widespread that we are the defining factor with which everything else on the planet must contest.

So, what can be done to mitigate the severe peril we have exposed the earth to?

There is no course of action which is 100% guaranteed to work. The complex interrelationship between the world’s ecosystems defies cast iron predictions. However, it can be assumed that humans renouncing fossil fuels and switching all of our combined energies to finding a long term sustainable fuel solution as of tomorrow would be a net gain for the world. On the other hand, it can also be assumed that this will not happen, so in the meantime we must look to other solutions.

A proposal which has gained serious traction in recent years is large scale climate engineering.

The Royal Society defines climate engineering as the deliberate and

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large-scale intervention in the earth’s climatic system with the aim of limiting adverse climate change. Climate engineering is generally made up of two different types of measures; Carbon Dioxide removal and solar radiation management.

Carbon Dioxide removal involves technologies which directly remove CO2 from the atmosphere, reducing the overall levels. Using technology to remove carbon from the atmosphere permanently and create negative emissions, for instance by burying it, goes a step further than simply not adding any more. The negative emissions approach to reducing atmospheric carbon dioxide is an active way of helping ourselves and could be a big step towards protecting the earth if introduced on large enough scale.

The most promising, headline grabbing technology in this category is Bio-energy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS), a technology which can be used in factories which make chemicals and fuels as well as power plants. Power plants in particular are one of the world’s biggest emitters of CO2 and any serious efforts to reduce our worldwide carbon

imaginably large. Estimates for the amount of growing space needed for mass-scale BECCS systems settle around an area at least twice the size of India. In an age where the world’s population is growing as fast as it is, where is it possible to find that amount of space which is both arable and unused for food production? And this is not a short term situation – the land would be out of action for decades at least, and probably indefinitely.

Another issue with BECCS technology is that the 2015 Paris Agreement does not specifically mention BECCS or any other negative emissions technologies in all of its 32 pages. This is both puzzling and worrying as the carbon targets blithely tossed out by many governments assume a dependence on negative emissions technology which is not reflected in official joint agreements. If negative emissions technology does not prove to be as revolutionary as hoped or if governments do not properly fund it then there is no Plan B and it is highly unlikely we will ever meet the necessary carbon reduction targets. Without technology such as BECCS, the targets agreed in Paris will lead us to a world somewhere between 2.7-3°C above pre-industrial levels. That is not a good temperature for the earth to reach.

Carbon can also be directly extracted from the atmosphere using mechanical processes. The rough principle behind this technology is that air is forced through machinery which contains a liquid sorbent or organic compounds derived from ammonia, known as amines. As the air passes through, carbon dioxide is bonded to these chemicals and thereby removed from the equation. In theory, this method could see some considerable success as it removes CO2 in such a fashion that it can be repackaged and sold on in the future. CO2 is used for such diverse purposes as rejuvenating oil wells, carbonating fizzy drinks and stimulating plant growth in commercial greenhouses; It is a $1bn dollar industry. Self-interest and greed are playing a major part in creating the mess we are in; perhaps if direct carbon capture can be made profitable, self-interest and greed can help get us out of trouble as well.

There are clearly risks associated with relying on both BECCS and direct carbon removal, most prominently the strong suspicion that they will either not be the wonder technologies we hope they are or they will be underfunded to the point of uselessness. So, what other options are there for reducing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere?

It is a commonly accepted fact of life that we use fertilisers and pesticides to produce the conditions for mass agriculture on land, but there is no consensus for similar stimulation of the world’s oceans, which are experiencing increasing acidification as climate change takes hold.

Oceans absorb a massive amount of CO2 and convert it into carbonic acid which upends the food oceanic food chain. The levels of carbonic acid in the water have reached such extreme levels that the pH of the ocean has dropped to levels unprecedented in the last 300 million years of the fossil record. Carbonic acid dissolves calcium carbonate, the key mineral in the shells of many marine animals, and limestone, the base building block of coral reefs. The phytoplankton which produce approximately 60% of the oxygen on earth via photosynthesis also suffer from the lowered pH of the ocean which makes it harder for them to absorb nutrients and lowers their numbers. Almost everything in the sea relies on phytoplankton, as do the at least one billion people who rely on the sea for their primary food source.

footprint must take the various power grids around the world into account.

Stations using BECCS technology take away a portion of the coal or natural gas they would usually burn and replace it with biomass. Plant life naturally absorbs carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and replaces it with the oxygen required for the vast majority of animal life on earth. When plants die they usually decompose and release their accumulated carbon back into the atmosphere. Under a BECCS system, the plants are burned to create power and their carbon is captured and stored underground rather than being released. In this way, carbon is removed from the atmosphere permanently via the plant life which, when burned as biomass, in turn enables power plants to use less fossil fuel to produce electricity, reducing the future output as well. It is, in theory, a win-win situation.

However, despite the obvious upsides it seems clear that BECCS simply cannot be the solution to all of our problems. The main issue with any system along these lines is that if the whole world shifted to Biomass power then the area needed to grow the fuel plants would be almost un-

In response to this unfolding catastrophe, the stimulation of the oceans through fertilisation has been proposed – adding either iron, phosphorus or nitrogen, depending on the current make-up of the area of the ocean under consideration. This would be achieved by adding nutrients to the top layers of the ocean with the aim of increasing the numbers of phytoplankton to more sustainable levels. More phytoplankton means a more robust food chain and, crucially, a greater mass of photosynthetic organisms which will remove CO2 from the atmosphere.

As with carbon capture technology, attempting to allay the worst of ocean acidification is only one front in the fight against climate change. We still do not know the full effects of the widespread use of industrial fertilisers and pesticides in agriculture and, likewise, ocean fertilisation is likely to have unknown consequences down the line. However, what we know at the moment is that our oceans are both key to our continued survival and are rapidly acidifying due to manmade climate change, with dire consequences for us all.

In contrast to carbon dioxide removal, solar radiation management technology seeks to combat climate change by reflecting sunlight back

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Large industry, Russia

According to the UN, there are now 3.3 million premature deaths every year from air pollution, about three-quarters of which are from strokes and heart attacks. With nearly 1.4 million deaths a year, China has the most air pollution fatalities, followed by India with 645,000 and Pakistan with 110,000.

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out of the atmosphere, thereby limiting global warming. Sea ice reflects around 50% of the solar radiation it receives back into space. In comparison, sea water reflects as little as 10% of the received solar radiation back into space due to its much darker colour. As the earth warms, the ice melts and less solar radiation is reflected back into space, leading to the earth heating up at a greater rate, exacerbating the problem. That is the issue with climate change – the problems tend to be interrelated and cascade into each other. It rapidly becomes difficult to tell the difference between cause and effect as everything begins to enter an unpleasant feedback loop and spiral out of control.

As the amount of sea ice reduces, we must look to technological solutions to try and repair the damage. This is where solar radiation management comes into play.

Solar radiation management is concerned with albedo – the proportion of the incident light or radiation reflected by a planet or moon; in this case, the earth. It is estimated that a 2% reduction in the earth’s albedo would roughly halve the effects of the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere doubling.

Radiation management technologies are generally a temporary response to the climate change issue which can be used as cover while we sort out the mess that is our atmosphere by reducing greenhouse gas levels.

There are some clear benefits to solar radiation management as well as some obvious downsides. These technologies are generally cheap, and the speed with which they can be deployed and become active is impressive. However, as mentioned previously, the biggest mark against solar radiation management is that it does nothing to address the current levels of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere or other issues such as ocean acidification. It could also come with unintended side effects, such as affecting the earth’s hydrological cycle, and there is a danger that if we suddenly stop using it then the earth’s temperature could suddenly rise very sharply, doing more damage than if it had increased more slowly over a longer period of time – this is known as termination shock. However, given that we as a species are currently running an experiment to see what happens to the earth when it is heated up by 2°C above pre-industrial levels, perhaps now is not the time to get squeamish about unknown consequences. We are already seeing plenty of those.

Solar radiation management technology comes in two flavours – atmospheric and terrestrial. Atmospheric technologies are typically based around stratospheric aerosols which-are chemicals, usually sulphates, which mimic the after effects of volcanic eruptions which cool the earth.

Similar results can be achieved by spraying seawater into the atmosphere.

The extra condensation nuclei created by the spray will change the distribution of drops in existing clouds, making them whiter and, therefore, more reflective.

Terrestrial solutions rely on similar principles. Cool roof initiatives look to use white or pale coloured materials on the roofs of houses or other buildings in order to reflect sunlight. Reflective sheeting is also being deployed in the world’s deserts – 67,000 square miles of sheeting are being installed across the world every year until 2017. This makes a big contribution but is strongly regional in nature as well as having a serious impact of local ecology. The regional nature of these ideas overshadows all terrestrial solar radiation management solutions. The earth’s surface is mostly ocean, and a large area on land is comparatively very small when you look at the big picture. Other solutions such as genetically modified crops with a higher albedo or a giant set of diffusion mirrors in space are more fantastical, but that is not to say they should not be pursued. The human capacity for imaginative thinking is probably the only way we will be able to properly fight the severe climate change we are visiting on the world.

Climate engineering may well ensure the future of the human race as we fight to reverse the worst effects of climate change inflicted on the earth’s ecosystems by too-rapid globalisation. Technologies designed to both reduce the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere and reflect greater amounts of sunlight away from the earth could work in tandem to improve our situation. Or, another miraculous climate engineering technology might come along and answer all our problems – but we can’t rely on that. Until that happens, we must continue to improve climate engineering technology as well as reduce our carbon footprint and hope that the measures are enough.

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ECO HOUSE BUILDING GPS takes a look at the importance of eco-friendly housing building

Words : Rachel Sharman | View : Alexandre Zveiger

These days there are an ever-growing amount of ways people can choose to be environmentally friendly. From small things like recycling, to larger green decisions such as buying alternatively powered cars, there is often an eco-friendly option.

buildings have so much energy saving potential. According to EESI (the Environmental and Energy Study Institute), “By transforming the built environment to be more energy-efficient and climate-friendly, the building sector can play a major role in reducing the threat of climate change.”

Unfortunately, misconceptions about what eco building means and how However, when it comes to the housing market, going green isn’t often the important it actually is are rife, and so this article intends to give you a first thing on buyers’ minds, if it even factors onto the list at all. Likewise, better understanding about the whole sector. many property developers are wary of eco buildings. What does it mean?

What does it require? How much does it all cost?

To begin with - what exactly is eco building?

It’s no surprise that there are so many questions; the world of eco building is a relatively niche sector. Building and buying environmentally friendly and socially conscious properties can sound intimidating, expensive, and overall a little farfetched and futuristic for today’s world. But this needs to change.

Eco or green building is basically the idea of building with less of a negative impact on the environment. This can apply to both the development of a property, as well as its ability to sustain itself once the builders have gone home. Some of the more common properties of eco buildings include:

The current global property market is massively energy inefficient. It is estimated that the world’s buildings consume 40-60% of global energy and 25% of water. Many believe that it is paramount that eco building becomes more of a worldwide priority in the coming years, as

> Using resources such as water and energy (amongst others) more efficiently > Being produced out of sustainable and natural materials

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Modern Eco House, Europe

> Reducing pollution, waste, and environmental degradation What’s important to remember is that there is no one set definition of an eco building, it’s more of an environmentally friendly scale.

So why are eco buildings important to the environment?

Beyond the amount of resources buildings require to run, they are also huge producers of emissions around the world. Again the statistics vary, but the general consensus seems to be that in a developed nation buildings produce around 35-40% of greenhouse gases. This is mainly due to the energy required to light, cool and heat buildings.

It may seem like a huge challenge to convince the world that eco housing is important and worth investing into, but it’s a noble cause in the face of environmental uncertainty where we can make changes today. The United Nations Environment Program believes that energy consumption in buildings can be reduced from 30-80% by tried and tested, currently available green technologies. In short, eco building does not have to be a measure solely for the future.

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Plus, beyond the whole ‘reducing the threat of climate change’ thing, there are a whole host of other positive aspects to green building too.

In 2009 a report looking at 12 sustainable and green buildings found that occupants had higher satisfaction levels than they did with typical commercial buildings. An eco building doesn’t just mean that it has a few solar panels on the roof or can recycle water in the basement, it is a sentiment which has to be followed throughout the lifecycle of the building. For example, green buildings often prioritise using local materials rather than wasting energy flying in various resources from around the world. And this sentiment continues on the inside. Eco buildings often provide more comfortable and healthy interiors, boosting satisfaction rates.

Eco buildings are also usually run very efficiently. They are often designed with both electricity-producing and water-treating systems in place, leading to excellent energy performance with savings of up to 30%. This means that eco buildings are significantly cheaper to power over a long period.

Additionally, depending on how environmentally friendly the building is, the very materials it was built out of may also provide better insulation and cooling abilities - saving money there as well.

The careful planning, design and building of eco properties also leads them to be sustainable in a literal sense; eco buildings often see fewer long-term maintenance and running costs.

But surely this all comes at a price?

It is true that eco buildings cost more to create. Not only do environmentally conscious materials and any necessary structures (to treat water or create electricity, for example) require more money than a normal building would need, but there’s also the human cost of co-ordinating a team of architects, engineers, builders, designers and managers to create such a specialist building.

Creating a green building can cost anywhere from 0.42% to 12.5% more than a regular building of similar size (based on findings in the UK, USA, Australia, Singapore and Israel). However, it must be noted that the projects

with the highest upfront comparable costs are often the more ambitious zero carbon projects, meaning it produces as much energy as it uses.

Yet despite the intimidating premiums associated, many eco buildings do see the savings in energy and water soon outweigh the original cost. It’s a common theme throughout a green building’s lifecycle that, although it was more expensive to erect, every other step is cheaper.

Plus, it is interesting to compare the actual price of eco buildings versus how much more the general public believe they would cost. Surveys have proven that most people believe they’d have to pay up to 29% more to build an eco house, instead of the 12.5% average maximum.

So all together, eco building seems like a generally good idea. It doesn’t cost as much as people think it will, it can actually save money in the long term, and it’s better for the environment too. But that does raise the question as to why it’s still relatively niche in the building world. The short answer is that because eco building is not necessary by law, many would rather avoid the higher upfront cost.

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What are governments doing to promote green building?

Not many countries have implemented nationwide rules to prevent non-green building, instead they are often simply voluntary. For example, in ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) only Singapore and Thailand have compulsory laws regarding environmentally conscious new-builds, whereas Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam don’t.

Of course, there are certain environmentally conscious legislations from place to place. For example, in 1979 Germany introduced laws regarding a building’s insulation. Back then, energy consumption was about 146 kilowatt hour per square metre, but the law has lowered today’s figure to only 50 kilowatt hour per square metre - a significant drop.

More recently, one of the most bustling property markets in the world - London - saw a rule change at the end of summer 2016 to promote green building. From now onwards, all new build residential schemes in the UK’s capital must fulfil a zero carbon requirement.

These specific types are laws are important and promote green building positively, but they’re not going to change the world. It’s difficult for governments to produce a restrictive list of what a company can or cannot do when building, because they don’t want to hamper their country’s construction industry.

For example, going back to the new London zero carbon rules, they were actually originally going to be rolled out throughout the whole of the UK this year, but the scheme was controversially axed in 2015 because the government wanted to “reduce net regulations on house builders”.

London is lucky - there’s such a high demand to build property there, the city can implement schemes like this without much fear of property developers going elsewhere. Whereas the rest of the UK is facing a bit of a housing crisis.

So rather than blanket rules, the biggest ways global governments have tried to promote eco building is by creating green rating systems for properties to make them seem more attractive to owners and occupiers.

There are a few for different countries - BREEAM (United Kingdom), DGNB (Germany), CASBEE (Japan), VERDEGBCe (Spain), with the US and Canada’s LEED arguably being the most popular globally. They all work in a similar way, giving credits to buildings with green features such as: > Location - building somewhere that doesn’t disrupt the local natural environment. An example of this is building on brown field sites instead of the green belt. > Maintenance of the building site > Conservation of water, energy, and building materials > Occupant comfort and health Although a global classification may be useful, it’s rather necessary to have different systems for different countries, as they often have to take local environmental factors into account (such as weather and availability of resources).

However, some environmental enthusiasts don’t think these rating systems are vigorous enough on property developers and believe that all too often corners are cut in order to gain a higher rating.

For example, Emmanuel Cosgrove, director of the Canadian green-building organisation EcoHome, said: “A system like LEED gives little pats on the back for doing good deeds and the more little pats on the back that you get, the more you get a medal—like going from LEED silver to gold to platinum.”

One reaction to these more lenient national systems is a number of newly created private environmental rating systems. An example of this is the US based ‘Living Building Challenge’ which describes itself as: “A philosophy first, an advocacy tool second, and a certification program

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third”, purposefully detracting from being merely used as a badge of honour.

That being said, there is a certain pride one can feel having met the Living Building Challenge standard. Not only has a certified building followed difficult rules such as: collecting and treating all water on site, not using any of the 22 chemicals on the company’s ‘red list’, and creating an aesthetically pleasing interior which can ‘lift the human spirit’, it would also be one of only 331 in the world (as of April 2016).

The Living Building Challenge looks at eco building as a way of going beyond just carbon neutral, or lowering the cost of electricity, but to try and better the world with its properties. Obviously, the scheme is still in its early stages, but as the importance of eco building continues to grow, so will its prestige.

To many, creating a building capable of meeting the Living Building Challenge standard may seem practically impossible. The costs and work needed aside, it can seem almost too ultramodern and fantastical for today’s world. But in the same way that electric cars only started gaining

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real traction at the beginning of the century, but are estimated to make 35% of global car sales by 2040, these kind of eco initiatives can be viable if understood by people and backed by governments.

Because ultimately, that’s what eco building needs - a greater understanding and acceptance around the world. Misconceptions about cost often put people off, when in fact the prices of many green technologies and construction costs are on a downwards trajectory.

Realistically, a lot of people would not object to living in a green building and a lot of people would even seek one out, were it a more normal option.

Fortunately, it’s a growing sector. You only have to make note of how many houses have solar panels on their roofs to see that going green is something people are concerned about (even if it’s just for the free energy for themselves). Or how people are beginning to favour the LED light bulb, which has a higher upfront cost but saves people from having to change their lights every month.

And with greater recognition comes increased funding, further research,

and better eco products. It’s an industry of innovation. Sometimes it goes back to basics - straw and bamboo are both lauded green building materials. Not only are they quick and easy to produce, bamboo is stronger than wood, brick and concrete, and straw bales have been proven to build superior houses! And then there are new technologies such as ‘hempcrete’, (hemp and lime construction blocks) a concrete substitute which improves air quality, reduces energy consumption, produces a negative carbon footprint and is renewable.

There are an ever growing number of eco materials, technologies and property developments all around the world. And as we progress into a more energy uncertain future their importance will only increase until they become the necessary norm instead of a futuristic niche or way of gaining a fancy certification.

The environment is a difficult subject and no one really knows what exactly is going to happen. But eco building could be a vital key in the future, so it’s best to improve our awareness of it now.

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THE WORLD OF FINE DINING The Michelin Guide

Words : Hannah Wilde | View : T Young

The little red book. For the average person these four little words are seemingly harmless, but for a chef these words are enough to strike fear into their hearts, as this only means one thing—The Michelin Guide.

What once began life as a clever marketing ploy by a budding car tyre company—a guide designed by the Michelin brothers in 1900 to encourage people to journey out for long rambling trips in their cars, thus wearing out their tyres faster—soon became something much larger and much more important, both culturally and gastronomically. Realising the insatiable appetite they had awakened for fine food, the Guide soon shifted gear, almost completely abandoning its automotive focus in favour of reviewing the very best of French dining.

Such was the success of the little red book in its formative years that it was only a matter of time before the Guide developed even further. With a loyal readership of keen foodies eager to learn about the next big thing in the foodosphere, Michelin extended its breadth to review the gastronomical wares of Europe. However, the biggest and most iconic change came in 1931 with the introduction of their tiered starring system, which saw the awarding of between 1-3 stars to some of the best dining

establishments in Europe. The new era of starred reviews signalled that the Guide’s transformation was complete: The Michelin Guide—far removed from its automotive past—was now the who’s who of fine dining, the ultimate masterstroke for luxury cuisine, and is still to this day the most influential indicator of gastronomical excellence in the world.

Although the actual recipe of what makes the perfect Michelin-starred restaurant is still a closely-guarded secret known only to an elite few, specialist website Restaurant.com explains Michelin’s iconic stars: > “A one-star restaurant is a technically very good restaurant in its category [with a] solid menu, but fails to stand out in a way that would bring people back again and again; > A two-star restaurant has excellent cooking, delivered in a unique way— these restaurants have something exceptional to offer and are considered by Michelin to be worth the detour in any trip to visit; > A three-star restaurant has exceptional cuisine—these restaurants are not simply a stop-off on the way to some larger destination: they are the destination”.

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Roasted duck with plums and shiitake mushrooms

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For more than a century Michelin has had a foothold as the premier arbiter of fine dining, and this shows—chefs hold an untold reverence for the Guide, with renowned French chef Paul Bocuse acknowledging: “Michelin is the only guide that counts”. But what makes Michelin the crème-de-lacrème, the grande fromage if you will, of restaurant critiquing? This is a big and very loaded question, but one of the many reasons Michelin is feared and revered in equal measure is down to the secret weapon in its arsenal: its inspectors. When dissecting Michelin’s recipe for success, this is relatively simple: Anonymity is the order of the day, with a sprinkle of mystique and a dash of finesse, culinary gravitas and consistency added for good measure. Michelin’s inspectors are as elusive as the stars they so sparsely distribute, with over a century of experience finessing what The New Yorker calls “its aura of incorruptibility”.

But of course it’s not just the inspectors’ ability to go incognito that makes them feared in every European kitchen worth their salt—Inspectors are chosen for their amazing palette, their extensive experience of the culinary world, and of course their love of food. In one of the rare times an inspector has been allowed to speak to a journalist (over the phone rather than in person, and under the guise of a pseudonym, no less), one of Michelin’s elite was somewhat unapologetic in her assessment of what constitutes good food, and it’s all about accuracy: “Cooking is a science—it’s either right or it’s wrong. And that’s something that’s very objective. Either a sauce is prepared accurately, or it’s not. A fish is cooked accurately, or it’s not”. Whether or not you question the validity and credentials of famously unseen Michelin inspectors, what is undeniable is that Michelin inspectors know their food. Among a myriad of other qualities—as well as to going to “the mothership [France] to understand the origins of the system”, a process which takes several years—Michelin inspectors have to be able to identify, remember and comment on complicated flavour combinations at the drop of a hat.

But the climb to become the gastronomical elite hasn’t always been easy for Michelin. The Guide has come under fire from all angles in recent years, with the troubles stemming primarily from one man: a former (and particular disgruntled) Michelin inspector Pascal Rémy. His exposé “L’inspecteur se met á table”, idiomatically translated to “The Inspector Puts It All on the Table”, was truly eye-opening. Far removed from the glitz and glamour of being paid to dine in some of the world’s finest restaurants, Rémy described the life of a Michelin inspector as lonely and underpaid, stressful and dictated by a never-ending stream of strict deadlines. However, most worryingly of all, Rémy confirmed all chefs’ unspoken fears: he accused the guide of favouritism, treating famous French chefs like Paul Bocuse and Alain Ducasse as “untouchable”, so sacrosanct that they aren’t subject to the same stringent and rigorous standards as other chefs.

First-hand details of culinary nepotism straight from a former member of the upper echelon provided sufficient proof of all the misgivings of Michelin, opening the floodgates to a discord and disquiet that threatened to unravel all that Michelin had spent a century creating. Grumblings echoed around the culinary world of Michelin’s supposed prejudices, with the Guardian condemning the Guide as “a tool of Gallic cultural imperialism” in obvious reference to Michelin’s penchant for traditional French haute cuisine. Vanity Fair was even more scathing in their 2012 review: “[Michelin] wasn’t only the assassin of the greatest national food ever conceived, it’s not hyperbolic to say Michelin was the French haute cuisine’s Brutus…

Michelin-starred restaurants began to look and taste the same, the service would be cloying and oleaginous, the menus vast and clotted with verbiage, the food would be complicated beyond appetite, and it would all be ridiculously expensive”, before rounding off with the accusation that “Michelin has produced a legion of miserable gourmands, people who care more about the valet parking than conviviality [which] proves how Francophile, bloated and snobbish the business really is”.

Vehemently batting back accusations of favouring overly fussy and incredibly expensive restaurants, Michelin points to three factors that dispel all rumours of economic elitism and grandiloquence. The first is the ‘Bib Gourmand’, a commendation named after the company’s iconic Michelin Man (fondly nicknamed Bibendum) presented to restaurants that offer “exceptional good food at moderate prices”. The second is the newly-launched Michelin Pub Guide, a whole volume dedicated to the best public houses in an area that offers exceptional food without the prissy pretentions often found in the restaurant world. And perhaps the final nail in the coffin of any talks of pecuniary snobbism is the fact that some of the most recent additions to the Michelin star club are nondescript restaurants, where the portions are plentiful and the prices are pittances.

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Eons away from the crisp white linens, stuffy maître d’s, ostentatious décor and exorbitantly pretentious (yet infinitesimally small) food churned out by the traditional French bistros of the past, today’s inclusions into the Michelin family have included a sushi bar in a multi-storey car park (Sushi Saito, Tokyo), and a unique gastro-brasserie “designed to push the boundaries of art and functionality” (Sketch, London). However, the most pointed of all these rebuttals is the presentation of a Michelin star to a hawker food stall in Singapore—the first of two hawker stalls ever to be nominated, let alone win, a notorious star. Malaysian-born Chan Hon Meng heads up the charmingly simple Hong Kong Soya Sauce Chicken Rice and Noodle, a stall in Singapore’s Chinatown Complex that has attracted the keen senses of Michelin inspectors after they got wind of 100-strong queues willing to wait over two hours every day for a taste of Meng’s famous chicken. When told of his incredible accolade, the head chef was stunned: “When I received the invitation I was unsure…I asked them ‘Are you joking? Why would Michelin come to my stall? I’ve never heard of Michelin inspectors visiting a street stall’”.

Despite his initial shock, Meng has now adjusted to life as a Michelin chef but kept his feet firmly on the ground, saying he has no intention of raising prices. In keeping with his refreshingly grounded perspective, Chan Hon Meng has noted the only changes to his day-to-day routine is that he now starts at 5/6am instead of his cursory 7am, and cooks 30 more chickens each day, bringing the total to a staggering 180. However, it’s unsurprising that chicken is definitely the plat de jour at Hong Kong Soya Sauce Chicken Rice and Noodle, with Meng’s signature dish—the stall’s namesake, Hong Kong-style soya sauce chicken—proving incredibly popular with punters and is now the most affordable Michelin meal in the world (at a cost of just over £1). This goes against all talk of elitism, favouritism and culinary nepotism, proving what The Guide has attested all along: that Michelin is just doing what Michelin does best—rewarding great food by equally great chefs.

Although the feat achieved by Chan Hon Meng was nothing short of incredible, there is one question that is as of yet unsolved: given the criticism and accusations that surrounds the almost mythical Michelin stars, why is it that any chef worth their salt will still dream of the ultimate culinary nod? It’s undeniable: Michelin stars are a global cultural currency.

Stars bring with them thousands of people willing to travel enormous distances to dine in restaurants recommended by Michelin, thus accounting for a huge amount in additional revenue.

But as the saying goes: “With one hand giveth, the other can taketh away”—and Michelin has the power to revoke what they are so careful to award. Such are the importance of Michelin stars, notorious blue-mouthed macho-chef Gordon Ramsey openly admits that he wept when his restaurant The London lost both its Michelin stars: “It’s a very emotional thing for any chef…it’s like losing a girlfriend, you want her back”. Ramsey isn’t the only one to have a hugely emotional reaction to the idea of losing a prized Michelin star—perhaps the posterchild for the power that Michelin yields over its chefs is the tragic tale of Bernard Louiseau, sous-chef of renowned restaurant La Cote d’Or. Louiseau made it his life’s work to climb up the rungs of the Michelin ladder, a goal he finally achieved with the presentation of this third star in 1991 after 17 long years. However, his elation wasn’t to last—when it was suggested that his beloved third star was “living on borrowed time” by a disenfranchised food journalist, the chef killed himself in 2003 at the age of 52.

You could spend all day discussing the merits and misgivings of Michelin, but one thing is for sure—they certainly come out on top in the stakes for guiding willing foodies towards their next amuse-bouche, the next big thing in gastronomical excellence. The world of haute cuisine (both French and otherwise) can be seen by many to be nepotistic, elitist and antiquated—but then others would agree that when you’re analysing the best foods in the world, it’s bound to be an expensive and inclusive affair; after all, both diet and clientele frequenting Michelin restaurants are infamous for being incredibly rich—in both senses of the word.

To borrow a famous saying, Michelin most certainly can have their cake and will without doubt eat it—because how else can they ensure it’s the best in the world? Whatever misgivings you may have about the establishment, Michelin has that je ne sais quoi that cannot be replicated.

After all, there’s a reason they are the world’s culinary tour-de-force.

Black risotto

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ROOM WITH A VIEW How is Airbnb affecting the housing market?

Words : Emma Martin | View : kakoki

In the age of the App we are always on the lookout for the next big thing.

Tech savvy entrepreneurs are tapping into the smartphone market, to bring us innovative tools and platforms that - with the swipe of a finger streamline our day to day lives.

Now in 2016 the website boasts over 2 million unique listings across 191 countries, and has hosted over 60 million guests worldwide. Worth a whopping $25 billion, Forbes has even listed founder Brian Chesky on the list of ‘Global Game Changers’, aged just 34.

One such App that’s emerged as a dominant force in the digital space is Airbnb.

But for all its plaudits Airbnb has begun to bear the brunt of some serious scrutiny.

From humble beginnings in a San Francisco loft apartment, to a tourist’s pocket accommodation hub. This is one venture that, alongside sensational growth and global recognition, has directly impacted on the industries it shares the market with.

Behind the scenes the home-grown business is facing criticism from many different angles, including the hospitality industry, local councils and homeowners, with legal action being taken against the home-share company for their cultural and economic effect.

It’s safe to say young designers, and co-founders, Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia have put themselves firmly in the top list of earners out of this new frontier in short term rental. In 2007 the two friends dreamed up Airbnb when they were unable to meet the rent on their apartment, deciding to let it out to tourists for an 80 dollar a night price tag to help pay the bills.

At the time, no-one could have possibly imagined how Chesky and Gebbia’s brainchild would turn in to the worldwide phenomenon we know today.

Perhaps one of the biggest conversations being had right now in relation to Airbnb is that of the housing market, and the strain this popular website may be having on an already volatile market.

“We were anxious, like waiting in line for a roller coaster. We didn’t know exactly what was ahead, but we knew we were in for a ride.” – Joe Gebbia

The Global Housing Crisis Around the world cities and towns are seeing unprecedented levels of residential development as population and tourism boom. Capital cities, in particular, are hubs for culture, art, business, and politics, and offer a desirable fast paced life at the heart of it all.

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Urban dwellers make up over half of the population, with this statistic projected to rise to a massive 66% by 2050 (and the population itself increasing indefinitely…).

This rapid growth, which has seen a surge in people moving to already densely populated metropolitan areas, is putting significant pressure upon the Global Housing Market.

Equally, in a world where travel is more accessible than ever before, the modern consumer is thirsty for new experiences. Travel to city locations is at an all-time high, with the Association of British Travel Agents reporting that 54% of holidaymakers opted for a city-break in 2015.

As more and more tourists, and homemakers alike, flock to the big city, pressure is building on the housing industry as there is not currently enough property on the market to keep up with such high demand.

So what has it got to do with Airbnb?

Saturated with short term tourist rentals, there are very few options for those looking to purchase their first home at an affordable price in sought after urban areas.

The UK Homeless Charity Shelter recently released statistics that encapsulate growing concerns surrounding the housing crisis within cities.

Incredibly, only 43 properties in the City of London were a realistic buying option for the average earner searching for their first home.

This means that in the English capital only 0.1% of the market was available at an affordable price.

Compare this availability to that of a cut-price weekend stay in London, and you’ll have the pick of 46,646 Airbnb listings. If every one of the unoccupied Airbnb ‘hotels’ were made available on the market, things might begin to look very different.

A Great Investment As it is, investors across the globe are getting behind the idea of Airbnb – snapping up properties in popular tourist destinations.

Charging just 3% as a fee for each completed reservation Airbnb charges a lower percentage than most, is user friendly, easy to set up, and seamless to maintain – there are even websites benefiting from Airbnb’s success by offering ‘Airbnb Management’, such as Guesty and Airhosta, which can make your investment completely hands free, as well as ‘Host Assist’ Apps who have partnered with the company to help you manage your listing efficiently.

The other major draw for users is that for the 3% charge you also benefit from the marketing machine that is Airbnb – and the instant customer base they provide.

However, the simplicity of the home-share platforms model may be facilitating the abuse of local law, and Airbnb guidelines – an issue that’s causing problems for the company.

In most capital cities where Airbnb is widely used by tourists, over half of the listings are for the entire home/apartment which (generally speaking) means that a large majority of these units are unoccupied and being used as a full-time money earner.

The situation is exacerbated when you consider the multiple listing hosts. A staggering 41.3% of hosts in London are multiple listing owners. When you consider the 0.1% of affordable housing, you can begin to understand the reason Airbnb is in the firing line.

These statistics show that there are a high percentage of users who may be sub-letting apartments illegally, or working outside of government guidelines when it comes to short-term rentals.

A report carried out in the United States showed that, in 2015, 56% of rentals from the site in New York City were breaking the law.

When looking to list your apartment you’re warned that there are varying laws in different cities, and subsequently directed to the ‘Responsible Hosting’ page; at which point you’re redirected to check local legislation.

At no point are new listings being vetted.

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Santorini island, Greece

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Ice Hotel, Sweden

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Pantai Dalit beach, Borneo

In fact, thousands of hosts are abusing tenancy laws across the globe, and Airbnb just simply aren’t doing enough to monitor and combat this growing issue. This has led many industry experts to point the finger at the company, with accusations that the company has dodged its responsibility to help enforce and maintain proper regulations.

Local authorities are waging a war with the short term rental site.

Paris, Berlin, New York, San Francisco, Vancouver, Barcelona, California - and more - have all pitted themselves against Airbnb, vowing to make them pay fines for the damage being done to their individual housing markets.

In June 2016 the New York Senate passed a bill that prohibits the advertising of any unoccupied units for rentals lasting under 30 days – a bill which, if it reaches legislation, would almost entirely ban Airbnb from its biggest market.

A New York State Assemblywoman, Linda Rosenthal, claims that the new bill would be put in place to contest “people or companies with multiple listings”. She claims that multiple-listing hosts are damaging the economy.

“There are so many units held by commercial operators, not individual tenants. They are bad actors who horde multiple units, driving up the cost of housing around them and across the city.”

There has been some serious opposition to this new law, a backlash that would see many people lose out on an income stream they are reliant on, as well as making it harder for tourists to find accommodation.

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Actor and tech-investor Ashton Kutcher, who has invested millions in start-ups such as Uber, Spotify, Airbnb, Foursquare, and more, took to twitter to announce his anger at the proposed law declaring that ‘tech is the future’.

Other opposition to ‘anti-Airbnb’ laws are looking to the positive effect the push in tourism has had on the economy since the company’s inception.

In 2015, the Airbnb community generated $180 million towards the economy in Seattle. Airbnb maintain that ‘this revenue supports jobs, helps local hosts make ends meet, and is spread across Seattle’s diverse neighbourhoods and local businesses, including neighbourhoods that have not traditionally benefited from tourism.’

If this is applied to all the major cities in which Airbnb’s remain prevalent, then it is clear they’ll continue to play a vital (and positive) role in boosting tourism across the globe.

The Sharing Economy It’s important to take into account the original idea of Airbnb and their core ethos. Airbnb have cleverly marketed themselves as endorsers of the new ‘Sharing Economy’ – a concept based around the idea that humans should share resources from creative ideas to goods, trade and more. This has been a powerful tool for the brand, getting on board a new wave of cult followers who support their attitude.

What’s clear is, as Airbnb has grown, this philosophy has become diluted.

Where Chesky and Gebbia wanted to provide individual, personal, and unique trips - the website is now inundated with bland, white-walled, empty rooms being used purely to drive income.

Airbnb have recently unveiled two new launches, aimed at revitalising their founding values.

City Hosts: this new BETA program is aimed at getting back to the roots of what Airbnb is all about. It currently offers 18 authentic city experiences including: ‘Get Your Pick of Miami’s Superfood With a Vegan Chef’, ‘Craft your own documentary around multicultural Miami’, ‘Get shaking with Toto’s Electrópico spirit’, and ‘Board a Magic School Bus for a glimpse of hippie life’.

In the City Host option you will stay with your host and they will guide you round, really getting under the skin of local culture. Using this new option you can cherry-pick the experience you wish to have, and have a holiday tailor-made to your choices.

Samara: Airbnb have begun their venture into Urban Planning in rural Japan, taking 6 disused houses and turning them in to a community centre and stop-over for tourists – the Yoshino Cedar House. This house is aimed at giving the community an economic boost, as well as a focus to communicate and share. The concept would be to use architecture across the globe (reaching areas not frequently visited) to boost the sharing-economy, allowing small communities to work together to maintain their own centre which would build ties and strengthen the heritage of areas that

may otherwise be forgotten.

Both of these new avenues could look to combat the legal issues the company are facing in one key way: by removing the ‘absent’ host, and replacing it with community led, and personal experiences tailored to the traveller looking to get the most out of their trip.

So what’s next?

For almost a decade, Airbnb has sat at the very forefront of innovation.

With such expansive growth, a number of questions have been raised in regards to its impact on the housing market – and there is no doubt that if the company were to continue to grow in the same vein, there would be a need for local authority to step in and control the amount of affordable housing allowed to be used for short-term rental.

However, the company have actively acknowledged these concerns and in showing a willingness to adapt their business model - in a bid to appease heated opposition – the company are clearly open to change.

With increased regulation and a return to authentic values topping the list Airbnb have a real opportunity to bring positive changes to our economy and culture – offering people the chance to connect with others around the world in new exciting ways, and have experiences that they are unlikely to find anywhere else.

Airbnb undoubtedly face major hurdles ahead in the form of local authority and the hospitality industry. What’s clear is that both will need to adapt if they want to stand strong against new businesses that are continually looking for new and innovative ways to shake things up.

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WORLD MARKET VIEW The global financial crisis plunged property markets into a downward spiral. Eight years on, Global Property Scene takes a look at how the international markets are developing.

London, UK • Median sales price: $1,224,121* • Average price per sqft: $1,311

Note - Figures correct as of stated dates: *September 2016

Los Angeles, USA • Median sales price: $630,002* • Average price per sqft: $967

Mexico City, Mexico • Median sales price: $82,340* • Average price per sqft: $635

New York, USA • Median sales price: $1,314,533* • Average price per sqft: $1,761

Most visited cities in the world: (Correct as of September 2016)

London ------------------------------------------------------ 18.82 Bangkok -------------------------------------------------- 18.24 Paris ------------------------------------------------- 16.06 Dubai ----------------------------------------- 14.26

Sao Paulo, Brazil • Median sales price: $217,150* • Average price per sqft: $212

Istanbul ------------------------------- 12.56 New York --------------------------- 12.27 Singapore ------------------------ 11.88 Kuala Lumpur ---------------- 11.12

Cape Town, South Africa

Seoul ------------------------- 10.35 Hong Kong ---------- 8.66 Numbers based in millions (All figures collected from worldatlas)

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• Median sales price: $76,210* • Average price per sqft: $227

Singapore Moscow, Russia • Median sales price: $394,740* • Average price per sqft: $889

Dubai, UAE • Median sales price: $299,967* • Average price per sqft: $593

• Median sales price: $1,194,148* • Average price per sqft: $1,993

Sydney, Australia • Median sales price: $636421* • Average price per sqft: $989

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An increase in house prices means the value of your property may have grown substantially Take advantage of our proven record:

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WHAT’S THE ALTERNATIVE? Botswana

Words : Alex Timperley | View : Henning de Beer

Working out where to invest can be a tricky business where one wrong move is enough to see you lose your hard earned money. Investing in property is a sure fire way to see your money grow, but what if you want to invest in other areas? Where else should you look? In the latest entry in this series, Global Property Scene looks at the benefits of investing in a developing country. Specifically, we look at the potential benefits of investing in the Republic of Botswana.

be good, tax levels should be reasonable and there would preferably be no restrictions on taking earnings and profits back home with you. Finally, political stability is a key consideration – you don’t want to invest in a country which regularly sees political turmoil, or even collapse.

Investing in a foreign country can come in two forms. Foreign Direct Investment is investment in the form of a controlling ownership in a business enterprise in one country by an entity based in another country.

This differs from Foreign Portfolio Investment via the notion of control.

A portfolio investor may own 10 properties in a country; a direct investor might own the construction company which built those houses in the first place.

Botswana as it is today was formed in September 1966 after becoming independent from the Commonwealth. Previously known as the Bechuanaland Protectorate, Botswana was unusual for a former British colony in that it did not take a mass slaughter of its people in order for independence to be granted. In June 1964, Britain accepted proposals for democratic self-governance by the people of what would become Botswana and the administrative capital of the country was moved from Mafikeng in South Africa to the newly established Gaborone near the border. Gaborone remains the capital today. The name Botswana reflects the language of the Tswana people who are the majority in the country.

The language relies heavily on prefixes to denote meaning; For instance, ‘Bo-‘ refers to the country, ‘Ba-‘ refers to the people who are known as the Batswana, and ‘Se-‘ refers to language, the native Setswana tongue.

Nevertheless, the considerations for investing in a foreign country are the same whether you are looking to take a controlling stake in a business or buy a single house. The country in question must have rules and regulations which are sympathetic to foreign investors as well as positive trade policies and a strong, efficient local market. The growth rates should

With all the above in mind, the Republic of Botswana makes for an interesting investment proposition.

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Okavango delta, Botswana

Botswana itself is large, roughly the size of France, and very, very dry.

About 70% of the area of this landlocked country is taken up by the Kalahari Desert and its population of two million people are spread around very sparsely, from the 230,000 people living in Gaborone, the largest city, to the nomadic indigenous Barsawa people. It is a country with severe problems regarding inequality, drought, desertification and HIV/AIDS which affects 20% of all Batswana adults, despite lots of good work in reducing its prevalence.

However, this is not to give the impression that Botswana is any kind of failing state. In fact, the opposite is the truth.

Political stability should be a key factor when considering foreign investment and the Republic of Botswana is exemplary in that regard. The country enjoys a multi-party representative democracy with a judiciary independent of the executive and the legislature. The President is elected by the majority party in Parliament to a five year term and is both the head of state and the head of government. If democracy is the act of peacefully handing over power, then Botswana has excelled at it. Since achieving independence in 1966, Botswana has elected five Presidents and never experienced a civil war despite being surrounded by countries which have gone through severe political turbulence. This includes Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe and Apartheid South Africa. Such proven, recognisable and long term political stability should be a big positive for international investors.

Likewise, the economic story of Botswana since 1966 is one of general triumph. Since independence the Republic has enjoyed the

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highest average economic growth in the world per year, averaging 9% per year between 1966 and 1999. The turn of the Century brought slightly harder times to the country but a slight stagnation in growth in the early years of the 2000s has been consigned to the past and Botswana is once again registering yearly growth above its 6-7% target range. All of this has been achieved while being rated the least corrupt country in Africa

by Transparency International, at the same time as maintaining budget surpluses and extensive foreign exchange reserves. It hardly needs to be said, but this is an impressive achievement in an often volatile part of the world. The capital, Gaborone, is also home to the headquarters of the South African Development Community which leads growth, development and economic integration across Southern African states.

The economy is built on agriculture, tourism and diamonds. Approximately 80% of the Batswana people find their livelihood through agriculture, even though this business provides only 50% of the food needs for the country. Botswana is plagued by erratic rainfall and poor soil which leaves only 0.7% of the total land arable and makes food production a real struggle. The country is also home to massive herds of cattle comprised of hundreds of thousands of animals which place even more pressure on the arable land available for farming and not protected for conservation.

The overexploitation of the available resources and the consequent degradation of the soil certainly play a part in the high rate of poverty in Botswana, and government efforts to reintroduce native species and preserve the vitality of the land are as much about healing the people as they are about looking after the country.

Tourism represents over 10% of national GDP and is mainly focussed

around the world famous national parks and big game reserves.

Botswana is home to many iconic, threatened species including elephants, blue wildebeest and hippopotamuses, and people travel from all over the world to see them. Sites such as the Okavango Delta and the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park are incredibly popular with tourists and a source of great pride for the Batswana. When rumours sprang up that the hydraulic fracturing rights had been sold under half of the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park in late 2015 there was widespread dismay and protest.

That the government moved so quickly to categorically deny the rumours speaks to their value being more important than their price to Botswana.

With tourism being such a big deal, a great emphasis is placed by the state on ensuring the safety of foreign visitors which should act as reassurance to foreign investors.

But although agriculture and tourism are central for so many, the real wealth of Botswana can be found underground. The Government, in partnership with diamond giants such as De Beers and Lucara, reaps the benefits of some of the largest diamond fields on earth. In fact, the country is currently the world’s largest diamond producer, as well as a major player in the world of beneficiation – the cutting and polishing of diamonds which is the country’s biggest export, accounting for 20% of GDP but 80% of foreign export earnings. Botswana’s diamond mines support a huge amount of people and infrastructure, especially the giant mines at Jwaneng and Orapa, and grab headlines around the world. The second biggest diamond of all time was recently found in Botswana. The so called ‘Lucara Diamond’ weighed in at around 222g which may not sound a lot until put into the proper context – at one carat per 200mg, this diamond is a massive 1,111 carats in size and its value is still unknown,

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Population: 2,155,784 Size: 581,730 km2 Per capita: $18,021

Baobab trees, Botswana

though suspected to be north of $100m. It was only found due to the use of modern x-ray techniques, without which it would have been missed and ground into rubble.

Taking the above into consideration, it is no surprise that Botswana is heavily reliant on diamond production and the prices in the market remaining robust. It is estimated that diamond revenues will begin to fall by 2027 and then native diamond fields will be exhausted by 2050.

Diversification of exports will be vital to Botswana’s future and investors should certainly consider this angle before investing. Good news in this area is not hard to find, however. The national economy is already shifting away from a purely mineral base: Half of GDP in the 1990s was reliant on diamonds, whereas this has fallen to a quarter in the present day. The Batswana are very aware that they are sitting on a finite resource and they are looking to help themselves before the situation gets desperate.

Measures such as establishing a fund for future generations to increase personal savings in the future illustrate the long term thinking in operation.

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The future of national business is also constantly under consideration.

Botswana has massive coal and iron ore reserves which have the potential to fire energy and steel industries large enough to rival those of neighbouring South Africa, which would be a big deal for the Southern African regional economy. And that is on top of the previously mentioned whispers about hydraulic fracturing rights to exploit shale gas fields. If much of this energy and industrial growth comes to pass over the coming years then it is likely that Botswana will be able to absorb the loss of one of the greatest natural bounties on earth and continue to flourish, but at what cost to their unique and precious natural environment? Either way, if Botswana does walk the path to modern industrialisation then it will represent a fantastic opportunity for foreign investors looking to take advantage of emerging markets.

And, of course, foreign investment is a key area where Botswana is looking to achieve further diversification and they have already taken measures to make their country very accessible. Gaborone itself is perfectly placed to be a regional travel hub and saw an increase in international travellers of 64% between 2004 and 2015. The government

Gaborone, Botswana

is actively encouraging foreigners to travel to Botswana and invest their money there. All foreign exchange controls were abolished in 1999 in a bid to boost trade. Corporation tax is very low, costing only 22%, or 15% for manufacturing companies – a fact which could become very significant if coal and steel industries are seriously pursued. Botswana also exercises no prohibitions on foreign ownership of companies within its borders, something which US giants such as H. J. Heinz and the AON Corporation have already taken advantage of. Lastly, and most importantly, Botswana allows free repatriation of income and profits for foreign nationals. This should be very appealing to foreign investors looking for an alternative!

Botswana is a fascinating place which has long enamoured tourists who wish to see and experience some of the last truly wild places on earth in this era of globalisation and industrialisation. Now it may be the turn of the foreign investors to take an interest. A country looking to grow with an economy in the process of changing and embracing new industries which the rest of the world has a lot of expertise in? There is a lot to take advantage of if you know the right place to look, and Botswana may become the next low key hotspot for foreign investment.

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Q&A It’s time for GPS to answer some of our readers most pressing questions Words : Michael Smith

Q.

Q.

Should I be using the designated on-site lettings and management company for my new investments?

Should I always look to invest in the strongest yield the local market has to offer?

A.

A.

Many of the larger-scale developers have returned to construction as the markets have recovered. This has created the opportunity for investors to take advantage of large block-managed developments, which can be much better serviced by one party. The letting companies will have the means to put together large advertising campaigns to promote new and current developments. This coupled with a large lettings team helps streamline tenants moving in and out, avoiding any unnecessary void periods. By doing this the investor can relax, knowing that their units will remain occupied throughout the year.

It’s important to remember that people rarely buy a home outright, so there will often be significant running costs. For example, mortgage payments, maintenance and agent’s fees. Many investments include these in the overall investment breakdown, but these overviews can’t account for the rise in mortgage rates. What seemed a good investment initially could end-up yielding a poor return.

This service also carries through to any repairs or damages that need to be performed. The developer will often keep a supply of spares for this developments, so simply like-for-like replacements can be made swiftly.

All of this is designed to give you a completely hassle free investment that is sure to give a good return.

Many landlords will look to fill the cost rises by increasing rents, but this can price your investment out of the local market. It’s for this reason you shouldn’t always look for just the highest yield. If you look at some of the larger developers they will offer sensible market predictions, and will often build in some tolerance in case of significant market increases.

*These questions and answers are provided for general information only and may not be completely accurate in every circumstance.

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ASK THE EXPERT

Gary Smale CeMAP Mortgage Consultant

Words : Samantha Jones

Q.

Q.

I’m looking at buying an off-plan property. Can I complete my purchase with a mortgage?

Can a foreign national or ex-patriate get a mortgage in the UK?

A. This is certainly possible. It will be determined by your own personal circumstances and the lender’s attitude to the development. An application would need to be made approximately 2-3 months prior to completion to allow the surveyor to conduct a valuation on the property.

The maximum loan to value is 65% but this can be subject to change and is determined by the lenders.

Q.

A. The simple answer to that is yes. The process can be slightly more difficult and in the current climate there are fewer lenders prepared to lend. It is determined by the clients’ individual circumstances and can be influenced by the country the client resides in. It can be used for both purchase and re-mortgage applications.

Q. How do UK buy-to-let mortgages compare to residential mortgages?

I have recently completed on an investment property, can I now re-mortgage it?

A.

A.

Lenders view buy-to-let as more of a commercial proposition and take into account the expected rental yield on the property. This is different from residential mortgages which are concerned solely with the applicants’ individual income. In addition, there will be higher fees, and interest rates charged for buy-to-let are generally 1% more than that charged for residential mortgages.

After owning the property for 6 months, lenders will allow you to re-mortgage the property, releasing the equity you have in it. This again is determined by a client’s individual circumstances and the lenders attitude to the property. This can be particularly useful for clients who are looking to fund additional purchases from a current portfolio.

*Your property may be repossessed if you do not maintain payments on a mortgage or any other loan secured against it

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SHOULD I MOVE TO LAS VEGAS? Words : Hannah Wilde | View : littleny

Las Vegas. Not for nothing is it called ‘Sin City’—Known as the city of debt and debauchery, Las Vegas has made a name for itself as the perfect place to give into all of your vices. With an area of over 110,000 square miles, Nevada is the 7th largest state in the United States of America, and has for years been known as the “home of the lost weekend”.

Shameless, unrelenting and unapologetic, Las Vegas is a city of idiosyncrasies and overt ostentatiousness. When thinking of Vegas, it’s only natural for your mind to spit out images of the infamous “Welcome to fabulous Las Vegas” sign, roulette wheels, hotels and spectacular shows among a myriad of other decadent phantasmagorias. With its 15,000 miles of neon lights and 41 million annual visitors, it’s no wonder that Las Vegas is famed for its glitz, glamour and grandiose. But by far one of the biggest pulls of Las Vegas is its gambling. Everywhere you look there’s roulette wheels, card tables and slot machines, and you can’t walk anywhere without being directed through at least one labyrinthine casino en route.

For this reason it’s unsurprising that Vegas is considered to be the gambling capital of the world. Super-casinos line the Las Vegas Strip as far as the eye can see, each filled with more roulette wheels, blackjack

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tables and slot machines than one could ever imagine. These casinos are so meticulously designed that they aim to emulate the perfect condition for optimum comfort—there are minimal, if any, windows and clocks so you lose all sense of time, ambient music resonates quietly across the casino, and even oxygen is pumped around the casino to ensure players stay alert. Casinos are always the perfect temperature—neither too hot nor too cold—and players are enticed to stay put by tantalising free drinks brought directly to the table so as not to interrupt play. According to business psychologist Kati St Clair: “Casinos make you feel intimate, enclosed, euphoric; you’re in a suggestible trance-like state in which you want to stay where you are, continuing to do what you are doing”. And thanks to the lack of windows, hours can feel like minutes in Las Vegas as you indulge in your temptation and whittle away your money, with every win comes euphoria and every loss a steely determination to do better next time (of which there will be ample opportunity).

This goes some way to explaining why the Las Vegas strip contributes the lion’s share to Nevada’s $10bn annual gambling revenue. Interestingly, such is the prevalence of gambling that two Nevada cities have gone so far as to ban the pastime that forms the lifeblood of the state. As little as

Fabulous Las Vegas sign, Las Vegas

40 kilometres (25 miles) away from the Strip, gambling in Boulder City is strictly prohibited, with the aim of ensuring a wholesome environment by discouraging meandering tourists and encouraging residents to make a visit to Las Vegas if they want a flutter.

However, if gambling isn’t really your cup of tea, never fear—an adult’s Disneyland, there really is something for everyone to enjoy in Las Vegas.

For budding fashionistas the Las Vegas shopping scene could put LA and New York to shame, with elaborate window displays from Tiffany’s, Harry Winston and Cartier meaning that in Las Vegas, even the shop windows sparkle. With super-sized shopping malls in every major hotel along the Strip, Vegas more than lives up to its name as a shopper’s paradise. If culture is more your thing, Las Vegas has tourist attractions aplenty, as well as a huge roster of shows for the enjoyment of all serious culture vultures. Some of the biggest names in music often perform across the city (with veteran popstar Britney Spears currently having a residency at Planet Hollywood) and no trip would be complete without a visit to one of Las Vegas’s numerous interpretations of the iconic gymnastic spectacular Cirque du Soleil.

If gastronomy is your vice, Las Vegas caters for you perfectly too. The culinary wares on offer appeal to every walk of life, no matter your taste, budget and inclination. Nearly 40 celebrity chefs boast restaurants in Sin City, from infamous foul-mouthed Brit Gordon Ramsey, iconic pastry chef François Payard and Guy Fieri of ‘Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives’ fame—and that’s just in Caesar’s Palace alone! Whatever your preference Las Vegas certainly accommodates, from the best in Japanese cuisine courtesy of iconic sushi restaurant Nobu to authentic French haute cuisine from the kitchen of legendary “Chef of the Century” (and the holder of the most Michelin stars in the world) Joël Robuchon, you can fill your boots on some of the finest cuisine in the world. Such is Las Vegas’s culinary offerings, dedicated foodie website Eater fondly proclaims that “the three and a half miles of the Strip is the most egalitarian, all-encompassing, and high-quality eating arena in any major North American city”. This accolade has been recognised too by the Michelin Guide, the world’s premier arbiter of fine food, which has presented Las Vegas with 19 stars across a selection of the city’s top restaurants.

No matter why you make the pilgrimage to Las Vegas, another must-see for even the most intrepid traveller (and something you certainly can’t miss

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Las Vegas Strip, Las Vegas

even if you wanted to!) are the plethora of hotels that illuminate the Strip, each a tourist attraction in their own right and each more brassy, brazen and distinctive than the last. Las Vegas hotels have become a thing of almost legendary proportions: Caesar’s Palace, with its iconic 129,000 sqft casino that reports casino revenues of over $1bn per year; The Bellagio, with more hotel rooms (3,933) than the number of residents in its namesake city, Bellagio in Italy; The Mirage, with their iconic gold windows made from fragments of actual gold dust; and The Stratosphere, with a number of rollercoasters atop the tallest observation tower in the USA at a regal 1,149ft.

It is not surprising that 17 of the 20 biggest hotels in the world are housed in Las Vegas, with the iconic MGM Grand the second-largest hotel in the world by room numbers. With over double the amount of hotel rooms than New York, estimates say it would take over 288 years for one person to spend one night in every hotel room in Las Vegas. This shows the sheer decadence of such an unapologetically ostentatious city—But what a city it is! You can’t fail to be impressed by the city’s awe-inspiring infrastructure, its attention to detail, and its determination to make each and every guest’s stay a truly memorable adventure. There’s so much more to Las Vegas hotels than just somewhere to rest your head after a long day at the

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roulette wheel—they are destinations in their own right, with each hotel having a unique identity and cultural offering. The Mirage has a private zoo complete with bottlenose dolphins, white tigers, white lions and leopards among others. The MGM Grand plays host to Wet Republic, the largest and most famous pool party in Las Vegas. The Golden Nugget has an aquarium for guests to enjoy, with a variety of sharks swimming in the hotel’s 200,000 gallon tank.

The beauty of Las Vegas hotels is that the experience is so immersive that you’re travelling the world without even stepping foot out of your hotel.

The Venetian is modelled entirely after its namesake Venice, complete with winding canals, gondolas carrying serenading gondoliers, and beautiful hand-painted scenery of the Italian city. Other odes include replicas of the Eiffel Tower and the Manhattan skyline, courtesy of the aptly-named hotels Paris and New York New York, as well as an old medieval English castle that houses the hotel Excalibur. No matter the theme, each and every hotel on the Las Vegas Strip has one central and shared theme—each one is out of this world.

And of course there’s another tradition in Las Vegas: the tradition of matrimony. As well as being the gambling capital of the world, the city is

also known as the wedding capital of the world, playing host to over 50 wedding chapels just on the Las Vegas Boulevard alone—some with the clichéd Elvis master of ceremonies to boot. For the baffled out-of-towner, you do have to question an institution which devalues the sanctity of marriage by normalising such fads as “drive-thru chapels” and gauchely themed weddings, but that doesn’t stop the hundreds of thousands of couples queueing up to say their vows with the lights and cacophony of the Las Vegas strip in the background. Notoriously lax rules on issuing marriage licenses and the city’s ‘wedding-chapel-onevery-corner’ mentality goes some way to explaining why Las Vegas has on average 315 weddings conducted in Las Vegas every single day (approximately 115,000 per year). Unsurprisingly, the wedding industry is the second-largest industry in the state of Nevada, kept in business every year primarily by love-struck teenagers too eager to wait and inebriated tourists looking for a memorable story to tell back home.

The thing that strikes anyone who has ever visited this infamous city is that Vegas makes no apologies for being exactly what it is. Whether you should move to Las Vegas depends on your individual preferences but, love it or hate it, one thing cannot be denied—Las Vegas is the original and uncontested home of the 24-hour party people.

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Specialists at providing buy-to-let properties to the private investor market, Knight Knox has a wide range of developments available across the UK. Working alongside a team of experienced developers, solicitors and agents allows Knight Knox to provide expert advice and guidance on a range of investments.

Over the next 27 pages you will see a selection of the investment opportunities available through Knight Knox.

+44(0)161 772 1370 www.knightknox.com The Best of UK Buy-to-Let

PALATINE GARDENS Sheffield PRICES FROM :

ÂŁ69,950 > Circa 5.77% predicted NET returns Quality fixtures and fittings Fully-furnished Great central location Within walking distance of local shops High rental demand in the area

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Palatine Gardens is located in Shalesmoor, a vibrant area of Sheffield which is only minutes from the city centre.

The development is close to the Supertram light rail network, via which residents can get around the city, and is also near to the city’s national rail station which allows convenient travel to cities as far apart as London, Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, York and Newcastle. *furniture subject to an additional charge

NEW LAUNCH

HERRESHOFF APARTMENTS AT FORTIS QUAY Salford Quays PRICES FROM :

ÂŁ124,995 > Circa 6% predicted NET returns Local rental market is booming Luxury apartments close to Manchester Great transport links Built by an experienced developer On-site lettings and management company

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The Herreshoff Apartments make up Phase 1 of the landmark Fortis Quay development.

These 54 stunning apartments are sure to be a hit with the huge number of young professionals who live and work in MediaCityUK, Europe’s leading technology, media and telecommunications hub and a beautiful recreation area. In addition to the immediate local area, the sights and amenities of Manchester city centre are only a short journey away which is a big draw for tenants.

NEW LAUNCH

X1 AIRE Leeds PRICES FROM :

ÂŁ105,000 > 6% NET rental returns 1 and 2-bedroom apartments Lettings and management company in place Private communal facilities State-of-the-art apartments Prime location in the heart of Leeds

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X1 Aire is Knight Knox’s newest development in the heart of the thriving city of Leeds. This development is set to provide state-of-the-art living for a vastly undersupplied Leeds rental market, providing a stunning array of apartments ranging from bespoke studios to stunning penthouses.

X1 Aire is set to take boutique city centre living to the next level, providing state-of-the-art apartments to the private rental market.

IN CONSTRUCTION

SILKHOUSE COURT Liverpool PRICES FROM :

ÂŁ99,995 > Circa 5.9% predicted NET returns Unbeatable city centre location Liverpool rental market is booming Excellent city centre location Close to regional and national transport links Fully let and managed by an experienced letting agent

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Silkhouse Court provides the ultimate modern living experience. Each apartment comes complete with beautiful, top-of-the-range furnishing and fixtures, carefully selected by the development team to suit the dwellings.

Residents will be provided with a number of convenient on-site amenities. The private gymnasium on the Ground Floor is open for all residents, and the concierge service is there to make modern living simpler for the busy young professional.

X1 THE GATEWAY Salford Quays PRICES FROM :

ÂŁ100,000 > Circa 6% predicted NET returns Situated in a prime residential area Within easy walking distance of MediaCityUK Let and managed by X1 Lettings Great on-site facilities Waterfront views

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With a sleek, modern design, a luxurious finish and set in a desirable location; this new residential development raises the bar when it comes to providing future tenants with a first class cosmopolitan living experience.

Situated in the heart of the Quays, this prime residential development brings a mixture of 191 stunning 1, 2 and 3 bedroom apartments to market.

ADELPHI WHARF PHASE 3 Salford PRICES FROM :

£119,995 > Circa 6% predicted NET returns Excellent local infrastrucutre 10 minutes walk to central Manchester Experienced managing agent Great transport links and close to shopping Chronic undersupply of housing in Manchester and Salford

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The eagerly anticipated third phase of Knight Knox’s incredibly successful Adelphi Wharf project has arrived.

Located in one of the UK’s buy-to-let property hotspots, Greater Manchester’s popular region of Salford, Adelphi Wharf Phase 3 follows on from the two previous sold out phases. Investors were understandably enamoured with the development’s attractive modern apartments, superb location and the area’s ever-growing rental demand.

X1 THE CAMPUS Salford PRICES FROM :

ÂŁ89,995 > Circa 6% predicted NET returns Built by experienced developer; X1 Close to excellent public transport links Close to local shops, bars and restaurants On-site gym Private student accommodation is a booming investment class

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X1 The Campus will consist of 271 student studio apartments split over two blocks and eight floors within the University of Salford Frederick Road Campus.

Salford plays host to everything which a modern student could possibly want from a university city – not just a fantastic university which is a leader in its field, but also a range of pubs, restaurants and shops in the local area.

NEW LAUNCH

X1 MEDIA CITY TOWER 3 Salford Quays PRICES FROM :

£114,995 > Circa 6% predicted NET returns Studios, 1, 2-bedroom apartments Lettings and management company in place Private communal facilities Great transport links and close to shopping Most exclusive development outside of London

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The penultimate tower in X1 Media City will follow in the footsteps of its predecessors, offering high-end residential living in a highly sought-after area.

This development’s stunning glass-fronted exterior perfectly epitomises the luxury within, and is just a stone’s throw away from the iconic MediaCityUK site on the picturesque Salford Quays waterfront.

LAST APARTMENT S REMAINING

SPECTRUM Manchester PRICES FROM :

ÂŁ172,950 > Circa 5.5% NET rental returns Completed and te nanted development Private landscaped gardens Great central location Built by experienced developer High quality fixtures and fittings

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Spectrum delivers the best of both worlds, combining chic, urban living with the tranquility of private landscaped gardens.

The studio, one, two and three-bedroom apartments are finished to the highest specification, with floor-to-ceiling windows and full-length balconies in most apartments.

Light floods into the living space and views across the city are a constant reminder of how close you are to everything you could want.

NOW SOLD OUT

THE COURTYARD AT X1 THE QUARTER Liverpool PRICES FROM :

ÂŁ89,950 > 6% NET rental returns Finance options available Experienced management company in place Proven rental demand 5 minute walk to Liverpool ONE Opposite Liverpool Marina

Built by an experienced developer in the residential buy-to-let market, The Courtyard at X1 The Quarter presents a unique concept in luxury living for the residents of Liverpool.

Completed in September 2014, the development contains 77 modern 1, 2 and 3 bed apartments, in addition to 3 bed townhouses. Offered at an extremely competitive purchase price and with virtually no maintenance required due to the new-build status of the development.

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BRIDGEWATER GATE Manchester PRICES FROM :

ÂŁ114,995 > Circa 6% predicted NET returns Predicted NET rental yields of 6% Lettings and management company in place Private communal facilities Built by an experienced developer Great transport links and close to shopping amenities

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Bridgewater Gate is enviably located on the edge of Manchester city centre in the thriving area of Castlefield.

This luxurious development will have all the advantages of being a short walk away from the local parks and independent shops of suburbia, but also the vibrant bars and restaurants of the city.

It also sits within walking distance of MediaCityUK, the new home of the BBC.

NOW SOLD OUT

IN CONSTRUCTION

X1 THE PLAZA Manchester PRICES FROM :

£110,000 > 6% NET rental returns 1, 2 & 3-bed apartments and townhouses Beautiful balconies with dynamic city views Prime city centre location Within walking distance of local amenities Experienced management company in place

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X1 The Plaza is the newest addition to the Manchester skyline, set to provide 201 luxury apartments to the prime undersupplied residential market in the area.

The widespread success of the nearby X1 Eastbank project in the heart of Manchester’s newest up-and-coming district of New Islington shows the sheer level of demand in the area—both investors and tenants alike are flocking to the area, seeking bespoke investment and living opportunities in such a vibrant area.

NOW SOLD OUT

X1 MEDIA CITY TOWER 2 Salford Quays PRICES FROM :

ÂŁ104,950 > 6% NET rental returns Studios, 1, 2 and 3-bedroom apartments Lettings and management company in place Private communal facilities Great transport links and close to shopping Most exclusive development outside of London

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With 1,100 apartments covering an area of approx.

544,820sqf, X1 Media City is one of the largest residential developments in the North West.

The development itself consists of four iconic towers, each containing a mixture of studios, one, two and three-bedroom apartments. With spectacular views over the city and MediaCityUK, the apartments are available fully furnished* with a high-end, elegant flair. *furniture subject to an additional charge

NOW SOLD OUT

IN CONSTRUCTION

NOW SOLD OUT

MULBERRY PLACE Salford PRICES FROM :

£109,000 > Circa 6% predicted NET returns Highly sought-after location Lettings and management company in place Close to Salford and Manchester City Centres Excellent local transport links Salford named ‘UK Buy-to-Let Hotspot’ 2014 and 2015

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Located in the heart of Salford, Mulberry Place brings 38 chic apartments to the city’s thriving buy-to-let market in the form of spacious one and two bedroom apartments.

Residents of Mulberry Place will also benefit from excellent on-site facilities such as a beautifully landscaped communal courtyard, bicycle storage and off-street car parking spaces provided for selected apartments. Some apartments will also enjoy the benefit of having their own balcony.

NOW SOLD OUT

THE TERRACE AT X1 THE QUARTER Liverpool PRICES FROM :

ÂŁ109,950 > 6% NET rental returns Assured 6% rental income for 5 years Fully managed and let by X1 lettings Great central location High-end fixtures and fittings Built by experienced developer

The Terrace is the fourth phase of the highly successful X1 The Quarter development (Phase 1 The Gallery and Phase 2 The Courtyard are fully tenanted with Phase 3 The Studios in construction).

This development is set to be a 101-unit new-build in the vastly popular city of Liverpool, launched as a direct response to the incredible demand for prime residential apartments in the region, shown by the incredible success of the previous phases.

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NOW SOLD OUT

BELLS COURT Sheffield PRICES FROM :

ÂŁ69,995 > 7% NET rental returns Assured 7% rental income for 1 year Fully-furnished Excellent city centre location Luxury studio apartments High rental demand in Sheffield

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A brand-new residential project located in the heart of the highly popular student city of Sheffield. It supplies the burgeoning buy-to-let market in Sheffield with a total of 29 state-of-the-art studios apartments.

Bells Court provides a mix of luxury studio apartments, perfect for both students and young professionals alike.

Demand is high for prime accommodation in Sheffield, with its rising house prices and thriving rental market.

LOOKING FOR PROPERTY TO BUY? BE SURE TO VISIT THE

The UK’s largest and longest running property investment event is presented at ExCeL London every April and October.

The major names in UK and international property will be out in force with plenty of ‘off-market’ bargain deals and show exclusives to choose from.

E FREW

SHO Y ENTR

REGISTER ONLINE AT www.propertyinvestor.co.uk NOTE: Seminar booking opens approximately 6 weeks before show opening day

FROM ÂŁ89,995 New-build buy-to-let opportunities Studios, 1, 2 & 3-bed apartments available Completed, in construction & sold out developments available In prime locations across Manchester, Liverpool and Leeds