Delighted to be asked by @uklandestates to delve into their archive for their 30th anniversary. They now have a portfolio of 28 estates across the region, but the Team Valley was not just their first, it’s actually the oldest industrial estate in Europe

Team Valley was born because the North East didn’t rebound from worldwide recession like the South did. Although firms like Armstrongs dabbled with car-manufacture in the early 20s, the NE stuck all its eggs in the heavy industry basket: coal, ships and guns.
But demand for coal and armaments had cratered. In 1936, men even marched from Jarrow to London to highlight their desperation at mass unemployment. In Jarrow, it reached 80 per cent. In nearby Gateshead it was 57 per cent.
Such was the state of the region’s economy that in 1934 the National Government decided to site Europe’s first industrial estate in the Team Valley to create “facilities required by industrialists engaged in starting fresh enterprises” (of the type that were booming in the South)
The excellent @Englands_NE tells us that the River Team begins as a collection of streams near Tanfield in NW Durham – a name which originally meant ‘Team Field’. Team is an ancient name, meaning ‘dark river’ with the same root as the name of the Thames.
Back in 875AD the Viking ‘Great Heathen Army’ had overwintered at the mouth of the Team after destroying Tynemouth Priory. Once the winter was over they raided the rest of the North East coast and ransacked Hexham Abbey.
The Team Valley was a rural area until a colliery operated by the Bowes family (ancestors of the Queen) opened here in 1842. By 1920 140,000 tons of coal a week were being shipped out from nearby Dunston Staiths – still the largest wooden structure in Europe.
Novel and unorthodox” was how the concept of a government-funded, purpose built industrial estate was described the commissioner appointed by the surprisingly forward-thinking Chancellor Neville Chamberlain to help Britain’s “special areas” – here speaking in 1936
£2M of govt funding was granted and the banks of the Team were quickly surveyed during July-Sept 1936, and the contract awarded to George Wimpey & Co – forerunners of @TaylorWimpey. The great Niklaus Pevsner thought the Team Valley was a remarkable example of planned architecture
The 700 acre site, designed by the 29yr old William Holford was transformed from boggy land using colliery waste. Holford was a key figure in 20thC urban planning: a member of the panel that selected Lúcio Costa's plan for Brasília + he worked on the plans for Durban & Canberra
On 22nd February 1939, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth travelled north to formally open the Team Valley Trading Estate in front of a crowd of 500 enthusiastic locals.
On the same day the King & Queen crossed the Tyne to Walker Naval Yard to launch the mighty battleship HMS King George V - an example of the more traditional industries of Tyneside.
It’s telling that the first tenants to move in were very different to the usual heavy industries: Orrell and Brewster Ltd, haulage contractors, and a motor company: Holland Coachcraft Limited. Before long, more than 7,000 much-needed jobs were up for grabs.
Construction on the site was paused during World War II, with the land instead used to grow food to aid the war effort, but by the mid-sixties, more than 16,000 people were employed at the Team Valley Trading Estate.

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A solo media founder like Rogan or Mr Beast can make as much money as a strong tech founder, with significantly less managerial stress.

Tech created this ecosystem but there’s a historical cultural bias in tech towards media as unprofitable. That changed a long time ago.

Many more angels that invest in people will invest in media founders. Many traditional media people will *become* media founders.

But not necessarily big companies. Just solo individuals or small groups doing content, like Notch doing Minecraft. Because media scales like code.

Increasingly feeling like “keeping the team size as small as possible, even to one person” is the unarticulated key to making media profitable.

Substack and all the creator tools are just the start of this ecosystem.


The process of converting social influencers into media founders (a trend that has been going on for 10+ years at this point) will be increasingly streamlined.

V1 is link-in-bio, Substack, and sponcon.

V2 likely involves more angels & tokenization a la @tryrollhq. What else?

Why lack of awareness? Influencer monetization numbers are not as public as tech numbers.

There isn’t a TechCrunch & CrunchBase for media founders, chronicling the valuations of influencers.

But that’d be quite valuable. If you are interested in doing this, please DM with demo.
There are so many #HotTakes on the future of news and tech and digital this week. Now nearly half a year distant (and what a year - 2020, ugh!) from CEO and board @mcclatchy, I'd like to add a few thoughts: 1/


As @jbenton said in @NiemanReports : @mcclatchy transformation shows it STILL is possible NOW 'to be operationally profitable while still doing good journalism.' Not easy; Covid made it harder. But POSSIBLE and DONE by the great team in 2020 @mcclatchy. 2/

As @jbenton wrote: the #DIGITALTRANSFORMATION @mcclatchy 'shows a company that has managed the digital transition better than most; at last public count, it was making nearly half its ad revenue in digital and digital subscriptions were up 45% year-over-year.' Such focus 3/

On the future is digital is the SOLE way the still-powerful brands of local news and information will be able to have a business in the inevitable 'printless' future (Not today, not tomorrow, but printless someday) 4/

And the crisis in local news is relentless, unabating and by most measures WORSENING. More titles going dark; huge losses to our communities, because solely a blend of new digital startups AND existing footprint offer the scale 5/

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This is a pretty valiant attempt to defend the "Feminist Glaciology" article, which says conventional wisdom is wrong, and this is a solid piece of scholarship. I'll beg to differ, because I think Jeffery, here, is confusing scholarship with "saying things that seem right".


The article is, at heart, deeply weird, even essentialist. Here, for example, is the claim that proposing climate engineering is a "man" thing. Also a "man" thing: attempting to get distance from a topic, approaching it in a disinterested fashion.


Also a "man" thing—physical courage. (I guess, not quite: physical courage "co-constitutes" masculinist glaciology along with nationalism and colonialism.)


There's criticism of a New York Times article that talks about glaciology adventures, which makes a similar point.


At the heart of this chunk is the claim that glaciology excludes women because of a narrative of scientific objectivity and physical adventure. This is a strong claim! It's not enough to say, hey, sure, sounds good. Is it true?