Investing in geography: A GIS to support inward investment

For the last 11 years Think London has acted as London’s official inward investment agency. In this time it has helped over 800 foreign companies set up operations in London, thus making an important contribution to London’s position as a major foreign direct investment target. Since 2004, UCL has collaborated with Think London to provide spatial analysis products of location decision factors, helping Think London improve its services to inward investors and promote London as an enterprising and creative location. The main areas of investigation were the disposition of essential resources such as labour, facilities and business support infrastructures alongside more subjective factors relating to the ‘liveability’ of the city.Exploring the economic, social and cultural differences between different areas of London, we attempt to develop a geographic framework relevant to inward investment into London, based on relevant competitiveness frameworks and an alternative geography of London defined by its multinodal business landscape. A characterisation of these “Town Centres” is developed using geostatistical analysis of industry sector and workforce patterns.