Top all-time · #4566
Tom Forth
Personal blog · tomforth.co.ukeconomicsdata
Tom Forth's personal blog at tomforth.co.uk covers economics and data. Since 2014, 17 different Hacker News readers have linked it 19 times, most often “Human Population Around a Point”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-09, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (6) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN commenters link Tom Forth's circle-population calculator, which counts people within a radius of a point, and his analyses of regional economics, such as Northern England and East Germany.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 6 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
I'm Tom Forth, Head of Data at Open Innovations, CTO and cofounder of The Data City, and boss at imactivate. But this is my personal website. I write a lot about UK regional econmics, transport, productivity, and software development.
Most-linked posts?
- Human Population Around a Point7 people · 8 mentions · first linked 2023-02-12
- Why Northern England is poor2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2025-01-25
What Hacker News says?
Random unrelated point: in a 100km radius circle between Atlanta and Augusta there are ~2,000,000 people (calculated using https://www.tomforth.co.uk/circlepopulations/ )
Comment linking /circlepopulations/
on “0-click deanonymization attack targeting Signal, Discord, other platforms”Submitted Why Northern England is poor as a story · 166 points
HN discussionGB needs to shift some of the overheating in London to it's second cities (Leeds, Manchester etc). Young, ambitious people in London are doing fantastic in their jobs and bring so much energy into their careers but are increasingly getting nowhere in their personal lives without help from bank of mum and dad. For many I know, it's driving increased rates of burnout and most are simply checking out of the country for…
Comment linking /whynorthenglandispoor/
on “Why does Britain feel so poor?”Submitted The UK can go back to being the richest country in the world as a story · 42 points
HN discussionNot a typo I'm afraid. East Germany's economy overtook North England's economy in 2010. Excluding Berlin, East Germany's economy overtook North England's economy in 2013. Every East German large city (Berlin, Dresden, Leipzig, Halle, Chemnitz) is today a stronger economy than every North English large city except Manchester. Manchester is still a weaker economy than Berlin, Dresden, and Leipzig. All the data is from…
Comment linking /humancapital/
on “Why Northern England is poor”Submitted Six reasons why Heathrow is not the UK's hub airport as a story · 4 points
HN discussionThanks for reading. For my precise work on the hyper-local angle you're asking after I did this analysis of Greater Manchester when I lived there in 2018 and it holds up really well. https://www.tomforth.co.uk/inequalityingreatermanchester/ Specifically on the GDP per capita numbers you quote, it's important to know what the "capita" means here. In your numbers, the capita is of residents. So people who commute into…
Comment linking /inequalityingreatermanchester/
on “Why Northern England is poor”Submitted Defending Uber as a story · 3 points
HN discussion> everyone in that 3km circles are being received by your device too. This could be pretty intense. Using the below tool I had a play and found that you could have about 1.1 million people within 3km of you when in Cairo. https://www.tomforth.co.uk/circlepopulations/
Comment linking /circlepopulations/
on “Low-Power Wi-Fi Extends Signals Up to 3 Kilometers”Submitted Human Population Around a Point as a story · 2 points
HN discussionAs regions they are pretty similar population wise. At 100km radius (centring for maximimum population) LA is 18M people and NYC is 22M. It's clear why they are the cultural centres of the US. Chicago, Washington DC, and the Bay Area are next highest at ~10M each. https://www.tomforth.co.uk/circlepopulations/
Comment linking /circlepopulations/
on “California's third largest city is mostly empty roads”Submitted Population Around a Point as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted North England vs. the Netherlands as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Population Around a Point as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Human population within a distance, from any point in the world as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Population Around a Point as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted How (Not?) To Build a TechNation as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Gender Bias Calculator as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Impact of the BBC’s relocation on creative industries in Manchester and London [pdf] as a story · 1 points
HN discussion
