Following the Brexit referendum, Andy Haldane, Chief Economist at The Bank of England set about touring the UK in a series of forums and town halls in places where regular people often omitted from policy debates live. He realized that even a monetary institution mostly occupied with keeping prices stable and the banking system robust must now concentrate on outreach and listening to the needs of those who feel forgotten to avoid catastrophic consequences. The City of London also experienced a community backlash after an abysmal fire in Grenfell Tower, a public housing building that became an inferno when a fire consumed the structure killing more then 70 people. The fallout from the incident was just as heated when community groups emerged in protest and publicly expressed that their complaints about the building had been ignored for years.
Many citizens across Europe today feel frustrated and voiceless in the face of heightened global dynamics and rapid change. As technology transforms the way that many people work, traditional jobs are increasingly threatened. This enhances tensions between polarized citizens. SEAT Inc., an automotive manufacturer and one of the Catalonia region of Spain’s biggest employers, has automated approximately 80 percent of production. As people feel increasingly threatened by automation, many are adopting populist messages and are vulnerable to being manipulated by polarizing ideologies that blame immigrants and the most vulnerable for the problems of society.
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