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Why Northern England is poor

tomforth.co.uk

1–10 of 164 posts

Re: Why Northern England is poor

#2
Interesting perspective, but it really seems like state capitals just tend to siphon money from far away to invest nearby, and consequently, grow. Selecting a major city as your capital seems to accelerate the process, but even countries which select minor towns as their capitals have had this happen.

Re: Why Northern England is poor

#3
We also shifted largely into a service based economy, shutdown a lot of mines and mills (for better or for worse) which were primarily more north based.

More than 2/3rds of my graduating physics class went straight into banking, as there was no relevant industry to pick them up... and as someone with several postdoctoral degrees, yet no house or meaningful assets... who could blame them for going into banking in this large miserable sprawl of a city utterly devoted to it?

Re: Why Northern England is poor

#4
post #2

Interesting perspective, but it really seems like state capitals just tend to siphon money from far away to invest nearby, and consequently, grow. Selecting a major city as your capital seems to accelerate the process, but even countries which select minor towns as their capitals have had this happen.

The process is quite simple and fairly obvious. Government policy is the bedrock of all economic development. Government officials will always have the most knowledge about the capital, so all policy is tailored to it. It's no surprise that they don't make policies that benefit the North given that they don't live there.

Re: Why Northern England is poor

#7
Lot's of coal mining, used for steel production, used for boat building ...

The high paying jobs are centered around London and the financial industry (20% of UK GDP), although post-Brexit the whole country is not doing well. Glad I left in the late 80's.

Re: Why Northern England is poor

#8
post #2

Interesting perspective, but it really seems like state capitals just tend to siphon money from far away to invest nearby, and consequently, grow. Selecting a major city as your capital seems to accelerate the process, but even countries which select minor towns as their capitals have had this happen.

Like the U.S. and D.C.? NY and Albany? Canada and Ottawa? Germany and Berlin?

Re: Why Northern England is poor

#10
> Limited success such as in Manchester, whose economy has nearly kept up with East German cities while the rest of North England falls behind,

Woa is this a typo? I know little about England, and I hadn't realized that "keeping up with East German cities" is considered a success. I mean isn't East Germany rather well known for not keeping up all that well with the rest of Germany either?

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