Levelling Up Left Behind Places: The Scale and Nature of the Economic and Policy Challenge (Regional Studies Policy Impact Books)

This book aims to understand the predicaments of ‘left behind places’ and the scale of the policy challenge of ‘levelling up’ their economic prosperity. Drawing out lessons of wider international significance, it examines how places (cities, towns and localities) have grown apart over recent decades amidst deindustrialisation, post-industrial transition and the disruptive shocks of the global financial crisis and COVID-19 pandemic. Using the UK case to illustrate its arguments, the analysis identifies the different types of ‘left behind places’ and their distinctive economic experiences. The key features of urban and regional institutions and policies are reviewed to understand more about why, despite some successes, geographical inequalities remain an entrenched feature of the UK, blighting the life chances and quality of life of its citizens, and national economic progress as a whole. The weaknesses of past policies are highlighted, and the case is made for a new, mission-oriented policy model, because only a radical shift in economic thinking, governance and management is likely to achieve the ‘levelling up’ that is now a prominent refrain in the political lexicon. This book aims to understand the predicaments of ‘left behind places’ and the scale of the policy challenge of ‘levelling up’ their economic prosperity. The case is made for a new, mission-oriented policy model to achieve this, which is now a prominent refrain in the political lexicon. Cover 1 Title Page 2 Copyright Page 3 Table of Contents 4 Foreword 6 About the authors 8 Acknowledgements 9 Preamble 10 Executive summary and key recommendations 12 Chapter 1: Introduction: The new discourse of “left behind places” 16 1.1: The Re-emergence and (Re)discovery of “left behind places” 17 1.2: “Left Behind places” as sites of discontent 20 1.3: What are “left behind places”? 23 1.4: “Levelling up”: Moving beyond slogans 25 Chapter 2: Becoming “left behind”: How places have grown apart 34 2.1: Situating the “left behind” problem 35 2.2: The “great turnaround”: From convergence to divergence 36 2.3: Growing apart: macro-geographies of “falling behind” 37 2.4: From broad regions to local places: The complexity of the “left behind” landscape 40 2.5: The productivity puzzle and “left behind places” 49 2.6: Conclusions: The scale and geographies of the “left behind” problem 53 Chapter 3: Why places have fallen behind: The geographically uneven effects of economic transformation 58 3.1: Evolving geographies of economic transformation 59 3.2: Post-industrial spaces of growth and decline 60 3.3: The changing location of employment 61 3.4: The rise of knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS) 62 3.5: A public sector counter-weight? 65 3.6: A combined urban and regional problem 66 3.7: Cumulative processes and vicious circles 69 3.8: Conclusions: Understanding how places have become “left behind” 73 Chapter 4: Economic shocks and the differential resilience of places 78 4.1: Local economic development as a shock-prone process 79 4.2: The notion of local economic resilience 79 4.3: Economic resilience across UK localities 82 4.4: The emerging implications of brexit and the pandemic shocks 85 4.5: Conclusions: Resilience and recovery 87 Chapter 5: Learning from past policies for “levelling up” and “left behind places” in the UK 92 5.1: Learning from the past 93 5.2: Distinguishing spatial policies 94 5.3: Nine decades of the UK spatial policy 97 5.4: The limitations and weaknesses of past policies 101 5.5: Conclusions: Lessons from the past 106 Chapter 6: Institutions and policies for “levelling up” and “left behind places” 112 6.1: Key findings and their policy implications 113 6.2: Grasping the transformative moment for local, regional and urban development policy 115 6.3: Establishing a clear and binding national mission for “levelling up” 117 6.4: Realizing the potential of place in policymaking 121 6.5: Decentralizing towards a multilevel federal polity in the UK 123 6.6: Strengthening subnational funding and financing 126 6.7: Embedding geography in the national state and policy machinery 129 6.8: Improving subnational strategic research, intelligence, monitoring and evaluation capacity 131 6.9: Conclusions 132 Deindustrialisation;,Devolution;,Governance;,Institutions;,Left,behind,places;,Levelling,up;,Mission-oriented,policy;,Place-based,policy;,Post-industrial;,Regional,divergence;,Resilience;,Spatial,policy Deindustrialisation,Devolution,Governance,Institutions,Left behind places,Levelling up,Mission-oriented policy,Place-based policy,Post-industrial,Regional divergence,Resilience,Spatial policy