[HN Gopher] Why Northern England is poor
___________________________________________________________________
Why Northern England is poor
Author : paulpauper
Score : 85 points
Date : 2025-01-25 16:59 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (tomforth.co.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (tomforth.co.uk)
| nickff wrote:
| 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.
| James_K wrote:
| 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.
| casenmgreen wrote:
| Berlin is not like this, though.
|
| If Berlin were removed from the map, Germany as a whole would
| economically (loss of people, loss of income) be on average
| better off.
|
| If this is the mechanism, why is Berlin not doing better?
| taffer wrote:
| Germany is the only Western European country with an
| Eastern European capital. As a result, Berlin was poorer
| than the rest of the country, but this is no longer the
| case. Since reunification, Berlin has had the fastest
| growing economy in Germany and is now close to Hesse in
| terms of GDP per capita.
| wink wrote:
| Berlin is odd... for several factors. Just looking at the
| last 100 years, I fail to see any capital (that was not
| directly a war zone) be: not capital, capital, divided,
| part of 2 countries, an exclave...
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| how many generations from a city becoming the political
| center does it take for the effect to be noticeable?
| matt-p wrote:
| What policy would benefit the north, without (even further)
| subsidising it?
|
| If we could invest PS10Bn and get PS20Bn back for the economy
| with our money back over time then not a single politician
| would turn that down, there's actually been a load of support
| over the past ~5+ years for "levelling up" (AKA investment in
| the north) but we've not invested much because the returns
| are abysmal. Meanwhile there's a whole stack of projects with
| good returns in london, but politically it's really difficult
| to "give more money to london" so we don't really do them.
| Bakerloo line extension and crossrail 2 for example.
|
| The Elizabeth line, will over time pay for itself _entirely_
| with fares alone, yet has also already added ~PS2.50 to the
| economy for every PS1 spent.
|
| This is a absolutely classic example of chicken and egg,
| network effects and first mover advantage. There's perhaps a
| case for being absolutely ruthless and just spending an
| obscene amount of money on Manchester/Leeds/Liverpool. What
| might it look like?
|
| -No third runway for heathrow, instead BHX gets 2 more
| runways (or MAN 1 more) and all the funding it needs to
| become an international hub, including an reduction in APD
| for 5 years or something. Central London in ~48Mins via HS2
| is already committed and being built, frankly that's not that
| much different to what it practically takes to get from a
| random heathrow terminal to central.
|
| -HS2 to Manchester AND Leeds (via the branch just above BHX),
| that would connect BHX to those cities in <30 Mins or so and
| to London much quicker.
|
| -Trams for Leeds, maybe a metro for Manchester.
|
| -Liverpool>Manchester>Leeds express line (which seems
| committed).
|
| -Enterprise zone covering all underdeveloped commercial areas
| in Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester and Birmingham. Give rates,
| or tax relief on businesses investing, or employing in the
| zone, planning exemptions, easier permitting.
|
| Anything short of an absolutely insane bet like this, just
| isn't going to work. Chucking 1Bn to Leeds for them to buy
| some trams just isn't going to have a transformative effect,
| it might actually be a total waste because, in short, network
| effects.
|
| The North of England frequently runs a combined fiscal
| deficit in the tens of billions, with all of that subsidy
| coming, effectively, from London and the SE.
| James_K wrote:
| The reason for investing in the North is pretty simple:
| people live there. We have three options: do something
| productive with he area, do nothing and continue to pay for
| its decline, or move all the people to London and let house
| prices rise accordingly. What you said about first mover
| advantage rings true here. We can either pick the most
| developed city and devote resources elusively that area, or
| we can accept a proportionally smaller economy spread out
| across the whole country.
|
| I also fail to see how London is subsidising these areas.
| It seems to me that they'd be much better off if they were
| able to run themselves. This is a classic case of
| purposeful under-investment. You see it in business as
| well. If someone wants to kill off a given project, they'll
| deprive it of funding to he point it can't operate properly
| then use the lack of profit generated as an excuse to axe
| it. The issue we have is that we can't just axe the North.
|
| There is also the issue of measuring productivity. You say
| investments in London are more productive because they
| generate more profit, but consider that an equal investment
| in the North might have a much greater effect on the
| quality of life for the people living there. Should we
| measure investments by how much money they return or how
| much they improve people's lives? I am reminded of
| industrial strategy in the Soviet Union. They invested only
| in the most "productive" (highest ROI under capitalism)
| things such as heavy industry and very little in consumer
| technologies that make people happier. The result was rapid
| industrialisation which probably had the best effect in the
| long run. The question is how long term are we thinking? At
| some point, you've gotta start paying to make people happy
| instead of just investing in the most profitable area.
| matt-p wrote:
| Good luck with the "but people live there, thier lives
| can be improved who cares about a poor ROI" argument.
|
| I mean that kind of genuinely, I see your point, but good
| luck trying that argument on the treasury.
|
| It's a fact that they're subsidised. They have regional
| mayors, do you think a devolved solution for each
| northern city is really reasonable or desirable? If we
| think it's desirable and will stop them being subsidised
| then why hasn't it worked for Scotland, Wales or NI? All
| of which take more than they put it.
| James_K wrote:
| Luckily you don't need to convince the treasury, just the
| electorate. And they are desperate for it. As you said,
| Bojo's levelling up scheme was like electoral crack.
| Perhaps some day we will achieve the level of democracy
| where the government enacts policies which are
| universally popular. Maybe it will happen soon if Reform
| UK actually follows through on proportional
| representation. Though it's a sorry state that those
| racist cretins are our best shot. Though I don't know if
| PR alone would be enough, we'd have to do something about
| the media as well and they're pretty buddy-buddy with
| Farage.
| dambi0 wrote:
| Interesting. If we look at the idea of subsides between
| region, and we accept that this the right way of thinking
| about it and assume it's factual and that simple. Then I
| think one of the questions worth asking is effectively do
| we want to try reduce that inequality or do we want to
| perpetuate it. Neither is obviously right or wrong, but I
| think that's the core question. If we are believe to the
| idea in the article then we can see a reasonable case that
| the disparity between the regions has been, if not
| deliberate, than an obvious outcome of previous policy.
| Which makes the argument that we shouldn't invest in the
| regions requiring subsidy circular.
|
| There are investments beyond transport that we could make.
| Not all investments generate or should be judged against
| short-term returns. That a 1B tram system in Leeds may be
| less than effective does not mean we shouldn't invest at
| all. I don't see why we need an insane bet rather than a
| programme of improvement across the board.
| matt-p wrote:
| I think most people would agree that some imbalance is
| natural, perhaps even good but the current level is bad.
|
| Bad, that the only net positive part of the entire UK
| comes from London and it's dependent, the SE.
|
| It's clearly caused societal issues and apart from
| everything else means we're putting all our eggs in one
| basket. Transporting goods, energy and people into London
| from all over the UK is clearly worse than if we spread
| it around a bit.
| stg22 wrote:
| Historically, the UK was run for the benefit of an elite
| and the regions they lived in, but they discovered that
| that ran counter to their own interests. They reversed the
| economic parts of that in Ireland in the 1890s ("Killing
| Home Rule with Kindness"), and they did so in Northern
| England after the Wall Street Crash. For example, for part
| of the 20th century, companies were banned from expanding
| anywhere outside of deprived regions which caused
| industrial havoc in the South without providing much long-
| term benefit to the North. The root problem isn't that
| government didn't try extreme measure, it's that those
| measures failed at massive cost, so proposed ones are now
| subject to much more rigorous scrutiny.
|
| Power in the UK is highly centralised in London, but that's
| not necessarily bad for regional economic development, e.g.
| the office ban mentioned above would not have been agreed
| to by southern devolved regions and the redevelopment of
| the former East Germany was driven by Bonn (former West
| Germany's capital city). Competition in government also
| isn't necessarily good for regional development and the
| corn laws and free trade that the author credits to
| Northern England's influence caused another famine in
| Ireland in 1879. It's also worth noting the North East
| England referendum of 2004, when London's project of
| devolving power to the English regions was blocked because
| Northern English voters overwhelmingly didn't want it.
|
| British manufacturing suffered an unusually steep collapse
| relative to other western countries in the late 20th
| century that hit Northern England particularly hard, while
| the benefits of the slightly later financial services boom
| were inevitably focused on the country's financial centre
| in the South. The manufacturing collapse was partially
| driven by government policies, but not in the way generally
| thought - for decades, pre-Thatcher governments had been
| taking fairly regular extreme measures in response to
| various crises (balance of payments deficits, unbalanced
| regional development, oil shortages, strikes, etc.), that
| made life much harder for businesses. But the collapse was
| mainly driven by the fact that Britain in the second half
| of the 20th century was mind-bogglingly bad at
| manufacturing. I suspect that the failure of that entire
| section of the British economy would be a better starting
| point for an analysis of what went wrong in Northern
| England.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Neither Albany, NY not Sacramento, CA feel like the centers
| of their states.
| marssaxman wrote:
| Having spent my teen years in backwater Sacramento, I can
| confirm that it did not feel much like the center of
| anything.
|
| Adding a few more examples to your list, neither Olympia
| (WA), Salem (OR), nor Carson City (NV) are economic or
| social centers of their respective states.
| LexGray wrote:
| This may stumble on a solution to the problem. London
| combines government and financial centers. Axe parliament
| and 10 Downing Street and rebuild government
| infrastructure from scratch in some inland port where it
| can drag influence north.
|
| Sacramento may not be exciting, but it is self-sustaining
| with fairly high property costs and a huge commuter
| population. I think one of the things that makes
| California successful is the government is in a boring
| city with few distractions.
| matt-p wrote:
| Agree, chuck parliament and number 10 in a office
| building in Leeds or something. It really would be
| transformational, but will it happen? Not a hope in hell.
| nine_k wrote:
| The US somehow avoids this, likely by putting state capitals
| and the national capital into smaller cities. Hence NYC, SF,
| Chicago, Dallas, Miami, Seattle, etc are all big urban
| agglomerations, but are not the points that concentrate
| _everything_ important in their respective areas.
| WorkerBee28474 wrote:
| I think there's truth to that, it seems like every state has 1
| major city. Possibly not always the capital (e.g. Toronto vs
| Ottawa, Albany vs NYC vs DC).
|
| I've heard that the book Cities and the Wealth of Nations [0]
| might talk about this more. I've been meaning to read it.
|
| [0] https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/your-book-review-cities-
| and...
| tetris11 wrote:
| 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?
| graemep wrote:
| Most developed economies have shifted to services. Its a
| natural progression that results from higher productivity and
| higher wages.
|
| I think the big problem is too much reliance on on service
| sector.
| asplake wrote:
| A natural progression and not necessarily a bad thing, but it
| makes further productivity growth more difficult.
| EarlKing wrote:
| It's a consequence of companies outsourcing to countries
| where they can get away with slave labor and a complete lack
| of environmental regulation. There's nothing natural about
| it.
| Cumpiler69 wrote:
| It's basically a modern form of economic colonialism
| replacing the old style of colonialism with ships, guns and
| slaves in chains.
|
| The brutal hard work gets done off-shore for poor pay and
| the spoils(profits) get shipped to the western finance
| capitals of the world where people who put in little effort
| get the cream.
|
| It's still dependent on rich countries having historical
| leverage (economic, political and especially military) over
| the poor countries where the dirty manufacturing and hard
| labor happens, rather than based on any meritocracy.
| Ekaros wrote:
| Or how trade made places rich... Well you always have the
| buyer and seller. And less they get and more they pay
| worse is it for them... Trade has value generation, but
| also exploitation and extraction...
| deltarholamda wrote:
| Exactly this. Don't think of it as "moving to a service-
| based economy", think of it as "outsourcing manufacturing
| and resource extraction". They are two sides of the same
| coin, but people tend to only look at the one shiny side.
|
| Like any race to the bottom, it works great until you hit
| the bottom. Only now you don't have any of the fundamental
| industry, and you've lost all of the domain knowledge of
| those industries. Short-term thinking is incredibly
| seductive.
| ANewFormation wrote:
| It also creates this weird power imbalance. 'Advanced
| economies' are supposed to be just that, yet 'developing
| economies' cutting off their grain, steel and
| manufacturing is a far bigger threat than an advanced
| economy cutting off digital services, luxury goods, and
| financial markets.
| nine_k wrote:
| But "advanced" means "gone farther in a particular
| direction", not "more powerful", "independent", or some
| such. Mostly it's about giving the population more
| comfort. Equally, staying on a sofa can give you more
| comfort than hitting a gym, but it usually does not make
| you stronger.
| graemep wrote:
| Its not that simple. The UK experts a lot of manufactured
| goods to exactly those sorts of countries, and imports a
| lot from the EU and the US.
|
| What you say is true of cheap consumer goods, but remember
| everything else. Even with some consumer goods, its pretty
| even - the UK exports cars about as much as it imports (by
| value, not numbers though).
| https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/uk-trade-in-
| numbers...
|
| Its other big goods exports are things that are not that
| visible to consumers.
| EarlKing wrote:
| Are you sure you want to get into everything else?
| Because I could've sworn we just had a major controversy
| with Vivek Ramaswamy running his mouth about the supposed
| laziness of American workers to justify racial
| discrimination against them through mass hiring of H1B
| workers... a stance so obviously wrong it forced his exit
| from the Trump administration. He certainly wasn't
| referring to people employed producing "cheap consumer
| goods", and there's nothing natural about the shift to
| the use of H1B labor. Just to be clear, though: This
| phenomenon is not unique to the United States.
| Imperialists everywhere try to pit one people against
| another to maintain power and extract maximum value for
| minimum input. Just once I'd like the bourgeoisie-
| adjacent to acknowledge political reality.
| nine_k wrote:
| OK, let it be not outsourcing to places with lower cost of
| labor, but to machines. There are whole factories that are
| operated by half-dozen people who mostly oversee its
| interaction with other human-run systems, such as trucks.
|
| It will still keep most population away from industrial
| production. Same thing happened is agriculture a century
| ago, when machines made 90% of agricultural workers
| redundant, and huge farms are run by half-dozen people.
|
| (Wait until AI will make a ton of service workers
| redundant.)
| EarlKing wrote:
| OK, sounds good... hey, you're going to pay taxes on
| those machines, right? Because no business operates in a
| vacuum. Gotta pay for that military, police, and fire
| that allow you to continue operating. Think of it as the
| labor element of the manufacturing sector shifting to the
| defense sector. It's natural. :D
| Cumpiler69 wrote:
| _> More than 2/3rds of my graduating physics class went
| straight into banking_
|
| How does one get hired into banking with a physics degree? For
| what kinds of jobs? Where I live right now you only get into
| banking with a economics/business degree. Anything else and
| your resume goes in the bin.
| jakey_bakey wrote:
| Stem degrees are pretty high rated
| Cumpiler69 wrote:
| That's a vague answer that doesn't answer my specific
| question. I also have a STEM degree (electrical
| engineering) but would never be considered for finance
| roles.
| gostsamo wrote:
| data. stem people can do math and data analysis.
| jwiz wrote:
| Physics math has high overlap with Finance math.
| growse wrote:
| I have a chemistry degree and an entire career doing
| software / system engineering in financial services.
|
| I've also hired a boatload of people with STEM degrees.
| In fact (massive generalisation warning) I prefer hiring
| them to those with computer science degrees.
| i_don_t_know wrote:
| I think banks / insurance companies are looking for solid
| math skills. If you can learn / work with higher math for
| physics, you can work with financial math.
| EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote:
| A bank is a very diverse organism. There was a group at our
| bank, they knew very little English and none of the
| business/economy. Their task was to solve differential
| equations, something physicists are trained to do.
| hackandthink wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantitative_analysis_(finance.
| ..
|
| My experience: even when it comes to only implementing
| financial products, banks prefer mathematicians/physicists as
| software developers.
| tomatocracy wrote:
| I haven't been in banking for a while (I'm on the investment
| side of finance now) but I have been in finance for 20 years
| now. I'd say that at least in London, my experience is that a
| majority have degrees which weren't economics/business -
| sciences and (general) engineering degrees are very common,
| and maths and comp sci aren't uncommon.
| JanisErdmanis wrote:
| > More than 2/3rds of my graduating physics class went straight
| into banking
|
| This does not seem to be a specific phenomenon. Only a few of
| my former PhD condensed matter physics colleagues did not end
| up in finance.
| spacebanana7 wrote:
| > More than 2/3rds of my graduating physics class went straight
| into banking
|
| This is why I advise people to never study physical sciences or
| non-software engineering. There just aren't many jobs for it in
| the UK. And even fewer that pay well.
| bowsamic wrote:
| I think another big difference is that in the UK higher
| education is not really valued. In Germany people get PhDs
| because then they can get into much higher paying jobs, even
| if the PhD is not in a topic related much to the job. For
| example because I have a physics PhD I was able to get an
| entry level software dev position with a wage of 73k where
| someone with a bachelors may get only 40-50k. I don't think
| that dynamic exists in the UK
| growse wrote:
| The usefulness of that depends on whether you think academic
| higher education is vocational ("I'm doing a chemistry degree
| so that I can be a chemist") or inquisitive ("I'm doing a
| chemistry degree because it's so heckin' interesting").
|
| I'd tend to advise people to study stuff they find
| interesting. I'd wager the percentage of degree holders doing
| a job that's directly related to their degree is in the
| minority, _and that 's not a bad thing_.
| spacebanana7 wrote:
| Inquisitive education is great for people who're
| independently wealthy or academically exceptional.
|
| But the average person takes a real risk of underemployment
| with that approach.
|
| A friend of mine with a degree in marine biology works as a
| barista, another with a philosophy degree works as a retail
| assistant.
| MathMonkeyMan wrote:
| I don't live in the UK, but here in the USA I studied Physics
| and Music and then got a job programming. A lot of it was
| dumb luck, but I want to emphasize that school is about
| learning, not about vocational training. My experience in
| programming was due to being a giant nerd, not school.
| hackandthink wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hit_the_North
|
| Always thought that Mark E. Smith would sing about it. I must
| have been wrong according to Wikipedia.
| HarHarVeryFunny wrote:
| 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.
| skrebbel wrote:
| > 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?
| McDutchie wrote:
| Yes. I think the author's point is that the standards are that
| low up here in North England, and outside of Manchester it's
| worse than in East Germany.
| graemep wrote:
| I think that means growth rates, not absolute wealth.
|
| Not all of the north is poor. Cheshire is richer than outer
| London or the home counties. If you adjust for the cost of
| living more of the north would be.
|
| North poor, south rich is very simplistic.
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_regions_of_the_Unite...
| dambi0 wrote:
| I think it's a bit more subtle than that. For one the author
| tells us they think this is an example of success story.
| Although I guess it depends on when you are measuring from, and
| they may be being somewhat tongue in cheek with their choice of
| East Germany
|
| I think the point is that we would expect East German cities to
| have reasonable relative growth post-unification because we are
| taking a relatively structurally deprived area within a wider
| more successful economy.
|
| That Manchester has kept up with areas where you'd expect to
| see reasonable growth, is positive. I suppose there's also the
| hint that this suggests that this has been allowed to happen by
| central government, but I could be making that up.
| vixen99 wrote:
| Although not quite in the sense intended by the author, point 9
| as of January 2025, is only too true. "Why Britain can't afford
| to carry on as it is."
| dboreham wrote:
| Saw the headline and thought "well, it won't give the real
| reason: because London". But refreshingly, it does.
| guerrilla wrote:
| I'm sure Wales, Ireland and Scotland could have told you much the
| same just speculating off the top of their heads. England has
| always been a colonial project in one form or another, from day
| one. In fact a lot of it is common knowledge at least among the
| online left. One difference though: I think he under-emphasizes
| the shutting down of the coal mines; or at least others have
| historically emphasizes that more.
| sjclemmy wrote:
| I have never heard it referred to as North England. Northern
| England or the North of England yes. As a reluctant "northerner"
| it dunt sarnd reet.
| shellac wrote:
| Yes, a minor thing but concur that it is definitely peculiar.
| dang wrote:
| Ok, we've erned it in the title above. Thanks!
| jdietrich wrote:
| I think there's a fundamental gap in this analysis, which is how
| hyper-local many of the inequalities are.
|
| Manchester has a GDP per capita of PS59,000. Tameside, the
| poorest area in Greater Manchester, has a GDP per capita of
| PS19,000. Leeds has a GDP per capita of PS42k; ten miles away,
| Bradford has a GDP per capita of PS23.6k.
|
| Those disparities are really difficult to explain in terms of
| infrastructure or commercial investment. Similar disparities
| exist within London, although for plausibly different reasons;
| compare Lewisham with the neighbouring Southwark, Camden with
| Haringey, or that one bit of Tower Hamlets with the rest of Tower
| Hamlets.
|
| I think we need to be looking much more granularly at the gaps
| between neighbouring areas, schools and families - the human
| capital factors that trap people in lives of poverty. Building a
| university or innovation hub in Knowsley probably won't do much
| for the huge numbers of kids there who leave school unable to
| read and write.
|
| https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/grossdomesticproductgdp/bulle...
| matt-p wrote:
| To a certain extent, would making the productive parts of
| manchester, even just 2X more productive not fix this over time
| in the same way that it has in London?
|
| If you look back even say 30 years ago in London, you'd of said
| the same thing about places like Hackney, as you do now about
| Tameside. Today it houses some of the most desired and valuable
| real estate not only in London, and by extension the UK, but in
| the world.
| Retric wrote:
| Simply displacing a population can make an area more wealthy
| but it does little for the overall population.
|
| So, I don't think we care about land here but rather people.
| threatofrain wrote:
| > but it does little for the overall population.
|
| Not sure about that.
| fsckboy wrote:
| > _30 years ago in London, you 'd of said the same thing
| about places like Hackney...[and] today it houses some of the
| most desired and valuable real estate_
|
| are you saying that gentrification of Hackney did not simply
| entail wealthier people moving in and displacing the local
| population, but rather soaring incomes for the people who
| lived there?
| matt-p wrote:
| Emphasis on 'to a certain extent' :)
|
| Educational outcomes need to be improved yesterday, no
| disagreement on that.
|
| There's some displacement, yes. However anyone who isn't in
| privately rented accommodation would be _choosing_ to
| leave, perhaps even with some decent money from selling
| their house.
|
| Many people stay, if you'd like proof, take a walk down to
| hackney.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| A "gentrified" community will involve higher incomes for
| those non-tradable services that have to be provided
| locally and can't simply be outsourced to somewhere else.
| So it's both.
|
| (This is in addition to the high productivity that's
| driving the gentrification in the first place, which will
| often result in increased opportunity in that very sector -
| but that's not always very relevant, especially in the
| short term.)
| kjellsbells wrote:
| One could argue that the money flowing into Hackney was
| largely from the London media/finance elite who probably were
| made 2X more productive by IT and City deregulation. The
| result was Hackney's gentrification.
|
| But gentrification, is not the same as a community leveling
| up. The former provides an influx of new residents with money
| to spend in the community. The latter creates new
| opportunities for the existing residents within the
| community.
| ceuk wrote:
| 100%
|
| I live down the road from OP in Harrogate and it's an
| incredibly desirable and affluent place
|
| Also while I'm commenting. I know OP isn't saying the North is
| shit. Just poor(ish).
|
| Nevertheless I just want to say I love the north of England and
| genuinely think it's one of the best places in the world. We've
| already established that I'm in one of the better areas so my
| perspective might be a little skewed, but I honestly think it's
| an incredible place and I hope this doesn't put people off
| visiting.
| pastureofplenty wrote:
| You guys certainly have some of the nicest accents in the
| Anglosphere, imo.
| incompatible wrote:
| Poor vs shit is an interesting discussion. If your life, your
| environment, isn't shit, why would you even care if are poor?
| Would you rather be rich and unhappy? (I spend very little,
| yet I don't feel deprived.)
| zipy124 wrote:
| Also from the Harrogate area, but moved to London for uni and
| haven't made it back yet. Whilst Harrogate is very nice and
| affluent, I'd say the biggest difference isn't the personal
| wealth but the council wealth. There's far far far more
| wealth in the south and I've honestly been amazed at just how
| big the gap is, especially noticeable in infrastructure and
| services like roads and schools. Even the schools in poor
| areas of London are better than the local Harrogate schools.
| Just look at Yorks council funding (now merged with
| Harrogate) which has the lowest funding per capita in the UK.
|
| Despite this tho I'd much rather live in Harrogate and enjoy
| the countryside than London tbh, plus people are less
| miserable there...
| tomcam wrote:
| Mentions the Norman conquest but not immigration
| matt-p wrote:
| Plenty of criticisms of mass immigration, but it can hardly be
| blamed for this, that's insane.
| butterknife wrote:
| Whistling here or do you actually mean the overwhelmingly
| higher proportion of immigrants in South East compared to
| North?
| walthamstow wrote:
| The brain drain from northern England to London is massive.
|
| There are four high income tech/finance/media households on my
| culdesac in east London, thankfully including my own. Of the
| eight adults, I am from London but the other seven are from the
| midlands or north of England.
| drunkensailors wrote:
| OT: but it seem that something in time'd change: (reads)
| https://www.thevintagenews.com/2020/07/01/london-beer-flood/
|
| ...and now a "barrel" has more than a thousand hectolitres...?
|
| hint: read //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloomsbury
| spacebanana7 wrote:
| The very success of Northern England in the nineteenth century
| may have also precipitated a great deal of its subsequent
| failures.
|
| The rail, coal and manufacturing industries crowded out other
| forms of enterprise economically. The related union / capitalist
| disputes crowded out other political activity.
|
| Similarly the great agricultural "successes" of the Scottish
| Highlands in the 17th & 18th century crowded out everything else,
| leaving it something of a backwater ever since.
|
| Perhaps something similar will happen to London when the time of
| finance comes to an end? Then finally the South West will take
| its turn being the heart of the British economy.
| devnullbrain wrote:
| We'll have the same thing for the whole country when the time
| of housing investment comes to an end. Why start a business
| when you could just buy another house?
| retrac98 wrote:
| Sort of an aside from the article, but I never feel like these
| geographic averages translate well to densely populated countries
| like England.
|
| The North, like all parts of the country, has pockets of extreme
| affluence near areas of relative poverty, with a lot of middle
| income households scattered about the place too.
|
| Talking to some southerners you'd think the whole of the North
| was a dump, and I worry people write off a truly beautiful part
| of the UK because of this misconception.
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