Levelling Up Left Behind Places

The Scale and Nature of the Economic and Policy Challenge

Ron Martin, Ben Gardiner, Andy Pike, Peter Sunley, Peter Tyler

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781032244303
• eBook ISBN: 9781000592931
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

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.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Foreword
• About the authors
• Acknowledgements
• Preamble
• Executive summary and key recommendations
• 1. Introduction: The new discourse of “left behind places”
• 2. Becoming “left behind”: How places have grown apart
• 3. Why places have fallen behind: The geographically uneven effects of economic transformation
• 4. Economic shocks and the differential resilience of places
• 5. Learning from past policies for “levelling up” and “left behind places” in the UK
• 6. Institutions and policies for “levelling up” and “left behind places”