Levelling up takes genuine devolution

In this chapter contribution to the Centre for Labour and Social Studies’ What will it really take to level-up?, CLES’s Neil McInroy and Tom Lloyd Goodwin argue that the government’s approach of regional investment is doomed to failure because it ignores inter-regional imbalances.

The chapter considers and discusses how we solve the longstanding, deep and growing regional inequality by exploring historic attempts to address this issue, with attention to the relatively recent focus on the regional city centres, and the perils of an economic model based on land and property appreciation. The paper concludes by suggesting what it would really to take to address regional economic inequality.