<p>The Northern Connection:
Assessing the comparative
economic performance and
prospects of northern England
Final Summary Report to The Northern Way
January 2008
Institute for Political and Economic
Governance, University of Manchester
Centre for Urban Policy Studies, University of Manchester
With David Coates, Independent Economic Consultant
Contents
Executive Summary 4
Introduction 6
Northern places in a national urban hierarchy 7
– Northern ‘hubs’ in the national context
– Northern connectivity
– ‘Weight’, connectivity and spatial economic change
The emerging policy context 31
Implications for the Northern Way 36
4 / 5 The Northern Connection: Assessing the comparative economic
performance and prospects of northern England
Executive Summary
This report, and the three thematic
reports on which it draws,
demonstrates that economic growth
in the North, and in the UK as a whole,
has become increasingly dependent
upon the roles and performance of
key cities and city regions. In the
transition from an industrial to an
increasingly service-based economy,
high value-added activities in
particular have been drawn into cities
as a result of agglomeration – the
advantage for firms, their customers,
and employees of being located
together. However, this growth has not
been even, and has been focused, as
overseas, in the largest, most diverse,
and best connected places.
A clear urban hierarchy is shown to
have emerged in the UK with London
standing apart as a genuine world city,
dominating national and international
business and attracting flows of high
qualified people. It is also notably well
connected, nationally and internationally,
and with places in the ‘super-region’
that surrounds and sustains it.
Leading the city regions in the North
are those focused on Manchester and
Leeds, whose size and recent dynamism
are of a different order from the rest.
They are also the best connected, within
the North, nationally and, in Manchester’s
case, internationally. The city regions
centred on Newcastle, Sheffie