Spatially Rebalancing the UK Economy: Towards a New Policy Model?

Martin R., Pike A., Tyler P. and Gardiner B. Spatially rebalancing the UK economy: towards a new policy model?, Regional Studies. The current UK government has announced its intention to rebalance the national economy spatially, to create a ‘northern powerhouse’ to rival that in London and the South East. This imbalance is in fact a longstanding problem that 90 years of regional policy has not resolved. This paper argues that the entrenched nature of the UK's spatial imbalance derives in part from the centralized nature of the national political economy, and that only a bold and radical change in that political economy – based on a devolution and decentralization of or economic, financial and political power – is called for.