"Many of Britain's towns and cities have failed - and been failed by policy makers for too long. It is better to tell uncomfortable truths than to continue to claim that if we carry on as we are then things will turn out well. Just as we can't buck the market, so we can't buck economic geography either. Places that enjoyed the conditions for creating wealth in the coal-powered 19th century often do not do so today.
"Coastal cities, whether large like Liverpool and Hull, or small like Scunthorpe and Blackpool, are most vulnerable ... They are almost always at the end of the line. They have lost their raison d'etre [as ports] and it is hard to imagine them prospering at their current sizes.
"Sunderland demonstrates just how hard it is to regenerate such a city. It is time to stop pretending there is a bright future for Sunderland and ask ourselves instead what we need to do to offer people in Sunderland better prospects."
The report says that all the 3m new homes planned by the government should be built in just three southern cities - London, Oxford and Cambridge. It says: "Cities based on highly skilled workers are the most dynamic. Oxford and Cambridge are unambiguously Britain's leading research universities outside London." People in the north should be told bluntly that their best chance of an affluent future is to move south. "No one is suggesting that residents should be forced to move, but we do argue that they should be told the reality of the position."
Tim Leunig, an economist from the London School of Economics who co-wrote the report, admitted that some people will see his ideas as "unworkable, unreasonable and perhaps plain barmy".
Louise Ellman, Labour MP for Liverpool Riverside, said: "This report from David Cameron's favourite thinktank has just dismissed a huge area of the country as worthless. Is it any wonder there are no Tory councillors in Liverpool when for all their warm words they have not changed a bit?"
The above extract from the Tories favourite think-tank might give us a clue.
Click on link to read article.
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