Perceptions of regional inequality and the geography of discontent: insights from the UK

Philip Mccann

doi:10.1080/00343404.2019.1619928

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis paper examines the issue of whether the UK displays high levels of interregional inequality or only average levels of inequality. The question arises due to major differences in public perceptions. Following on from recent UK public debates, the UK evidence is examined in the context of 28 different indicators and 30 different Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. Answering this question involves a careful consideration of the ways in which we use different spatial units of analysis, different measures of prosperity and different indices of inequality in order to understand interregional inequality, and the issues that arise are common to all countries. In the specific case of the UK, the result is clear. The UK is one of the most regionally unbalanced countries in the industrialized world.

Highlights

This paper examines the role of different spatial definitions, different units of measurement and different indices of regional performance in articulating the scale of interregional inequalities that a country faces
In terms of the country comparisons employed by both The Economist and FullFact, when we consider interregional inequality across all the available Territorial Level 2 classification (TL2), Territorial Level 3 classification (TL3), metro urban and NUTS-2 and NUTS-3 indicators, we see that across all 28 indicators the UK is more interregionally unequal than the United States on six measures, while the United States is more unequal than the UK on five measures, and they are equal on two measures
If the District of Columbia is removed for the reasons outlined above, the United States is more interregionally unequal compared with the UK on four measures, while the UK is more unequal compared with the United States on nine measures, and they are equal according to one measure

Summary

INTRODUCTION

This paper examines the role of different spatial definitions, different units of measurement and different indices of regional performance in articulating the scale of interregional inequalities that a country faces. The Economist article used the simplest measure of interregional inequality, which is the absolute difference between the richest and poorest regions defined in terms of GDP per capita divided by national average GDP per capita The countries it compared with the UK were other large OECD countries, namely: Spain, United States, France, Germany, Italy, South Korea, Japan and Sweden. If we calculate a coefficient of variation for GDP per capita at the NUTS-3 regions, again we see that the UK is the 11th most interregionally unequal country in Europe out of 22 EU and OECD countries behind five former Communist countries plus France, Italy, Greece and Ireland In these particular types of NUTS rankings, the UK displays lower inequalities between large urban areas and either small town or non-urban areas than in countries such as France, as is already well known (Dijkstra, Garcilazo, & McCann, 2013; McCann, 2016).. As explained in Appendix A in the supplemental data online, one-third of the UK’s large urban areas are poorer than their own hinterlands and one-fifth are only very slightly more prosperous than their hinterlands, twothirds of the UK large cities are less prosperous than the UK average, and the productivity growth of many of these has almost completely stalled since the 2008 crisis (Martin, Sunley, Gardiner, Evenhuis, & Tyler, 2018)

Findings

DISCUSSION

CONCLUSIONS