If Berlin were removed from the map, Germany as a whole would economically (loss of people, loss of income) be on average better off.
If this is the mechanism, why is Berlin not doing better?
If we could invest £10Bn and get £20Bn back for the economy with our money back over time then not a single politician would turn that down, there's actually been a load of support over the past ~5+ years for "levelling up" (AKA investment in the north) but we've not invested much because the returns are abysmal. Meanwhile there's a whole stack of projects with good returns in london, but politically it's really difficult to "give more money to london" so we don't really do them. Bakerloo line extension and crossrail 2 for example.
The Elizabeth line, will over time pay for itself entirely with fares alone, yet has also already added ~£2.50 to the economy for every £1 spent.
This is a absolutely classic example of chicken and egg, network effects and first mover advantage. There's perhaps a case for being absolutely ruthless and just spending an obscene amount of money on Manchester/Leeds/Liverpool. What might it look like?
-No third runway for heathrow, instead BHX gets 2 more runways (or MAN 1 more) and all the funding it needs to become an international hub, including an reduction in APD for 5 years or something. Central London in ~48Mins via HS2 is already committed and being built, frankly that's not that much different to what it practically takes to get from a random heathrow terminal to central.
-HS2 to Manchester AND Leeds (via the branch just above BHX), that would connect BHX to those cities in <30 Mins or so and to London much quicker.
-Trams for Leeds, maybe a metro for Manchester.
-Liverpool>Manchester>Leeds express line (which seems committed).
-Enterprise zone covering all underdeveloped commercial areas in Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester and Birmingham. Give rates, or tax relief on businesses investing, or employing in the zone, planning exemptions, easier permitting.
Anything short of an absolutely insane bet like this, just isn't going to work. Chucking 1Bn to Leeds for them to buy some trams just isn't going to have a transformative effect, it might actually be a total waste because, in short, network effects.
The North of England frequently runs a combined fiscal deficit in the tens of billions, with all of that subsidy coming, effectively, from London and the SE.
I also fail to see how London is subsidising these areas. It seems to me that they'd be much better off if they were able to run themselves. This is a classic case of purposeful under-investment. You see it in business as well. If someone wants to kill off a given project, they'll deprive it of funding to he point it can't operate properly then use the lack of profit generated as an excuse to axe it. The issue we have is that we can't just axe the North.
There is also the issue of measuring productivity. You say investments in London are more productive because they generate more profit, but consider that an equal investment in the North might have a much greater effect on the quality of life for the people living there. Should we measure investments by how much money they return or how much they improve people's lives? I am reminded of industrial strategy in the Soviet Union. They invested only in the most "productive" (highest ROI under capitalism) things such as heavy industry and very little in consumer technologies that make people happier. The result was rapid industrialisation which probably had the best effect in the long run. The question is how long term are we thinking? At some point, you've gotta start paying to make people happy instead of just investing in the most profitable area.
I mean that kind of genuinely, I see your point, but good luck trying that argument on the treasury.
It's a fact that they're subsidised. They have regional mayors, do you think a devolved solution for each northern city is really reasonable or desirable? If we think it's desirable and will stop them being subsidised then why hasn't it worked for Scotland, Wales or NI? All of which take more than they put it.
There are investments beyond transport that we could make. Not all investments generate or should be judged against short-term returns. That a 1B tram system in Leeds may be less than effective does not mean we shouldn't invest at all. I don't see why we need an insane bet rather than a programme of improvement across the board.
Bad, that the only net positive part of the entire UK comes from London and it's dependent, the SE.
It's clearly caused societal issues and apart from everything else means we're putting all our eggs in one basket. Transporting goods, energy and people into London from all over the UK is clearly worse than if we spread it around a bit.
Power in the UK is highly centralised in London, but that's not necessarily bad for regional economic development, e.g. the office ban mentioned above would not have been agreed to by southern devolved regions and the redevelopment of the former East Germany was driven by Bonn (former West Germany's capital city). Competition in government also isn't necessarily good for regional development and the corn laws and free trade that the author credits to Northern England's influence caused another famine in Ireland in 1879. It's also worth noting the North East England referendum of 2004, when London's project of devolving power to the English regions was blocked because Northern English voters overwhelmingly didn't want it.
British manufacturing suffered an unusually steep collapse relative to other western countries in the late 20th century that hit Northern England particularly hard, while the benefits of the slightly later financial services boom were inevitably focused on the country's financial centre in the South. The manufacturing collapse was partially driven by government policies, but not in the way generally thought - for decades, pre-Thatcher governments had been taking fairly regular extreme measures in response to various crises (balance of payments deficits, unbalanced regional development, oil shortages, strikes, etc.), that made life much harder for businesses. But the collapse was mainly driven by the fact that Britain in the second half of the 20th century was mind-bogglingly bad at manufacturing. I suspect that the failure of that entire section of the British economy would be a better starting point for an analysis of what went wrong in Northern England.
If you look at somewhere like South Korea, who 60 years ago had no major engineering or shipbuilding, the UK could be leagues ahead of them. The difference is that the South Koreans had the appetite and impetus to do it, whereas in the UK the government and finance planners had the exact opposite impetus.
Adding a few more examples to your list, neither Olympia (WA), Salem (OR), nor Carson City (NV) are economic or social centers of their respective states.
Sacramento may not be exciting, but it is self-sustaining with fairly high property costs and a huge commuter population. I think one of the things that makes California successful is the government is in a boring city with few distractions.
Albany is older than NYC, and anyway the concept of NYC as a single large city is barely 125 years old. The original capital of Illinois is (strangely) west of the Mississippi River and south of St. Louis. By treaty between Great Britain and France, the current area of Illinois was off limits to European settlement, until after the revolution when the US said “that treaty doesn’t apply to us”. Chicago wasn’t a big or important city until the civil war.
Los Angeles has been the wealthiest and most populous area in Alta California since like 1800 or so. But it was established as a puebla and not a mission, so it could never be a center of government under Spanish rule.
Miami was fairly unlivable until air conditioning and malaria control, and its geographic location was extraordinarily inconvenient until after the interstate system.
The US government established a customs house in Olympia when it and Seattle were little more than a handful of homesteads. And guessed wrong on which would grow faster.
Similar for the Washington Territory which was barely a collection of homesteads and tiny villages. IIRC Olympia was the first significant immigrant settlement in the northern Oregon Territory, the major (only?) early trade connection to shipping on the pacific, and connected to the few other settlers moving north in to the territory. Its not very surprising that it was the territorial capitol and remained so for the state. Yes, post statehood a lot of rail & shipping traffic moved north. But at least through the turn of the 20th century both Tacoma and Seattle were roughly equivalent in population and industry. Arguably the easier ship access for the Klondike is what cemented the prosperity of Seattle pre-war, and Boeing & related defence activity post war. But _at the time of territory & statehood_ Olympia was the major town in the region.
I've heard that the book Cities and the Wealth of Nations [0] might talk about this more. I've been meaning to read it.
[0] https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/your-book-review-cities-and...