North versus South? Industrial and Social Change in BritainAuthor(s): Alan TownsendSource: Area, Vol. 20, No. 2 (Jun., 1988), p. 193Published by: The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers)Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20002604 .

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IBG Annual Conference 193

North versus South? Industrial and Social Change in Britain

This session, convened by the Industrial Activity and Area Development Study Group, led the expanded press coverage of the Loughborough Conference, because it found evidence of increased north-south contrasts in the UK. It was at a time of general media interest in this topic organised jointly by the Industrial Activity and Area Development Study Group and the Social and Cultural Geography Study Group, and mainly comprised a range of national studies.

R Martin (Cambridge) opened on ' The political economy of Britain's north-south divide', emphasising that the divide existed more deeply in the Victorian period than was commonly thought and that post-war policies to correct it through regional policy were relatively super ficial. He also argued that this divide is a crucial element in understanding the power-base and resulting policies of the current government. R Johnston and C J Pattie (Sheffield) elaborated this theme using fine-grained regional definitions to analyse estimates of how people in different occupational classes cast their general election vote in each constituency from 1979 to 1987. They concluded that the country had become geographically more polarised, and that this posed distinctive problems to all parties. C Hamnett (Open U) addressed another question of greater topical interest in his review of house price trends showing that the higher rate of price increase in the' south' was of major significance. However, the gap between prices in north and south is not a completely uniform one, and a study of a longer period showed that the divergence was partly cyclical, so that it could stabilise, or even reduce, in the next few years.

A Champion (Newcastle) and A Green (Warwick) updated their index of local economic performance, to identify places which were' winners and losers in 1980's Britain'. Their state ment that their amalgamated index of ten ' static 'and ' change.' indices revealed an even clearer north-south cleavage, and the actual identity of' winners ' and ' losers ', attracted widespread press interest and debate at the conference. J R Lewis and A R Townsend (Durham) also examined local variations, establishing the extent to which the reduction of unemployment totals over the last 12 recorded months had favoured southern travel-to-work areas (excluding London). Nonetheless, a selection of employment variables each showed different ' north-south divides '. The explanatory processes which were relevant to individual travel-to-work areas-for instance in financial service employment-might well be local, national or global but only coincidentally regional. L McDowell and J Allen (Open U) demonstrated' the uneven impact of service sector expansion' as between Norwich and Ipswich, in which different histories of employment structure and working practices combined with their locations to provide uneven quantitative and qualitative impacts from the growth of the insurance industry.

Two papers on office employment dealt with dramatic north-south contrasts. N Thrift, A Leyshon (Bristol) and P Daniels (Liverpool) examined the various ways in which the growth of London-based financial institutions was providing some limited' spin-off' in selected provincial centres. However, the supremacy of the City of London, and the South East generally, had been reinforced by development in the City's international financial markets. D Watts (Sheffield) took the subject of' administrative head offices: a northern perspective' and pointed out that the north has only ten per cent of the head offices of the UK's 100 largest firms. Although profit ability and other characteristics are similar in northern and southern-based firms, the number of head offices in the north's major urban centres has been declining. The final paper, by G Gudgin and A Schofield (Northern Ireland Economic Research Centre) explained the growing north south divide with reference to longer-term trends in the British economy. They then outlined projections to the year 2000 which showed continued regional disparities within a trend of gradually falling national unemployment. Altogether it was a very lively and popular session, which provided more answers to two of the opening questions about the North-South divide that were posed by D Massey (Open U)-what is it? and why has it arisen?-than it did to the third one what should be done about it?

Alan Townsend University of Durham

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