Regional Regeneration in Britain: The Territorial Imperative and the Conservative State
| Author | Kevin Morgan |
| Published date | 01 December 1985 |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-9248.1985.tb01581.x |
| Date | 01 December 1985 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
Political
Studies
(1985),
XXXIII,
560-577
Regional Regeneration
in
Britain: the
Territorial Imperative and the Conservative
State
KEVIN
MORGAN
University
of
Sussex
The Conservative White Paper on Regional Industrial Development was a frank and
belated admission that the geography
of
relative depression
no
longer corresponded
to
the official map
of
the assisted areas and, as a result, regional policy has recently
been subjected
to
a radical review. This paper outlines some of the reasons for this
review and explores the regional implications of the Conservative neo-market
strategy. However, despite the economic limjtations
of
regional policy, the latter
remains an attractive focus for a wide spectrum
of
social interests in depressed areas;
consequently, it is argued, territorial questions have a contemporary significance
despite the demise
of
peripheral nationalism and devolution.
One
of
the least celebrated features
of
1984 was that it marked the 50th
anniversary
of
British regional policy: the Special Areas legislation
of
1934 was
the first formal acceptance by a modern state of responsibility for the con-
sequences of territorially-specific industrial decline. The first to industrialize,
Britain was also the first to confront the problem of
a
fully developed, but
outmoded, industrial structure. The inter-war economic crisis of Britain’s
‘imperial’ industries-those
of
coal, steel, shipbuilding, textiles-induced a
social crisis in those regions-particularly South Wales, West Central Scotland
and North-East England-where these industries were largely concentrated.
Thus
50
years ago, Britain was characterized not by an undifferentiated
crisis but, rather, by acute depression
in
its ‘outer’ regions, juxtaposed to
relative
prosperity in such ‘inner’ regions as the South-East and the West
Midlands. The plight of the inter-war special areas bears few parallels in
modern British civilian history:
in
terms of social landmarks, these areas stand
as
a
latter day equivalent to such frightful spectacles as that afforded by the
plight of the English hand-loom weavers a century earlier. The social trauma of
the special areas is not without significance even now, inasmuch as it constitutes
an ideological resource which can be utilized to legitimize claims for territorial
justice. Such claims appear to be endorsed by
a
wider spectrum of social
interests in these areas than is apparent elsewhere, especially as regards regional
policy. Nevertheless, these areas no longer have monopoly claims over
intractable unemployment, and regional policy, recently the subject
of
a radical
review, has belatedly adjusted to this fact.
This paper aims firstly to outline some contemporary forms of uneven
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0
1985
Political
Studies
KEVIN MORGAN
561
development; secondly,
to
specify the limits
and
attractions
of
regional policy;
thirdly, to examine what might be called the ‘territorial imperative’; and
finally, to assess the Conservative’s new regional development strategy.
Contemporary
Forms
of
Uneven
Development
The context
of
the recent debate
on
regional regeneration was quite unlike that
of
any other period when regional policy was under review. Between 1945 and
1973, a period which
retrospectively
appears as a golden age
of
growth, the
principal function
of
regional policy was to redistribute (manufacturing)
investment from buoyant donor regions
to
less buoyant recipient regions.
Throughout this entire period the pre-war special areas formed the intractable
core of the assisted area map which, by 1979, covered some 45 per cent
of
the
British working population. Indeed, when the first Thatcher government
reduced assisted area coverage
to
some 27 per cent, the fact that the
1982
map
aped that
of
the pre-war special areas was a disturbing reminder of the enduring
geography
of
structural unemployment.
Superficially, therefore, the chief geographical dichotomy still appeared
to
be between the northern and western regions of ‘outer’ Britain, as against those
of the interior. Yet, since the middle 1970s, a new geography
of
depression has
superimposed itself
on
the traditional pattern, producing two more recent
spatial problems. The first is an effect
of
the so-called ‘urban-rural shift’-this
‘shift’, underway since the 1950s, consists of the decline
of
manufacturing
employment in the conurbations and the emergence of small towns and rural
areas as sites of employment growth.’ The ‘urban-rural shift’ should not be
attributed simply to relocation because the effects
of
movement have been less
important than the net effect of differences in the starting up, closure and
performance of firms as between urban and rural locations. If the underlying
causes
of
the ‘shift’ are not fully understood, what is manifestly clear is that the
conurbations, irrespective of the ‘North-South’ dichotomy, have unemploy-
ment problems every bit as intractable as the traditional assisted areas. Inter-
regional contrasts, for
so
long the dominant scale
of
reference, are now
compounded by the fact that contrasts in unemployment are as marked
within
as between regions, hence the limited
utility
of
‘core-periphery’ models. The
second spatial problem concerns the emergence
of
pervasive industrial decline
in two regions (namely, the West Midlands and the North West) which were
formerly the
UK’s
major manufacturing regions. Both are heavily urbanized
and, because of their above-average dependence on the more mature industries,
these once buoyant regions have unemployment rates above that
of
Scotland.
Just as the spatial pattern of unemployment has changed,
so
too
has the
official diagnosis of the regional problem. Until quite recently the problems
of
the traditional assisted areas were attributed simply
to
an overdependence
on
older industries, and
. .
.
as time goes on,
the
structure
of the problem regions
is
gradually
becoming more favourable; the declining industries cannot decline forever,
and
new
industries are playing a larger part in the regional economies.
As
this
process continues the problem should get easier.2
1
S.
Fothergill and
G.
Gudgin,
Unequal
Growfh
(London,
Heinemann, 1982).
p.
68.
*
G.
McCrone,
RegionalPolicy
in
Britain
(London, Allen
&
Unwin, 1969),
pp.
165-6.
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