Regional Inequality

Regional inequality is an important issue in almost every country. There are almost always more prosperous or more developed regions and less prosperous and less developed regions. The reason is simple. Although it is theoretically possible to have such things as education and health care distributed relatively equally over space, it is impossible for economic resources to be equally or evenly distributed. Some areas have iron or coal or oil, others have hydro power and some areas on the coast can develop as ports, resources and geographical advantages are not equally distributed. Some areas, and China is a good example, are arid or semi-desert and thousands of miles from the coast and from transport routes. Economic development in such areas is difficult if not impossible. As a result, in almost every country, some areas are more economically developed than others, and as a result they tend to have a higher standard of living and better social facilities. It is impossible to provide the same standard of educational or health care in a sparsely populated region, hundreds or thousands of kilometres from anywhere, as it is in a big city. But geographical unevenness apart, the history of economic development leaves a massive legacy. In Britain, some of the poorest areas use to be in parts of the South East before the Industrial Revolution. But then, from 1820s onwards, the development of the major industrial areas of the Black country, Birmingham, Manchester, Glasgow, Liverpool, Newcastle etc changed the economic geography of Britain and saw the rise of new industrial cities. But, after a century of growing prosperity, the depression of the 1930s and then the de-industrialisation of the 1960s, 70s and 80s saw another transformation creating long lasting problems of 'left behind areas'. Similar processes happened in France, Germany, Belgium, China and the USA.. And today development of Silicon Valley and the high tech clusters of the USA or China overlays a new dimension. Some areas are almost inevitably less developed or poorer than others and many countries have developed regional policy to try to reduce the inequalities and even things up. But it is difficult to transform old industrial areas and it can take many decades to do so and with varying degrees of success. Regional inequality is a persistent problem in almost all countries. It is almost impossible for things to be distributed equally over space.