This “agglomeration economies haven’t worked for ordinary people so let’s oppose them” argument is distressing and wrong. (1/) https://twitter.com/guardian/status/1305390455790751744

First, let’s deal with the straw man: the idea that, because UK policy towards promoting agglomeration outside London has been limited to letting property investment rip, that is somehow a necessary or sufficient condition for agglomeration economies to emerge. It isn’t. (2/)

Agglomeration economies aren’t a policy, anyway. They’re an effect that occurs to accelerate productivity growth as a result of a critical mass of successful spatial and economic policy and, usually, an awful lot of history (eh, @path_dependent) (3/)

The UK’s rubbish productivity and low incomes (outside London, natch) are explainable by the fact of it being pretty much the only large developed country whose cities are poorer and less productive than the country as a whole, and in effect drag down performance. (4/)

Poor urban performance is why regions like the NE and NW are among the poorest like-for-like in Europe. The problem is not too much focus on promoting agglomeration, but far, far too little. (5/)

It is of course important to worry about incomes and life satisfaction everywhere, not just in cities, and the idea of rebuilding the ‘foundational economy’ to give greater local democratic power and influence over the economy of everyday life is powerful (6/)

But the most important long-term thing we can do for smaller towns is build powerhouse urban economies with extensive spillovers to which they are effectively connected, physically and in governance. (6/)

So the progressive argument is not against agglomeration policies but *for* actually trying some, with sustained effort and resources for a couple of decades, and seeing if the same things happen to incomes and productivity here as in most countries that have done the same. (7/7)