Consider briefly how much time and energy is spent on keeping dying communities on life support: the obsession with levelling up, the drama over the finances of third-rate universities in struggling towns, the use of defence procurement as a tool for regional redistribution, the relocation of government departments, the expansion of freeports, the cash transfers of the benefits system – the list goes on.
And now consider that many of these problems would simply vanish if we let people freely choose where they wanted to live.
It is particularly bizarre when we recall that it was internal migration of this sort that created these struggling towns in the first place. They only exist as cities (rather than hamlets or villages) because they were in economically important locations a century or more ago and were able to attract new residents through the promise of work.
For example, Middlesbrough grew from a hamlet of 25 people in 1800 to a city of 90,000 in 1900 as a direct result of its status as a coal port. Blackpool grew in line with demand for seaside holidays.
Today, these factors are no longer enough to keep these cities thriving.
It’s possible that they are large enough to provide their own economic gravity. But the fact that they are among the most deprived parts of the country – in particular Blackpool as home to eight of the 10 most deprived neighbourhoods nationwide – suggests that quite a few people would leave if the option were open to them.
Why should they be denied the decision their forebears made in building those cities?
If the Government wants to get serious about generating growth, it should lift the restrictions on building in London, Manchester and Birmingham, expand Oxford and Cambridge and let people live where they want to.
The worst possible outcome is that people end up living in nicer, cheaper houses in places they want to be.
It is surely a risk worth taking.
