Decentering the nation: a radical approach to regional inequality

Massey, Doreen; Amin, Ash and Thrift, Nigel (2003). Decentering the nation: a radical approach to regional inequality. Catalyst, London, UK.

URL: http://editiondesign.com/catalyst/pubs/paper19.htm...

Abstract

One of the most persistent characteristics of the geography of the United Kingdom is the wide inequality that exists between its constituent regions. In the present period, in spite of many stated intentions and much government rhetoric to the contrary, it has on many measures grown considerably worse.
This pamphlet argues that it will continue to do so unless there is a more serious engagement with the power dynamics that underlie this fundamentally unequal and undemocratic geography: dynamics that continue to return London and the South East as the centre of the nation. In the absence of both a systematic attack on the spatial concentration of power, and a radical re-imagination of the nature of regions in an age of geographical connectivity and flow, the concessions on offer in the current debate on devolution and region-building will amount to little more than a pin-prick in tackling the alarming regional inequality and political centrism that currently exists in Britain.

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