This re-evaluation of the role of regional policy in the UK has been accompanied by a much closer identification of regional policy with national economic policymaking. This book, drawing upon the contributions of a large number of experts in the field in the UK, sets the debate on the future of spatial policy explicitly within the context of the economics and politics of the North-South divide. Recent policy debates in the United Kingdom have highlighted two major issues which will shape future policy developments and their impact in the 1990s - the persistence of pronounced regional economic and social imbalances and the shift away from traditional perceptions of the role of regional policy, with a new emphasis on inner-city as opposed to regional problems. In this collection by leading researchers in the field, the role of regional policy in the UK is re-evaluated against a background of renewed debate on the economic disparities inherent in the north-south divide and an assessment of the implications for future policy.

Throughout the twentieth century, Wales underwent rapid and far-reaching economic upheavals on such a scale that few avoided their impacts – from recessions, war, changing fortunes within the iconic steel and coal industries, the rise and decline of manufacturing, as well as the gradual rise to dominance of the service sector – the changes were as dramatic as was the intensity of attempts to deal with their consequences. Wales was a laboratory for government intervention in the economy, ranging from the attraction of investment and the clearance of land made derelict by industry, to the regeneration of urban areas. This is the first book to focus on these actions and to outline why, how and with what effect governments intervened, and it contains timely commentary as economic performance remains one of the most important issues facing contemporary Wales.