Thread by @thomasforth

Preparing some data for a thing. Astonishing.

I know what the answer is going to be. But then I see the answer and it's just even more.

Part of why Saxony outperformed South Yorkshire is EU spending. Much more happened in East Germany, in part because their economies were weaker. But it's actually not much money. German fiscal transfers were over 10 times greater. open-innovations.org/projects/jrf/e…

In 2010, fiscal transfers into Saxony were,
approx. €2100/resident from Germany.
approx. €170/resident from the EU.
So while I think that EU regional development funding is a good thing, the EU is a government with a small budget compared to the states within it.

In 2010, fiscal transfers into Yorkshire were,
approx. €900/resident from the UK.
approx. €42/resident from the EU.
My guess is that transfers to Saxony have gone down. Transfers to Yorkshire are up. €1500/resident today. A decade of economic weakness is expensive.

Some different choices taken in/for Saxony & Yorkshire,
1/ High speed rail arrived in Saxony in 2015. Yorkshire? Cancelled in 2021.
2/ Saxony has over 750 tram stops. Yorkshire? 50.
3/ State spending on R&D in Saxony is €450/resident per year. Yorkshire? €150.

Make choices. Get results. imactivate.com/regionexplorer…

What does the state spending three times as much on R&D really mean though? It means that Dresden has research institutes of,
* urban drainage.
* solid state physics.
* (regrettably) block chain.
* ecology and sustainability.
And companies that start-up & hire from their talents.

Of course Yorkshire has similar. Just as good, maybe even better, institutes. Like the AMRC in Sheffield. It's just got a lot fewer of them, because the state is spending a third as much money.

Listen to the @CentreforCities podcast with three German academics on what we can (and can't) learn from Germany's success at reintegrating its East. centreforcities.org/podcast/city-t…

ps. The UK government, after what feels like a decade of chatting about it, cancelled a new underground central railway station in Bradford -- a city about the size of Leipzig. "Too expensive" appaz.
.
.
Here's Leipzig's new underground central railway station. Opened in 2013.

It's probably not even the specific decision. It's the cheems mindset of it all. The fact that the German government said "Leipzig is a great German city and it will succeed" and the UK government said "not sure about Bradford, maybe the benefits don't add up, let's be cautious".

So far, I've been blaming the UK government's lack of belief in the North for our underperformance. That's right but too easy. We've made local decisions that leave our economy weaker than Saxony too. We should change that if we think it's bad, or own it if we think that's good.

Specifically,
* Saxony has a lot more politicians than Yorkshire. It has a Parliament and it has elected Mayors.
* Saxony has focused growth much more in its big cities. Rural and small town population has fallen rapidly.
* Saxony pays higher taxes, including higher local taxes.