Only 1 in 5 clear what ‘levelling up’ means. Do you know? If so what do you think it means

Moved over to Twtr and this apposite footnote to business decline in cities in the seventies popped up:
"During the first six years of the 1970s, seventy-three (almost 15%) of Fortune-500 companies moved their headquarters. The most frequent reason was the decline of the cities. High crime rates, dirty streets, and the fact that increasing numbers of young executives offered a job at head-quarters refused it have also contributed."

That was in the States but I reckon the UK was similar.
c/f @herandrews

Baggs

I spent four years in Dundee in the mid-seventies. The old, highly successful port area was dying as were parts of the city. For a good number of years when I went back to Dundee to visit in-laws and a friend south of the Tay, I didn't see the city centre.

Then, after a gap of at least thirty years, I did go back to the port area to look at the museum. I was amazed at the transformation to it and to the main city shopping streets. Things had improved enormously and probably still are doing.

That I would call at least partial levelling up. Having seen it in one place that needed some uplift I imagine that, with the right political will, it can happen to other places that need a boost to their infrastructure and their jobs market.

Being an optimist by nature with a profound belief in human ingenuity and the fact that in general the human condition has only improved over long time frames (see ourworldindata.org and other similar websites), I think further similar transformations of run down places will happen in the UK unless we turn into a dictatorship of a certain east Asian or South American variety.

I know Dundee well. The V&A and the Waterfront are fabulous. An outpost of the Eden Project is coming in a few years. To see these things makes me very happy indeed.

But the city centre is dying, the pandemic has done for it but it was on the way out before that. If you are a single parent in a council house in Fintry the improvements on the Waterfront are completely removed from your daily life. Dundee has the worst drugs problem in Scotland, which of course has the worst drugs problem in Europe. Unemployment levels in Dundee are twice those of the rest of Scotland.

I love Dundee, I was a student there and worked there for most of my adult life. There is a vibrant arts scene and we're all optimistic for the future. But to suggest that they are even partially "levelled up" is a mischaracterisation of the status of that city.

^ One of the continuing problems is the result of its being mainly a hugely seasonal seaside resort which seriously affects employment prospects for people who live there all the time.^

That's the conundrum that always strikes me when areas are 'improved' in similar ways.

We moved to the NE just after the Metro Centre was opened, the fore runner of all those vast out of town shopping malls. It was going to revitalise the region and bring jobs and prosperity. It seemed to work for a while (though I think that the near simultaneous acquisition of the Nissan factory had a lot to do with it) but I was always thinking 'Where is the money that's going to be spent there coming from?"

The answer to that question seems to be that it was leached out of any previously thriving town centres that are withing reasonable driving distance of the Metro Centre. And after swingeing tory cuts to state spending over the past decade, even the Metro Centre isn't looking too healthy.

And yes, Newcastle Quayside looks good after 20+ years of redevelopment, but is it thriving? Is Newcastle thriving? I don't know..

The other thing that bothers me is, 'Is the encouragement to continually consume implicit in these developments really compatible with the need to implement radical measures to contain global warming?

Of course it means 'moving up to the nex(higher) level- whether its gaming or otherwise! (Clue is in the name!)??

Every state school should have the space, beautiful grounds and buildings sport and playing fields and theatre lab and tech ( carpentry, woodworking, mechanical engineering , cookery, sewing art) and curriculum facilities and staffing as in the best private schools....

Nan0

Every state school should have the space, beautiful grounds and buildings sport and playing fields and theatre lab and tech ( carpentry, woodworking, mechanical engineering , cookery, sewing art) and curriculum facilities and staffing as in the best private schools....

Had to sell all the space, playing fields and beautiful grounds off under Thatcher, IIRC

I am in the 21%. Its a meanlingness slogan with no plan or real intentions by this govt

My children's state schools have had all of those things tbh. Sure they were ugly 60s buildings and not stately homes but they have all had labs, technical rooms, playing fields etc

Nan0

Every state school should have the space, beautiful grounds and buildings sport and playing fields and theatre lab and tech ( carpentry, woodworking, mechanical engineering , cookery, sewing art) and curriculum facilities and staffing as in the best private schools....

We had most of those things when I was at school. The grounds were sold over decades ago and I think it may be a 6th form college now.

MaizieD

Considering it was supposedly a key message (after getting b*y Brexit done, of course) in the 2019 General Election I'm surprised that it seems to have reached so few people.

'Levelling up' to me means dumbing down those who are way above base level and bringing up to base level those presently below it. I don't subscribe to that theory as I think bright minds have to be stretched and we need innovators. What it means is actually levelling down initially so that they can then level up? Not a good theory

JaneJudge

My children's state schools have had all of those things tbh. Sure they were ugly 60s buildings and not stately homes but they have all had labs, technical rooms, playing fields etc

as did mine. I do get irritated by the assumption that all state schools are grim, uninspiring, massive comprehensives full of feral adolescents. A (former) friend of mine tried once to explain why the local exceedingly high achieving, but state, school, was unsuitable for her son. This was the son which my son attended by the way.

Not a clue. In the 30% here.

I know what I think levelling up should mean but do not think the Government sees it the same way. For instance, they will soon be cutting £20 from Universal Benefit and state benefits, other than pensions, were frozen for several years.

I would assume the speaker meant "levelling" as after all if anything is either up or down then it is not level with its surroundings, is it?

What whoever used "levelling up" meant, I have no idea, as I assume it was a politician trying either to be smart or deliberately obtuse.

Levelling up involves a comparison It allows the less fortunate areas to be improved upon.... and there is another comparison. Less fortunate v more fortunate. We cannot have levelling up without this gradation

It reminds me of the talk of privelege You cannot get the underpriveleged without comparing them with the priveleged. Before WW2 they thought that all would be equal when all houses had an indoor water supply.

When my husband was in the army, there was a component to allowances which would allow all to buy video equipment

With reference to Baggs and also to those who wrote about Blackpool, my grammar school there allowed those children who had been successful in the French course to learn Latin. We had, I think, more Latin staff working there than the number of separate Science staff in the entire science section.
I got an excellent O level Latin result some 60 years + ago but could not make total sense of Baggs' quotation.

Apart from my ability to read music, I think that the other subjects I learnt at school and their applications have not been well retained either.
... perhaps, though, another enduring one was that the learning of Latin left me with an interest in words, their derivation and their formation

In all politics with most parties the working people always lose out. The lower paid and the rich nearly always win in some way. The working average person or the person still paying regular income tax almost always pay for it. From what's been said about the levelling up of the country it sounds to me that the current prosperous areas of the country will be levelled down rather than the others levelled up. Get less government funding but be expected to still spend the same about of money in local authorities.

I think ‘levelling up’ in the present context means the government taking from the people who voted for them to give the largesse to the people who didn’t and never will. ???

a lot of our poorer areas have been levelled up with EU funds, Hull for example. One thing Boris is good up is making up slogans that sound great, like 'oven ready Brexit,' social care policy ready to go. whatever 'levelling up' means it isn't levelling up poor people to a decent income, they are loosing £20 a week in universal credit soon whilst the wealthy gain more and more. Private health care is flourishing in the uk cos Tories don't want a socialist NHS like we have had because they see it as paying for someone else's care, which they don't want to do. I only hope people see the Tories for what they are now, they keep the working class skint & their millionaire friends into billionaires.

Thread here from Matthew Goodwin that some GNers might find interesting.

levelling up means spending 100k on art for downing street

I hope you don't mind Baggs but I copied the definitions he is suggesting. Matt Goodwin is currently Director of the Centre for UK Prosperity at the Legatum Institute.

We adopt a broader definition of levelling-up. We suggest true prosperity or a 'levelled up' community is where 3 things happen

(1) ppl live in "inclusive societies" that are supported by stable families, social capital and public trust in local institutions that are effective

(2) ppl live in "open economies" that are supported by high quality infrastructure, strong local investment environments & enterprise conditions for businesses, effective regulations and where entrepreneurs & firms can level-up from ground up.

(3) communities have "empowered people" who can take control over their own lives, have strong mental & physical well-being, effective healthcare & education systems and healthy natural environments

Blinko

Doesn't it mean making sure the rest of the UK is comparable in terms of life opportunities and standard of living as the jolly old South East?

Of course, there's no information at all about how this might be achieved.

Quite! It's supposed to be the putting into action the equalising of every type of opportunity between the haves (tend to be in South) and the have nots (usually not in the South even though we all pay same rate of tax at each earnings level ) however. Those 'haves' are petrified in case they have to give something up!? Fat chance when you don't get a look in to start with....it will probably never happen as this bunch of over indulged idiots in power don't know how to run a household budget let alone ensure that fair for all is made to happen! It was a stupid catch phrase said to con(ha!) All those people terrified in case Corbin got in! It was Hobson's choice really anyway ,choice A: fat cat Tory and his chums from the scrapings at the bottom of the humanity barrel or B:, latter day Commies! Tories lie everyone knows it and some idiots fall for it EVERY time!

JaneJudge

levelling up means spending 100k on art for downing street

I have been toying with starting a new thread about this Jane, but was worried that a few GNers will think I don't like Boris Johnson. As if I would let my feelings about him influence me eh?

The lack of affordable housing is probably the biggest scandal in this country. Thatcher made local authorities put the housing stock up for grabs at silly prices then denied them access to the funds to re stock depleted stock! She was excellent at selling the 'family silver' to raise money! Young people and now not so young people are permanently locked out of any type of affordable housing and at the mercy of ridiculously high private rents. One thing Tories will never do is authorise a huge national building programme of local authority/housing association building on the scale needed. The irony is- building homes stimulates EVERY single industry from construction workers to furnishings to appliances and generates massively to jobs market