NEW: America is a rich country. Britain is a poor country with one wealthy region.
People love to compare the UK to Mississippi, but it’s far more informative to look at UK subnationally, too.
London ranks fairly well, the rest of the country does not 👉 ft.com
People love to compare the UK to Mississippi, but it’s far more informative to look at UK subnationally, too.
London ranks fairly well, the rest of the country does not 👉 ft.com
If you strip out London’s output and head count, the UK’s GDP per capita would drop by 14%.
Whereas if the whole of the bay area from the Golden Gate to Cupertino seceded tomorrow, US GDP per capita would only dip by 4%.
The US is far less reliant on any one region.
Whereas if the whole of the bay area from the Golden Gate to Cupertino seceded tomorrow, US GDP per capita would only dip by 4%.
The US is far less reliant on any one region.
Similarly, amputating Amsterdam from the Netherlands would only shave off 5% of GDP per capita, and removing Germany’s most productive city (Munich) would only shave off 1%.
Here’s an expanded version of the main chart adding in France, Spain and Italy.
France is almost as mono-polar as the UK, but at least Lyon is making a fist of it. And according to the latest data, France is becoming less Paris-centric, whereas the UK’s going the opposite way.
France is almost as mono-polar as the UK, but at least Lyon is making a fist of it. And according to the latest data, France is becoming less Paris-centric, whereas the UK’s going the opposite way.
London’s economy has grown in every quarter since the pandemic recession. This is not true of *any* other part of the UK, and indeed three English regions were in recessions in 2022
Some notes on the main chart:
• This is GDP per capita, not people’s individual incomes/spending, so it’s best understood as measuring general economic dynamism, not living standards
• The latter is trickier to do, but I’m currently working on this for a future piece
• This is GDP per capita, not people’s individual incomes/spending, so it’s best understood as measuring general economic dynamism, not living standards
• The latter is trickier to do, but I’m currently working on this for a future piece
A few people have asked if I can add other countries to the chart. I’d love to, but smaller countries (in geography or in population) don’t publish enough data at regional level, so it’s not straightforward to do (sorry @davidmcw and all of Ireland)
Here’s the full article. The UK as a whole may not be as poor as Mississippi, but if you strip out London it is ft.com
A big thanks to @ndrlee, @jwhandley17, @thomasforth and @pwlbukowski for assisting with methodologies. And as I say — more to come on international living standards comparisons...
If you like charts/articles/threads of the form "America is x, Britain is y", then I can also recommend this one, which does look at individual incomes / living standards, but not sub-national differences
And this one, which explores how the US is vastly more polarised than Britain on culture, race and other social issues
Also recommended: @jwhandley17 had an excellent report earlier this week decomposing the gap in individual consumption between UK & US, digging into how much of Americans’s higher spending actually buys better living standards, and how much is wasted
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