Mehdi Le Petit-Guerin

‘Left behind places’ have received increasing attention in the Global North, acknowledging growing regional inequalities between and within countries. Yet the trajectories followed by these places have mostly been investigated by assessing changes between two distant time-points. Aiming to provide more detailed insights into regional development pathways, we combine k-means clustering and sequence analysis to study detailed regional trajectories between 1982 and 2017 for EU15 NUTS3 regions. The resulting typology of trajectories evidences how some regions have increasingly or more recently ‘fallen behind’, some have remained ‘left behind’, and still others have experienced overall positive change over decades, at least temporarily catching-up on wealthier regions. As such, our findings suggest different transitions in and out of demographic and economic ‘left-behindness’.

For over a decade, concern has mounted about places in Europe and North America that have been ‘left behind’ by the growth and prosperity experienced in more economically dynamic regions. This briefing paper summarises the findings from the ‘Beyond Left Behind Places’ project. Filling a gap in the policy debate, this study included qualitative research with residents of economically ‘left behind’ regions in France, Germany and the UK to gather their experiences and perceptions. The qualitative research was focused on six case studies areas, two in each country. It aimed to give agency and voice to people living in ‘left behind’ areas and draw on their experiences and priorities to inform the development of locally tailored policy responses. The case studies were designed to explore residents’ employment activities and access to services, alongside their perceptions of their areas and of recent place-based policies. Based on our findings, we outline a set of directions and recommendations on policies ‘for’ and ‘with’ ‘left behind places.

Over the past ten years or so, concern has mounted about places in the Global North that have been ‘left behind’ by the growth and prosperity experienced in superstar cities and other wealthy regions. This briefing paper summarises the findings from the one of the strands of the ‘Beyond Left Behind Places’ project, which involved quantitative analysis of residential migration patterns in economically ‘left behind’ regions in the UK, France, and Germany during the immediate pre-COVID period. In addition, we conducted qualitative research with residents of economically ‘left behind’ regions in the three countries to get their perceptions. We use national administrative and census data for the three countries to examine whether economically lagging regions tend to lose or gain population through migration, and what age groups are moving in or out. Economic theories often assume that individuals migrate from economically lagging regions to areas offering better economic conditions. But actually, economically lagging regions in the UK, France and Germany generally tend to experience net population inflows. In other words, more people are moving to these regions than are moving out. In fact, when it comes to internal migration (i.e. people moving within the same country), these lagging regions tend to attract more new residents, on average, than more economically successful regions do.

Discussion of economically lagging regions tends to emphasise out-migration more so than in-migration, particularly when it comes to the young and the higher-skilled. This may give rise to the expectation that net out-migration is a key feature of regions affected by long-term relative economic decline. In this paper, we examine patterns of residential migration in economically ‘left behind’ regions, as compared to other territories, in the UK, France and Germany with a view to understanding implications for population change in these regions. We find that economically lagging regions are, as a whole, not characterised by net population outflows. In fact, though economically buoyant regions often receive higher numbers of international migrants, rates of net internal in-migration are on average slightly higher in economically lagging regions. This seems to be driven by lower rates of out-migration from these territories, more so than higher rates of in-migration. Economically lagging regions, instead of losing population through net out-migration to other regions, thus tend to be places of relatively low residential regional mobility, with the partial exception of the 18-24 age group. We explore this finding in more detail and discuss theoretical and policy implications.

Over the past ten years or so, concern has mounted about places in the Global North that have been ‘left behind’ by the growth and prosperity experienced in superstar cities and other wealthy regions. This briefing paper summarises the findings from the first stage of the ‘Beyond Left Behind Places’ project, which involved quantitative analysis of changes experienced by regions across the EU15 over the past four decades and draws out key policy implications.

In the context of debates about (inner-)peripheries, peripheralization and suspended regions, access to service infrastructure and provision is an important aspect that can cause further reduction of the potential of a region. Therefore, it is important to have an indicator for service accessibility that is comparable across different NUTS3 regions regardless of the size or location of the region. In this working paper, we propose to use the population weighted median travel time to the nearest service as indicator. We construct such population weighted median travel times for a number of services of general interest including shops, pharmacies, and schools, based on data from the ESPON PROFECY project. Additionally, we look at how the travel times to different services are correlated with each other at NUTS3 level and how they correlate to population density and to the urban-rural typology of Eurostat.

This paper presents a cluster analysis of structural economic change within NUTS3 regions in the EU15. Based on regional changes in the employment shares of broad sectors since 1980, as well as the degree of initial and current specialisation in each sector, regions are allocated to one of eight clusters via a k-means clustering approach. These clusters are then interpreted in light of current debates about ‘left behind places’. We find that there are several clusters of regions that have experienced less favourable structural change over the past four decades, each with their own set of characteristics.