Industrial Restructuring versus the Cities

The paper argues that changes in the national economy are important in an explanation of inner city job changes and focuses upon structural reorganisation in the electrical, electronics and aerospace equipment sectors. In the survey firms, these sectors lost over 36,000 jobs in the study period, most of them in London, Manchester, Merseyside, and Birmingham. The elimination of excess capacity and the need to cut costs are identified as the most important restructuring process. Most of the job losses are caused by closures or contractions with about one quarter due to contraction with relocation and about 10 per cent due to movement from the cities without contraction.