This is the first working paper exploring the themes and questions of the City Evolutions project – namely how UK city economies have changed and adapted over time, and how some cities have grown faster than others. Specifically, this paper examines how far UK cities have experienced different economic growth pathways, and asks how far these differences are driven by industrial structure, industry specialisation and productivity.
This first working paper uses the Primary Urban Area (PUA) geography for UK cities, which later papers in this project do not use, instead adopting a different definition described in the ‘about’ section of this website. This paper was originally published in Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, vol. 9, no. 2, pp. 269-299.