Britain's older industrial towns are lagging badly behind cities, despite low unemployment figures

The reduction in UK unemployment since 2010 paints an overly positive picture of labour market trends in Britain’s older industrial towns, write Christina Beatty and Steve Fothergill. They find that these towns – older industrial areas beyond the main regional cities – are becoming places where people live but work elsewhere, which is very different from their original role as centres of business in their own right.