Map of the week: Wealth of the nation
Amid all the talk of recession and today's particularly gloomy forecast from the CBI, it is easy to forget just how much richer we have become in the last few years.
There is just one place, Caerphilly, where GDP is actually lower now than it was five years ago - down 2.7%.
But, despite the downturn, almost everywhere else in England and Wales has seen economic activity increase. In some places, very dramatically.
In Shrewsbury, for example, they have seen a 36% rise in prosperity. Winchester is 33% wealthier. And one of the poorest boroughs in London, Hackney, is 29% better off in GDP terms than it was in 2003.
It is not just a southern phenomenon. South Tyneside in the North East of England is 27.5% wealthier than five years ago. Merthyr Tydfil in South Wales has seen 28% growth. South Holland in Lincolnshire up 29%.
These numbers, providing important perspective amid the fiscal pessimism, are culled from my Map of the Week this week. Recessionmap is an excellent website for those who like to see data in spatial terms.
The company behind the map-style database, consultants Gavurin,
take the numbers published by the government and allow you to chart the situation geographically.They hope to add Scotland soon, incidentally.
There is a huge amount of information stored behind the maps and I would encourage anyone with an interest in how the downturn is affecting different parts of the country to find time to explore.
Looking at change in GDP since 2003 in England and Wales, there is no obvious geographical picture.
While the South East region has seen an increase of 17% over the past five years, so has the North East.
Wales and East England have done poorest in regional terms - 13% growth.
The downturn, so far, has only taken wealth back to where it was in the middle of last year. That's not to say it won't get a lot worse, of course.
There are places which seem to have missed out almost entirely on the economic expansion of the last five years. I mentioned Caerphilly's negative growth, but other places like Castle Morpeth, Redcar and Cleveland, Hyndburn and Croydon have not seen local productivity improve much.
What the map tries to do is assess the impact of falling GDP on employment - they estimate the economic contraction so far will translate into the loss of around 176,000 jobs across Great Britain, less than the impact suggested by some.
The analysts have factored in the likely impact on different industrial sectors. As they say in their explanation, "a place with only manufacturing and nothing else, would experience an impact very different from one with only financial services.
The mix will have an effect, as will the productivity of sectors, the exposure of them to foreign markets, the experience and skill of managers and so on."
They assume "a more or less direct relationship between jobs and GDP; that a 2% drop in GDP in a sector would result in a 2% loss in employment in that sector".
Obviously, there may be ultra-local factors, such as the impact of one big employer going under.
Nevertheless, the data purports to show where the downturn is biting most severely. In percentage terms, the East Midlands has seen the greatest regional change - 0.71% of jobs lost equivalent to 13,000 jobs in the past month. However, the area with the lowest proportion of workers affected, London at 0.61%, sees the greatest number - 24,500.
Dig down into the data and you find that Thurrock in Essex has the highest proportion of its workforce affected - down 0.93%, Corby is down 0.9% and Dartford down 0.86%.
In numbers terms, Westminster has lost the most jobs in a month - 3,600, Birmingham 3,300 and Leeds 2,600. Click here to see the map
Burrow down even further and you look at the proportion of the a local workforce which is claiming Jobseekers' Allowance in areas of about 1500 people.
The highest rate I could find was near the University of Aston in the central area of Birmingham where 24% of the workforce is on the dole, although numbers get pretty small at this level.The proportion is equivalent to just 342 JSA claimants.
What recessionmap does is offer up to ten years of hard data - maps, numbers and graphs which remind us of just how much things have changed in a decade.
I'm 
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I suspect this data actually describes the distribution of government funding in recent times. It is in no way a valid statement of what will happen in the recession.
The economy has shown all sorts of signs of overheating in the last five years. Given that it has now boiled over is a sure indicator that things have been out of sorts for a long time.
Sitting here in the South Midlands I see only small indicators of recession as yet. I see many markers warning of economic trouble - empty industrial estates, boarded high street shops - but the widespread unemployment is not yet in evidence.
Yet I know from other sources that people are being laid off elsewhere.
Where the map is correct is that recessions hit particular markets and locations differently. Those of us who have survivied earlier recessions know that from experience.
However, it is always the markets which have rapidly expanded just before the downturn which are hurt the most. Some places, once exposed to that circumstance, never really recover.
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Cue tears from Londonders who have benefitted from billions in "national" public spending.
Yes, every British Airways flight leaves from London, every high-speed train leaves from London, all the new railway track in the last 60 years goes to London, billions into Heathrow and Eurostar, £12 billion for the Olympics, a £400 billion bail-out for banks based in the City. But we're supposed to feel sorry for them.
Look, anyone losing their job is tough. But the smug metropolitans who never venture past the M25 haven't given the proverbial flying about anyone else for years. Happy to ignore the rest of the UK, happy to hoover up all the investment instead of encouraging decentralisation - now they want us to feel bad.
Maybe if the UK wealth was more evenly spread geographically, we would have a more diverse economy and more centres of excellence. Instead, we have all the political, economic, financial, media and cultural power in one place, which bleats like a spoilt child when everything ceases to be rosy.
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The key figure is not GDP but GDP per head and unfortunately this is not mentioned in the article by Mark. Large scale immigration together with internal migration from , in general , inner cities to the suburbs has meant that some areas have lost or gained more people than others.
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Have you guys ever wondered about the houses behind high walls and hedge rows surrounded by acres of land off the beaten track quietly but assuredly working the British people to the bone?
Think about it.
Look for hotspots of obscene wealth and you'll find a better story than that of pedestrian inequality amongst the wage earners.
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The UK's recent growth has been like a house built on sand, the foundations are just not solid enough! Everyone felt richer because we believed our houses were going to continue to rise and the supply of money seemed intoxicatingly cheap and easy. As a nation we stopped being a producer and became a consumer. Most of the money that flowed around the system was from oli rich states and China, it was not created wealth, it was borrowed wealth. Now the supply has dried up, the tissue of lies that our economy was based on has become all too apparant. Our houses that we all depended on for our wealth are just 4 walls and a roof, that's it. I self built my house which really gives you a feel for the true value of property. I would recommend everyone do it. Maybe then we would collectivly know the true value of property and we won't be fooled again! What really winds me up is the way economists talk about 'corrections' and 'ecomomic cycles'. In my opinion this recession is going to be long and painfull and unlike the devastation of the 80's, this one is going to affect us all. Until we return to tradional values of creating wealth through manufacturing then I think as a country we will get poorer and poorer.
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Another great map Mark.
While Government offices have decentralised (look at the jobs pages for the different departments) public spending has been spread around the country to some good effects.
Public spending is a pretty big chunk of the wealth in the economy and health trusts and local authorities are often the largest employers in their area.
With almost no heavy manufacturing industry anywhere, the reliance on service industries to generate wealth in localities means that the banking and insurance firms, who have localised employment to cut costs, will be dropping a % of jobs everywhere when their customer base evaporates. That shouldn't have too much impact as the nurses and social workers will still be spending their low wages in the local economy.
It'll be the newly created , recently leveraged, highly indebted companies floated by management buyouts from hedge funds ( used to be caled Asset Stripping), where debt requires a premium profit, who will struggle to drop their prices to maintain cash flow.
The building industry, as we know populated by self-employed sub-contractors won't even show up in the unemployment figures for at least 6 months. Watch this map in March and April 09.
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"Looking at change in GDP since 2003 in England and Wales, there is no obvious geographical picture."
Yes there is. In each area there is the full range of low to high income households. What does this mean? That some people are able to profit from other peoples poverty. The same as in the rest of the world.
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Once again the Welsh Valley communities manage to come top in deprivation!
If they put that effort into work then of course they would not come top in deprivation!
Most of it in my considerable experience is the councillors and politicos who do not want the people to rise out of deprivation in case they lose power! Nice people!
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