Manchester has plenty of swagger. It has the best team in club football, and is also home to Manchester United. Cranes dot the city centre. Its mayor, Andy Burnham, is the most recognised in the country, beating his counterparts in London and the West Midlands. Yet the cockiness disguises a big problem, for the city and for Britain. The Manchester urban area contains 3.4m people, making it about as populous as Amsterdam, Hamburg and San Diego. But its gdp per head at purchasing-power parity is at least a quarter lower than all three, and stuck at about 90% of the average in Britain itself.

曼徹斯特有足夠的狂妄。它擁有最好的足球俱樂部，也是曼聯(lián)的大本營。起重機(jī)散布在市中心。它的市長安迪·伯納姆擊敗了倫敦和西米德蘭茲郡的市長，是全國知名度最高的市長。然而，這種狂妄掩蓋了一個(gè)大問題，對(duì)這座城市和整個(gè)英國都是如此。曼徹斯特市區(qū)人口340萬，與阿姆斯特丹、漢堡和圣地亞哥的人口相當(dāng)。但按購買力平價(jià)計(jì)算，英國的人均GDP至少比上述三國低四分之一，而且停留在英國平均水平的90%左右。

As with Manchester, so with Tyneside, Birmingham and other conurbations in the Midlands and north of England. Second-tier cities in most countries have productivity that matches or exceeds the national average; a pre-pandemic analysis by the oecd of 11 British second-tier cities, mostly in the north of England, found that gross value-added per worker was 86% of the British average. London is as rich as Paris, but metropolitan Birmingham or Leeds is nowhere near as rich as Lyon or Toulouse.

與曼徹斯特一樣，泰恩賽德、伯明翰和英格蘭中部和北部的其他城市也是如此。大多數(shù)國家的二線城市的生產(chǎn)率與全國平均水平相當(dāng)或超過全國平均水平; 經(jīng)合組織在疫情爆發(fā)前對(duì)英國11個(gè)二線城市(主要位于英格蘭北部)進(jìn)行了分析，發(fā)現(xiàn)這些城市的人均總附加值是英國平均水平的86%。倫敦和巴黎一樣富裕，但大都市伯明翰或利茲遠(yuǎn)不及里昂或圖盧茲富裕。

No one should be happy about this lopsided picture, whether proud northerner or smug southerner. The country’s long-running growth problem cannot be solved—more to the point, has not been solved—by one superstar metropolis.

無論是驕傲的北方人還是自鳴得意的南方人，都不應(yīng)該為這種不平衡的局面感到高興。一個(gè)超級(jí)明星大都市不可能(更確切地說，還沒有)解決這個(gè)國家長期存在的經(jīng)濟(jì)增長問題。

These huge imbalances in Britain’s economic geography have not gone unnoticed. In the 2010s George Osborne, then chancellor of the exchequer, promoted the idea of a northern powerhouse. Boris Johnson put promises to tackle regional inequality at the heart of his 2019 election campaign. Gordon Brown, a former Labour prime minister, highlighted the problem in a set of proposals for constitutional reform this week (even if proposals to remake Parliament hogged all the attention). But diagnosis is plainly not the same as cure.

英國經(jīng)濟(jì)地理上的這些巨大失衡并沒有被忽視。在2010年代，時(shí)任財(cái)政大臣喬治?奧斯本提出了“北部振興計(jì)劃”。鮑里斯·約翰遜將解決地區(qū)不平等問題作為2019年競選活動(dòng)的核心。前工黨首相戈登?布朗本周在一系列憲法改革提案中強(qiáng)調(diào)了這一問題(盡管重塑議會(huì)的提案占據(jù)了所有注意力)。但診斷顯然不等同于治療。

It is true that Britain’s second-tier cities face some deep-rooted challenges. Manchester and other post-industrial spots share several ailments—poor health, labour-force scarring, too few people and jobs in their centres. But they could achieve so much more if politicians got a few relatively simple things right.

的確，英國二線城市面臨著一些根深蒂固的挑戰(zhàn)。曼徹斯特和其他后工業(yè)時(shí)代的城市都有一些共同的弊病——健康狀況不佳，勞動(dòng)力“傷痕累累”，人口太少，就業(yè)機(jī)會(huì)太少。但是，如果政客們做對(duì)了一些相對(duì)簡單的事情，他們可以取得更多的成就。

One is to focus on big conurbations, not towns. Some politicians persist in thinking that smaller places need lots of attention. Mr Johnson’s “l(fā)evelling-up” agenda included a multi-billion-pound Towns Fund; Treasury workers are being moved to Darlington, a place with 108,000 people in north-eastern England that happens to be next to the constituency of Rishi Sunak, the prime minister. Invigorating metropolises has a far bigger impact; Greater Manchester is home to almost one in five people living in the north of England. And successful conurbations pull surrounding towns up. Britain needs several engines to fire, but they have to be big.

一是把重點(diǎn)放在大城市，而不是城鎮(zhèn)。一些政客堅(jiān)持認(rèn)為小地方需要更多的關(guān)注。約翰遜的“振興”議程包括數(shù)十億英鎊的城鎮(zhèn)基金;財(cái)政部的工作人員正被轉(zhuǎn)移到達(dá)林頓，這個(gè)擁有10.8萬人口的英格蘭東北部城市，且恰好毗鄰首相里希?蘇納克的選區(qū)。振興大都市的影響要大得多; 大曼徹斯特居住著英格蘭北部近五分之一的人口。成功的城市將帶動(dòng)了周邊城鎮(zhèn)的發(fā)展。英國需要幾個(gè)引擎來發(fā)動(dòng)，但必須是大引擎。

A second priority is to rebalance public investment away from London. Between 2000 and 2019, the government devoted ￡10,000 ($12,160) per Londoner to economic development, science and technology, and transport. The equivalent figure for residents in the north-east and north-west hovered at around ￡5,000. There is a rationale for this: productive places generate higher returns on investment. But it is a recipe for entrenching the skew between the capital and the rest. And the Treasury has approved southern schemes, such as upgrading London’sThameslink railway, with low benefit-cost ratios.

第二個(gè)優(yōu)先事項(xiàng)是重新平衡公共投資，減少對(duì)倫敦的投資。從2000年到2019年，政府為每個(gè)倫敦人投入了1萬英鎊(合12,160美元)用于經(jīng)濟(jì)發(fā)展、科學(xué)技術(shù)和交通。東北部和西北部居民的相應(yīng)數(shù)字徘徊在5000英鎊左右。這是有理由的: 生產(chǎn)效率高的地方會(huì)產(chǎn)生更高的投資回報(bào)。但這種方法會(huì)加深首都和其他地區(qū)之間的差距。財(cái)政部已經(jīng)批準(zhǔn)了一些南部計(jì)劃，比如升級(jí)倫敦的泰晤士河鐵路，這些計(jì)劃的效益成本比很低。

The third and most important priority is to devolve fiscal control. Cities must go cap in hand to Whitehall for much of their money. Only 6% of tax revenue in Britain is collected by local government, a large chunk of it for social care. That is a tiny share in comparison with others. Combine local and regional taxes, and France is on 14%, Germany 32% and America 36%.

第三個(gè)也是最重要的優(yōu)先事項(xiàng)是下放財(cái)政控制權(quán)。各城市必須畢恭畢敬地向白廳申請(qǐng)大筆資金。在英國，只有6%的稅收收入是由地方政府征收的，其中很大一部分用于社會(huì)福利。與其他國家相比，這只是一個(gè)很小的份額。加上地方稅和地區(qū)稅，法國為14%，德國為32%，美國為36%。

Worse, much of the money available to cities is in the form of pots for which they are invited to bid. These pots are numerous and often piddling. Civil servants sit in Whitehall, weighing applications for cash to run adult-numeracy programmes and to build public toilets hundreds of miles away. Officials in Greater Manchester are currently handling more than 110 grants from 15 government departments. The result is colossal inefficiency, especially when policies change—as they do, a lot. Officials wasted many hours this year preparing bids for investment zones, a wheeze of Liz Truss’s brief administration.

更糟糕的是，城市所能得到的大部分資金都是以招標(biāo)的形式存在的。這些招標(biāo)數(shù)量眾多，而且資金往往少得可憐。公務(wù)員們坐在白廳，權(quán)衡申請(qǐng)資金來開展成人算術(shù)項(xiàng)目，以及在數(shù)百英里外修建公廁的問題。大曼徹斯特的官員們目前正在處理來自15個(gè)政府部門的110多筆贈(zèng)款。其結(jié)果是效率極低，尤其是當(dāng)政策發(fā)生很大變化時(shí)。今年，官員們浪費(fèi)了很多時(shí)間準(zhǔn)備投資區(qū)域的競標(biāo)，這是利茲·特拉斯短暫執(zhí)政期間的一個(gè)喘息。

This system also distorts decision-making. Cities define their needs in order to fit available grants. When there is money for sprucing up high streets, cities decide they must do that; when there is money for buses, everyone develops a bus obsession. Ministers in London may be tempted to dole out largesse for political ends. A report in 2020 by the Public Accounts Committee, a parliamentary body, was suspicious of how recipients of levelling-up grants were chosen; one town that got money was 535th out of 541 in the priority list.

這種制度也扭曲了決策。各城市定義它們的需求，以適應(yīng)可用的補(bǔ)助金。當(dāng)有用于裝修商業(yè)街的資金時(shí)，城市必須這么做; 當(dāng)出資用于公共汽車時(shí)，每個(gè)人都會(huì)執(zhí)著于公共汽車。倫敦的部長們可能會(huì)出于政治目的而慷慨解囊。議會(huì)機(jī)構(gòu)公共賬目委員會(huì)在2020年的一份報(bào)告中對(duì)“振興”補(bǔ)助金的受助人的選擇方式表示懷疑;一個(gè)獲得資金的城鎮(zhèn)在541個(gè)優(yōu)先名單中排名第535位。

Mr Brown has some good ideas for tackling these problems, such as consolidating funding streams from Whitehall. But neither Labour nor the Tories have embraced the obvious prescription: give metropolises the power to raise much more money locally and spend it on what they need. Ideally this revenue would be in the form of property taxes, which are too low and are based on out-of-date valuations. Cities will develop an appetite for building if more of the proceeds come their way.

布朗有一些解決這些問題的好主意，比如從白廳整合資金來源。但是工黨和保守黨都沒有接受顯而易見的處方: 給予大都市在當(dāng)?shù)鼗I集更多資金的權(quán)力，并將其用于他們所需要的地方。理想情況下，這種收入將以財(cái)產(chǎn)稅的形式出現(xiàn)，但財(cái)產(chǎn)稅太低，而且是基于過時(shí)的估值評(píng)估的。如果有更多的收益流入城市，它們就會(huì)對(duì)建筑產(chǎn)生興趣。

Britain’s northern lites

They need more freedom, too. Greater Manchester has been allowed to plan for housing and office development at metropolitan scale, and is making a good go of it. Other metropolises are still denied that power. Mr Burnham is also being allowed to unpick one of Margaret Thatcher’s less wise reforms, in which buses outside London were privatised and deregulated. But it was a hell of a fight, and required a court case.

他們也需要更多的自由。大曼徹斯特已經(jīng)被允許在大都市規(guī)模上規(guī)劃住房和辦公室的發(fā)展，并且正在做得很好。其他大都市仍然沒有這種權(quán)力。伯納姆還被允許取消瑪格麗特?撒切爾的一項(xiàng)不太明智的改革，即倫敦以外的公共汽車私有化和解除管制。但這是一場激烈的戰(zhàn)斗，需要法庭審理。

Freer cities will inevitably make mistakes. More local revenue-raising risks widening the gap between the poorest and richest places; a mechanism for redistributing money that does not squelch all incentives to develop will be needed. But Britain’s economy cannot keep relying so heavily on London. And its second-tier cities cannot thrive unless they have more control of their destinies. Time to free the north.

更自由的城市不可避免地會(huì)犯錯(cuò)誤。增加地方收入有擴(kuò)大最貧窮和最富裕地區(qū)差距的風(fēng)險(xiǎn); 需要的是一種不會(huì)壓制所有發(fā)展動(dòng)機(jī)的資金再分配機(jī)制。但英國經(jīng)濟(jì)不能繼續(xù)如此嚴(yán)重地依賴倫敦。如果英國二線城市不能更好地掌控自己的命運(yùn)，它們就無法繁榮發(fā)展。是時(shí)候解放英國北部了。