Editorial introduction

Lloyd and Shutt open the debate by setting the empirical scene which has been both backcloth and laboratory for the discussions within industrial geography in recent years. Very graphically, they paint the picture of decline, of the loss of jobs both nationally and in the region which they take as their focus, the North-West of England. It is perhaps not without its ironies that this region which, as Lloyd and Shutt point out, in the mere four years from 1978 to 1982 lost over a quarter of a million jobs, was the birthplace of industrial capitalism.