ABSTRACT
The north of England appears as the exemplar antithesis of the noosphere discourses framing the success stories of contemporary global urbanism. The area situated between Scotland and the Midlands of England has a population of 18 million. It includes the major conurbations of Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle/Gateshead and Sheffield, other cities such as Bradford and Sunderland and numerous smaller towns. The discourse of the north of England as a post-industrial space of obsolescence increasingly adrift from the new drivers of economic prosperity and with “unproductive” populations ill-equipped for globalisation, crystallised in the UK 2016 referendum on EU membership. The ruptured habitus of northern deindustrialisation is situated in a wider reframing of the imaginary position of the north of England within the space of positions of contemporary global, national and regional urbanism.
