ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the sub-regional-scale strategic spatial imaginaries that have been initiated in the area connecting the Liverpool and Manchester conurbations in North West England. Contemporary attempts to promulgate the notion of the area as an identifiable territory for the governance of economic development and planning policy are rooted in longstanding concerns about a lack of institutional cohesion, weakly developed political voice and economic decline. The desire to overcome a legacy of fractious relationships between the civic leaders of the region’s two principal cities dates back in some accounts to the opening of the Manchester Ship Canal in 1894 and inland Manchester’s desire to allow large ships to circumvent Liverpool harbour duties (Leech, 1907).
