ABSTRACT
The fall in population and level of economic activity is one element in the decline of the British city. Although the precise causes and characteristics vary from place to place, these changes are best seen as being part of a general and well-established shift in the distribution of population and industry that is undermining the social and economic foundations of cities in most of the world’s developed nations. An additional dimension to urban decline, however, is present in Britain in the form of the reduction in the status and responsibilities of urban government. The effect of recent reorganization has been to downgrade the position of provincial cities, to remove a complete tier of urban administration in the metropolitan areas and, significantly, to reduce the range of services which all urban authorities provide. Cities have been major losers in a centralization of political power which has taken away much of the traditional base of the local state. As well as experiencing depopulation and the contraction of industry, cities as units of local government are in decline.
