Really interesting discussion on regional inequality and Levelling Up on @BBCRadio4 this morning.

Much I agree with, but we really need to move beyond arguing about whether to invest in transport or skills. We need to do both, and more! https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000qy30

Conversation focused a lot on "brain drain" and the idea of young people leaving "left behind" places for London and never coming back. This is true for many rural areas, but it is a lot less true for towns. Young people are more likely to stay put or move to a nearby city.

E.g. by tracking tax records, @ONS found that 94% of young people under 24 in Rotherham stayed put between 2011 and 2015, or moved only within the Sheffield area. Fewer than 1% went to London.

Truth is, people who move to affluent areas tend to be FROM affluent areas.

This makes sense. Apart from anything else, the gap between housing costs in richer and poorer areas has widened to the point where the costs of moving from Rotherham to London are prohibitive. See @benwansell's excellent work https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1467-923X.12621

So people from "left behind" places are locked out of the country's wealthiest places, like London. This is what creates the "vicious cycle" in which places and the people who live in them stagnate together, and wealth / opportunity gaps widen.

It's not brain drain.