These problems, particularly population exodus and economic restructuring, have persisted to the present day, although the State of the English Cities Report (ODPM, 2006a and 2006b, especially chs13) does suggest there is evidence of an improvement in the economic performance of some cities and that some more affluent sections of the population are being attracted back to some cities (e
g. central Manchester). This report also provides some evidence that unemployment and deprivation are declining, social cohesion is increasing and that segregation is declining. Volume II of the report states: There is a lot of good news. The report has provided much evidence that many English cities have picked up in terms of their economic and social performance in recent years. Despite these improvements, cities in the south and east are still more successful than those in the north and west. Matching the performance of the most successful continental cities also remains a challenge for many. Sustaining the economic advances of our cities will also require the national economic growth of recent years to be continued. (ODPM, 2006b, p115).
Thus major inter-urban and intra-urban differences remain which are overlain by the `North-South divide' creating a complex situation that defies simple characterisation. What can be said is that even within those cities that are deemed to be `successful', while there are areas that do attract more affluent people back into cities, there are also areas that exhibit concentrations of poverty and social exclusion, high rates of unemployment and crime, poor health, low educational achievement, etc, where the problems may actually be intensifying and becoming even more entrenched. These areas remain `Excluded Spaces' or `Places Apart' (Power and Tunstall, 1995; Lupton, 2001) that are often cut off from `mainstream' society and whose inhabitants often feel they have little stake in the wider society and develop `cultures' of their own which are perceived as threatening (in an older terminology these places would be termed `dangerous places').
