What does it really mean to grow a place? This episode unpacks the concept of place-based productivity and explores how it differs from traditional regional development. The discussion examines real-world examples and whether this approach works everywhere, from rural towns to major metropolitan areas.
The episode also looks at how the world is changing around place-based strategies, diving into the big shifts shaping the landscape: deglobalisation, digitalisation, and political upheaval. Should policy stay technocratic, or embrace politics to make place-based growth stick?
Host Professor Bart van Ark is joined by:
- Jeff Anderson, Professor at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service and Department of Government at Georgetown University.
- Andy Westwood, Professor of Public Policy, Government and Business at The University of Manchester and Policy Director at The Productivity Institute.
For more information on the topic:
- Jeff Anderson and Andy Westwood (2026) The New Political Economy of Place-Based Policymaking, The Productivity Institute.
- Joe Peck, Huw Spencer, Samuel Thorpe and Andy Westwood (2025) Place-Based Industrial Policy: Six Lessons for the UK, The Productivity Institute.
- The Productivity Institute, Investment in Places campaign.
- Jack Shaw (2025) The role of place and the ‘zonification’ of growth, The Productivity Institute.
- Andy Westwood (2025) Regional growth, Labour and the biggest decisions still to come, The Productivity Institute.
- Tony Pipa and Natalie Geismar (2020) Reimagining rural policy, Brookings.
- The Guardian (2025) ‘Deeply demoralizing’: how Trump derailed coal country’s clean-energy revival.
- Andrés Rodríguez-Pose, The revenge of the places that don’t matter (and what to do about it), Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, Volume 11, Issue 1, March 2018, Pages 189–209.
- Bennett School of Public Policy (2019) Measuring wealth, delivering prosperity.
- UK Government (2022) Levelling Up the United Kingdom.
About Productivity Puzzles:
Productivity Puzzles is brought to you by The Productivity Institute, a research body involving nine academic institutions across the UK, nine Productivity Forums throughout the nation, and a national independent Productivity Commission to advise policy makers at all levels of government. It is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council.
