Sail away

I read on bbc news today that because of Manchester's low growth rate economists believe the city will drop down the city rankings based on GDP from 73 to 82 over the next 15 years. It seems amazing that the city at the heart of the Industrial Revolution has become stuck as a regional backwater overtaken by most of the rest of the world. Is it because all the talent is sucked down into London? Or maybe its poor decisions by the central government cripple the infrastructure and destroy investment in the city?