Manchester shows biggest fall in inner-city deprivation in boost for Burnham | Economics
Manchester has recorded the biggest fall in inner-city deprivation in England, a report has found; Andy Burnham claims he can replicate the city’s revival across the country.
The mayor of Greater Manchester, who replaced Keir Starmer, placed the city’s economic performance at the center of his campaign and described “Manchesterism” as a political philosophy for a more interventionist approach to the economy.
As Burnham prepares to fight the Makerfield by-election ahead of an expected leadership challenge against Starmer, the Center for Cities report said Manchester had made a huge contribution to falling levels of inner city deprivation across the country since 2010.
Between 2010 and 2025, Manchester recorded a 17 percentage point drop in deprivation rates in neighborhoods close to the city centre; This was the biggest decline among 63 UK towns and cities analyzed by the think tank.
The analysis, which used multiple indices of deprivation (measures compiled using data on employment, education, health, crime and other measures) for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, found London and Liverpool also made significant contributions.
Looking at the country as a whole, the share of inner-city neighborhoods in the poorest 20 percent in the combined index covering all four countries fell by 7 percentage points, from 38 percent to 31 percent.
The definition of “inner city” includes all neighborhoods immediately adjacent to the center of a place. For the largest cities in the report, such as Manchester, this was determined by drawing a ring 1.3km out and 4.5km out from the centre, where urban neighborhoods give way to suburbs.
For inner-city Manchester, 58.4% of neighborhoods in and around the city center were among the poorest neighborhoods in 2025, up from 75.7% in 2010.
In the Makerfield by-election, Burnham stands in one of the Greater Manchester constituencies furthest from the city centre, on the western fringes of the combined authority in the borough of Wigan.
Rates of deprivation have risen in some parts of urban Britain, according to City Centre. Seven of the 10 cities and towns with the biggest increases in deprivation rates across their entire urban areas were in the north and Midlands, including Derby and Sunderland.
Andrew Carter, the think tank’s chief executive, said the government should “support metropolitan mayors” because the report showed large cities with devolution performed better than smaller cities and towns.
He said: “The government needs to continue to support mayors to deliver on their plans for fiscal devolution and ensure it rewards metropolitan mayors for the steps they are taking to boost local growth.”
