Exodus or renaissance? Metropolitan migration in the late 1990s

How realistic are the Government's plans to bring about an 'urban renaissance'? It is argued that this can only be achieved by making more people want to move into urban areas, and fewer people want to leave them. Migration statistics from the UK's National Health Service Central Register are analysed to provide an update to Champion et al's (1998) Urban Exodus, which was based on 1991 Census data. These appear to show that people have been leaving metropolitan areas in successively greater numbers over the 1990s, although some intriguing developments have occurred in gross exchanges between central cities and non-metropolitan areas. This is investigated further through correlation and regression analysis of migration flows and their relationships with a variety of socio-economic indicators. Indicators that work more strongly on in-migration than out-migration are identified and developed into a mix of policy suggestions for the achievement of an urban renaissance.