The Relationship Between Diversification and Growth: Some Evidence from the British Urban System 1978 to 1991.

This article presents a study to determine cause and effect of sectoral employment change and to investigate the range of relationships that emerge. The three objectives are: firstly, to explore the diversification process in Britain from 1978 to 1991; secondly, to examine the relationship between diversification and growth in the context of the national economy; and thirdly, to examine specific places in the urban system to determine relationships between diversification and growth. These should provide useful insights into employment structures and the restructuring of the urban system from 1978 to 1991. In previous research on diversity and diversification there seems to have been a special emphasis on the relationship between growth and diversification. These phenomena have been associated because it was considered that as city size increased there should be greater degrees of diversity, thus diversification over time. There are no immediately obvious regional patterns of diversification when one examines the British urban system from 1978 to 1991. Upon closer inspection, however, one finds that most of the largest centres throughout the urban system have diversified at the greatest pace; this is in keeping with the expectation that large cities should be becoming more diverse.