But the news hasn’t always been positive. Birmingham City Council recently became the latest and largest local authority to issue a Section 114 notice and call in commissioners to help fix its finances. And, as if this wasn’t enough, the government has cancelled the northern leg of the HS2 high-speed rail link between Birmingham and Manchester.

Productivity growth depends on business investment and confidence, which, in turn, depends on policy stability. For this reason, the highs and lows of England’s official ‘second city’ have significant consequences for investment in the wider West Midlands – and also for the national economy.

A recent report by the Resolution Foundation – A Tale of Two Cities – argues that, unless we can get Manchester and Birmingham firing on all cylinders, we are unlikely to achieve a more prosperous and better-balanced national economy. The report added that for Birmingham to thrive, it needed to be a lot more like London: with a bigger tradeable services sector, more graduates and better public transport in and out of the city centre.

Such drivers of growth are necessary – even desirable – but it is not clear that they would be sufficient, or even possible, without a more inclusive and integrated approach to regional economic development.

Tradeable services are demonstrably more productive than other economic sectors. If Birmingham were to grow this sector, it would make a big difference. But the argument that traditional manufacturing is unlikely to shift the dial on productivity, as it is small and shrinking, suggests a trade-off that is illusory. Birmingham’s tradeable services have close links with the region’s manufacturing base. And what might be classified as traditional manufacturing could transition to much more productive advanced engineering, clean-tech, med-tech and the like.

Consider, for example, the plans for a gigapark in Coventry built upon world-leading, tradeable battery expertise; the health and digital innovation in Birmingham’s knowledge quarter; or Wolverhampton’s Green Innovation Corridor, which is advancing clean construction methods.

More generally, international evidence shows that successful regional growth strategies are based on ‘pivoting’ from historical economic strengths, not mimicking others. The West Midlands is unlikely ever to compete with London in terms of generating a standalone tradeable services sector with global reach, but it can build upon historical strengths and generate high productivity tradeable services as a result.

Graduate retention is a concern and it would be good if the region could keep a greater number of those graduates that come into the West Midlands to study at its six universities. But it is equally important to ensure that our resident population attains Level 3 skills (the equivalent of ‘A’ level) as these translate to significantly higher incomes. The West Midlands has increased the number of people with Level 3 skills by six percentage points since 2019.

When it comes to transport, there is no doubt we need better public transport in and out of Birmingham city centre. But we must go further still. Much research on cities focuses on those with one urban core, but some of the most successful city-regions are ‘poly-centric’, where travel patterns are more varied and firm linkages more diverse. The West Midlands Local Transport Plan shows we need regional transport systems to support interconnectivity between a range of hubs and along multiple corridors, not just connections in and out of one city core.

Alongside jobs, graduates and transport, there is a range of other drivers of growth that gets rather less attention: the innovation ecosystem, public expenditure on economic affairs, and even the institutional structures that allow for local and national interaction. There is no ‘silver bullet’ for transforming a regional economy, but in the West Midlands we are putting together the ingredients for a fairer, greener, better-connected future.