depressed area

An area, usually within a developed nation, where capital is scarce and labour, plant, and infrastructure are underemployed. Depressed areas develop because their economic activity has been outmoded, often because of competition from cheap labour in less developed countries, and because of world recessions. Competition also comes from newly industrialized areas, and inner cities have declined as the better-off move to rural and suburban areas. Currently, unemployment in the inner cities of the UK runs at four times the national average. See development areas.