The thing is with jobs, before the recession lots of big companies (national and international) had offices and head quarters in parts of the north. With the recession these were the first to go.
The job section of a local paper I use to buy was a big chunky stapled newpaper of its own. It went almost over night to a two page spread. Consisting of mainly carers and cleaners jobs.
Along with daily headlines of thousands of more redundancies as yet another large company folded or closing shop to scale down or relocating.
So companies don't need 22nd century technology they have to be given insentives to move.
With good jobs comes the perceived more cultural aspiratuonal environment.
So as I said before apart from jobs there is nothing you can't get out side of the SE. The north is not some homogeneous bleak old industrial place. There are so many different cities and towns that offer cultural diversity, and arts culture, and for fucks sake you can't throw a stone without hitting a museum, and plenty of national musems are about too.
I still stand by the fact the SE country side (though green and country side like) is bland.
Its too busy, London is the holy grail and bee all and end all. Pollution is high.
Look at the thread for most people all they say is "its soooo close to london" well woopty fucking doo.
You know you can get a train from other parts of the country and be in london in a couple of hours. So you know, getting the "London cultural fix" isn't that hard for people.
Ohh and sports are in the SE you can't get elsewhere?