The timing could hardly be described as exquisite. Just as David Cameron was preparing to tour the North of England to extol the virtues of the new Tory Enlightenment, he had to disown as “insane” the suggestion of an influential think-tank that a future Conservative government should stop wasting urban renewal funds on northern towns deemed beyond regeneration; instead, the report proposed that more of prosperous southern England should be covered in brick, tarmac and concrete to accommodate northern migrants in search of work.

The three authors of Cities Unlimited, Policy Exchange's offending document, are based in London so their conclusions have been safely dismissed as just another example of snooty southerners sounding off about far-off places of which they know nothing.

But Cities Unlimited argues that “we have to accept that some locations make more sense than others”. This is no more than a statement of fact. Shifting patterns of trade and economics have always raised up some regions at the expense of others. Parts of Norfolk, including the area around Great Yarmouth, are now classified as among the most deprived in Britain. Yet, there was a time when the county was one of the most populous and economically thriving parts of the country.

In 1334, England's fifth and twelfth largest towns were Great Yarmouth and King's Lynn, which had impressive harbours. Herring fishing helped to bankroll Yarmouth's golden age. King's (originally Bishop's) Lynn was especially well situated for trade with the Hanseatic League cities of the Baltic. It became England's third-largest port.

Yarmouth and Lynn also had political clout. A succession of royal charters granted them various privileges. After 1294, Yarmouth regularly returned four MPs to Parliament. The town was graced by seven monasteries and provided the King with a large fleet of warships to protect the realm.

And then Columbus discovered America. If you want to expand transatlantic trade you do not do it from Norfolk. Investment piled into Bristol and later to Liverpool and Glasgow. Lynn was fortunate that its wealth was also built upon East Anglian corn, but when that went into steep recession in the 19th century the town was reduced to a shadow, with only its grand buildings bearing witness to former glories.

Now Lynn has a second chance. Improved communications have put it back within London's economic orbit and money is being spent on it. But should it have been pumped full of subsidies for 200 years just to wait for this moment? During Liverpool's rise to greatness should the Liverpudlian taxpayer have been milked to fund schemes designed to improve Norfolk's declining ports, at the expense of places where the trade wanted to go?

If those geographical differences had been evened out at the end of the 18th century, the effect would have been to stunt northern England's rapid expansion and, with it, the pace of industrialisation.

Just as the residents of Rochdale may now resent the suggestion that they should head to the more economically vibrant South, so southerners once contrived to prevent the migration north. During the 1790s, northern wages were rising, leaving wages in the South depressed. The South West's textile industry could not compete with Lancashire's vastly superior mills. Labourers followed the money and headed north.

At Speenhamland, near Newbury, Berkshire's worried justices decided it was time to offer inducements for them to stay. Their scheme supplemented low wages in the county with top-up money from parish funds. Soon this policy spread out beyond Berkshire and was copied across rural southern England.

In the short term it had some effect in mitigating the worst hardship. But it could not buck the market, which responded by offering even lower wages in the knowledge that poor relief would make up the shortfall. What was more, it could not buck a far more immovable force - geography. Lancashire and Derbyshire were right on top of the natural resources that fuelled the Industrial Revolution. Berkshire was not. All that the reallocation of resources achieved was a brief and ultimately futile effort to keep people where there was no longer work for them to earn a living.

A different sort of Speenhamland system - publicly funded urban regeneration schemes - now aims to prevent the drift of workers from the North to the South. Not all this expense has been futile. Some northern cities have undergone a renaissance, offering a far higher quality of life than is generally experienced down south.

Yet, there is no escaping the reality that those northern towns that have lost their raison d'être have become like Great Yarmouth without the seasonal holiday trade. No sensible politician would suggest a regeneration plan that aimed to restore Yarmouth to its former status among the great towns of England. What makes Bolton a better place to fight gravity's pull?

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