Economic History
The coal and shipbuilding industry that once dominated the North East suffered a marked decline during the second half of the twentieth century. Tyneside is now re-inventing itself as an international centre of art, culture and, through The Centre For Life, scientific research, especially in stem cell technology. The Quayside and The Gate are popular areas for their nightlife. Sunderland suffered economic decline during the last century, but is now becoming an important area for quaternary industry, science and high technology. The economy of Teesside is largely based on the petrochemical and steel industries. Northumberland and County Durham are both largely rural, and base much of their economies on farming and tourism.
In May 2005, the "Passionate people. Passionate places." regional image campaign was launched to promote North East England as a great place in which to work, study, visit and invest.
The friction match was invented in Stockton-on-Tees in 1826 by John Walker.
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“The reality is that zero defects in products plus zero pollution plus zero risk on the job is equivalent to maximum growth of government plus zero economic growth plus runaway inflation.”
—Dixie Lee Ray (b. 1924)
“Throughout the history of commercial life nobody has ever quite liked the commission man. His function is too vague, his presence always seems one too many, his profit looks too easy, and even when you admit that he has a necessary function, you feel that this function is, as it were, a personification of something that in an ethical society would not need to exist. If people could deal with one another honestly, they would not need agents.”
—Raymond Chandler (1888–1959)