page_title: Leeds
section_title: Economic development
hierarchical_section_title: Leeds / History / Economic development
context_page_description: Leeds is the largest city in the county of West Yorkshire in Northern England, approximately 170 miles north of central London. It has one of the most diverse economies of all the UK's main employment centres and has seen the fastest rate of private-sector jobs growth of any UK city. It also has the highest ratio of private to public sector jobs of all the UK's Core Cities, with 77% of its workforce working in the private sector. Leeds has the third-largest jobs total by local authority area, with 480,000 in employment and self-employment at the beginning of 2015. Leeds is ranked as a High Sufficiency level city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network. Leeds is the cultural, financial and commercial heart of the West Yorkshire Urban Area. The city is served by five universities, has the UK's fourth-largest student population and the country's fourth-largest urban economy.
context_section_description: Leeds developed as a market town in the Middle Ages as part of the local agricultural economy.
  Before the Industrial Revolution, it became a co-ordination centre for the manufacture of woollen cloth, and white broadcloth was traded at its White Cloth Hall.
  Leeds handled one sixth of England's export trade in 1770. Growth, initially in textiles, was accelerated by the building of the Aire and Calder Navigation in 1699 and the Leeds and Liverpool Canal in 1816. In the late Georgian  era, William Lupton  was one of a  number of central Leeds landowners with a mesne lord  title,  some of whom, like him,  were textile manufacturers.  At the time of his death in 1828, Lupton occupied the enclosed fields of the  manor of Leeds, his estate including a   mill,  reservoir, substantial house and outbuildings.
  The railway network constructed around Leeds, starting with the Leeds and Selby Railway in 1834, provided improved communications with national markets and, significantly for its development, an east–west connection with Manchester and the ports of Liverpool and Hull giving improved access to international markets. Alongside technological advances and industrial expansion, Leeds retained an interest in trading in agricultural commodities, with the Corn Exchange opening in 1864.
  Marshall's Mill was one of the first of many factories constructed in Leeds from around 1790 when the most significant were woollen finishing and flax mills. Manufacturing diversified by 1914 to printing, engineering, chemicals and clothing manufacture. Decline in manufacturing during the 1930s was temporarily reversed by a switch to producing military uniforms and munitions during the Second World War. However, by the 1970s, the clothing industry was in irreversible decline, facing cheap foreign competition. The contemporary economy has been shaped by Leeds City Council's vision of building a '24-hour European city' and 'capital of the north'. The city has developed from the decay of the post-industrial era to become a telephone banking centre, connected to the electronic infrastructure of the modern global economy. There has been growth in the corporate and legal sectors, and increased local affluence has led to an expanding retail sector, including the luxury goods market.
  Leeds City Region Enterprise Zone was launched in April 2012 to promote development in four sites along the A63 East Leeds Link Road.
caption: Leeds from the Meadows by Joseph Rhodes, 1825.
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