The postwar unemployment problem has been complicated by the tendency of the newer industries to become localised in the south of England; for this has impeded the mobility of labour and has led to the concentration of unemployment in those areas in which the older trades are situated. It seems probable that while this movement may be partly attributed to temporary and artificial advantages attaching to southern sites, it represents a fundamental tendency in industry, and that during a time of rapidly changing technique such as the present, the traditional centres of industry are unlikely, for various reasons, to attract new trades or fresh units in old ones. If this is so, and as changes in location producing serious economic and social losses have been, and are likely to be, recurrent, it is useful to inquire whether this tendency can be beneficially counteracted by some form of conscious and corporate control. The experience of one of the older districts may throw some light on the problem. The area in question is the West Midlands which (as the preceding chapters have shown) has presented an outstanding example of industrial resilience. The structural transformation, which had been in train ever since the 1870s, has continued during the 1920s. Although the 1914–18 War completed the destruction of several of the older industries, long in decay, their place has been taken by the growth of many new manufactures. So, in contrast with the chronic depression and heavy unemployment suffered by many other great industrial centres, the progress of the West Midlands has continued unchecked and its rate of unemployment has remained low.