Not a typo I'm afraid. East Germany's economy overtook North England's economy in 2010. Excluding Berlin, East Germany's economy overtook North England's economy in 2013. Every East German large city (Berlin, Dresden, Leipzig, Halle, Chemnitz) is today a stronger economy than every North English large city except Manchester. Manchester is still a weaker economy than Berlin, Dresden, and Leipzig.

All the data is from the OECD using comparable definitions of the cities and collecting at https://tomforth.co.uk/humancapital/

Yes. I think the author's point is that the standards are that low up here in North England, and outside of Manchester it's worse than in East Germany.

I think that means growth rates, not absolute wealth.

Not all of the north is poor. Cheshire is richer than outer London or the home counties. If you adjust for the cost of living more of the north would be.

North poor, south rich is very simplistic. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_regions_of_the_Unite...

I think it's a bit more subtle than that. For one the author tells us they think this is an example of success story. Although I guess it depends on when you are measuring from, and they may be being somewhat tongue in cheek with their choice of East Germany

I think the point is that we would expect East German cities to have reasonable relative growth post-unification because we are taking a relatively structurally deprived area within a wider more successful economy.

That Manchester has kept up with areas where you'd expect to see reasonable growth, is positive. I suppose there's also the hint that this suggests that this has been allowed to happen by central government, but I could be making that up.