[AnimalMuppet]

> I live near a small town on the Fife coast directly across from Edinburgh and all of the neighbouring coastal towns seem to be doing well - the ex-mining towns 10km away not so much. Main constraint on development being local planning authorities rather than demand.

If I had the choice between living on the coast, and living in an ex-mining town, I'm probably going to pick the coast (other things being approximately equal). The coast is scenic; ex-mining areas are usually not scenic. That is, I think that demand is exactly what's making the coast do better. The local planning authorities may be an effect rather than a cause - the ex-mining areas may know that they don't have as much to work with, and therefore may have less that they can realistically do.

[arethuza]

Yes - you can see the differences between the coastal towns and the ex mining towns in this map of social deprivation in Scotland:

http://simd.scot