https://www.amazon.com/Dispersing-Population-America-Learn-E...
pointed out that most European countries were concerned that a single large city was bleeding the life from the rest of the country, famously the UK and France. It was a common idea that governments should try to counteract it which starting to be talked about in the (mostly tricentric at the time) US.
Then by the 1980s, Reagan and Thatcher came and we started talking about “globalization” and suddenly it became a matter of London now competes with Paris which competes with New York which competes with Hong Kong and now London can’t compete if has to farm work out to Birmingham and there was a time of about 30 years that we didn’t hear a word about dispersion.
One trouble of it we are seeing now is that votes are distributed evenly even if cultural and economic power are not, so we will come to realize that keeping your republic and keeping your lopsided distribution of cultural and economic power are not compatible — the question is do we lose our republic first?
https://www.amazon.com/Dispersing-Population-America-Learn-E...
which describes a nearly universal perception in Europe at the time that it was a problem that economic and cultural power is concentrated in cities like Paris and London. (It takes a different form in the US in that the US made a decision to put the capital in a place that wasn’t a major center just as most states the did the same; so it is not that people are resentful of Washington but rather a set that includes that, New York, Los Angeles and several other cities.)
At that time there was more fear of getting bombed with H-Bombs but in the 1980s once you had Reagan and Thatcher and “globalization” there was very much a sense that countries had to reinforce their champion cities so they can compete against other champion cities so the “geographic inclusion” of Shenzhen and Tel Aviv is linked to the redlining of 98% of America and similar phenomena in those countries as well.
It is not so compatible with a healthy democracy because the “left behind” vote so you get things like Brexit which are ultimately destructive but I’d blame the political system being incapable of an effective response for these occasional spams of anger.