Will East meet West?

Do you consider yourself a Midlander, an East Midlander, or just someone who lives in Nottinghamshire?
I ask the question because an academic thinks there's an artificial boundary between the East and West Midlands which ordinary people (that's you and me) don't recognise.
That's one of the reasons why the economic development agency we have in this neck of the woods should therefore be merged with the one in Birmingham, says Dr Adam Marshall of the Centre for Cities.
His report about the future of regional economic development isn't the kind of thing you're going to flick through over your cornflakes.
But it feeds into a political debate about how the Government organises the bodies that are meant to spend taxpayers' money helping the grassroots economy grow.
That matters to us, because one of the big issues with Government programmes is just how close they really are to the people they're meant to help.
Nearly 10 years into its life, the jury is still out on whether the East Midlands Development Agency is a good thing that makes a difference, or an organisation whose job could easily be shared between local councils.
On the plus side, 10 years has given Emda a lot of experience and some solid respect among the more influential parts of the business community. It's also above the petty political infighting which still blights local council decision-making, has heavyweight leadership in the shape of Bryan Jackson and Jeff Moore,and is seen nationally as one of the best of the breed.
On the minus side, it remains little known among the public, and risks being seen as an organisation that dances to a Whitehall tune rather than a local one.
That doesn't sound to me like a reason to merge it into an even more distant body, though.
The East Midlands does have a weak identity, lacking the historical and cultural heritage that mark out places like Yorkshire, the North East and the West Midlands.
Indeed, the risk of a Midlands-wide economic development agency is that it would be dominated by the more powerful lobbies that surround Birmingham, with Nottingham, Derby and Leicester seen as junior partners.
The way round that might be to make sure a Midlands economic development agency has a separate office over in the East.
Which puts us right back where we started...