WHEN I was a lad, we all knew what a city was, give or take a cathedral or two.

Now it's a bit more complicated, as we have Core Cities, Key Cities and also Science Cities. There are evolving City Regions, of which the Leeds City Region, including York, is one; and there's the recent Northern Way initiative.

Under the auspices of Yorkshire Forward, our Regional Development Agency, there's the Regional Economic Strategy with Sub-Regional investment Plans through which significant funding is distributed.

Still with me? Well, there's more, much more, but let me spare you that for the moment.

Now York is not a Core City (they are Birmingham, Bristol, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Nottingham and Sheffield), but it is one of the five regional Key Cities (along with Bradford, Hull, Leeds and Sheffield) and is the only one of the six Science Cities (with Bristol, Birmingham, Manchester, Newcastle and Nottingham) that is not a Core City.

What does this all mean to our businesses and to the people who work in them?

Last week at the C8 summit (yes, C8 - the eight Core Cities) in Leeds there were presentations from both private and public sector people who contributed to the debate intended to help to establish the Core Cities at the heart of the economy.

In fact, the Core Cities Group has been around since 1995 when it was created "to promote the crucial and distinctive role that major cities play in regional and national economies" and, with support from the Office Of The Deputy Prime Minister and other government departments, it clearly has some momentum and cities are very much back on the political agenda.

More locally, the five regional Key Cities aim "to work in partnership to promote and strengthen the Key Cities as the main drivers of regional competitiveness, in order to make a significant contribution to the development of an internationally competitive region".

While York is not a Core City, and lies within the newly-drawn Leeds City Region, its established reputation as a leading Science City among the six national Science Cities is such that it will host the first event for all six Science Cities to be held here in September.

Under the lead of Sir Graham Hall, previously chairman of Yorkshire Forward, the Northern Way launched its business plan last month - a £100m investment plan to help kick-start the north of England's economy and tackle the £30 billion economic output gap between the northern regions and the average for all England's nine regions.

A key belief of the Northern Way strategy is that research facilities or centres of excellence in one region will benefit all three. Once again York is well-placed, in that it has one of the eight key research-led universities in the Northern Way region.

What all this serves to show is that we're not short of initiatives. But what are the pitfalls? I see at least three.

Firstly, while these many activities will certainly create additional public sector jobs, there has to be a concern that there are insufficient resources to service them all adequately.

Secondly, this initiative rich landscape is probably just as confused in practice as it looks on paper. Some urgent attention to how it all works together looks essential.

Thirdly, and most importantly, it's not at all clear what the majority of our private sector businesses make of all this and they, after all, will continue to be the key deliverers of economic growth.

Updated: 11:20 Wednesday, July 20, 2005