Boris Bear
Striker
Newcastle is 9 square miles smaller than Sunderland. But it is larger than Durham I supposeIt's the biggest city between Leeds and Edinburgh and is the unofficial capital of the North East. Of course there will be some historical sentimentality towards suggesting Durham as the unofficial capital of the North East but ask 100 people outside of the region to name a city in the North East of England and I'd wager the highest answer would be Newcastle.
Put all of this together and it's no surprise it gets the strongest interest/investment. The times I've been to Sunderland city centre it's in a very poor state and not very comparable to Newcastle which leads developers to be massively averse to taking a risk in development there.