Urban researcher Dermot Finch insists that the planning system should be giving a much higher priority to the crucial case for economic growth, reports David Dewar.
"It's the economy, stupid". The famous quip from Bill Clinton's former strategist James Carville has gone down in the annals of political quotations. But it still contains an important message for policy-makers, the Institute for Public Policy Research's centre for cities director Dermot Finch testifies.
The think-tank, set up 18 months ago, has already built up an impressive body of research on what makes cities and towns tick. Finch's conclusions from these exercises are largely in tune with Carville's view. The UK's urban areas need to get their economic base in order before they can go on to tackle issues such as design and social cohesion, Finch believes.
Born and brought up in the Lancashire market and commuter town of Clitheroe, Finch developed his interest in the cities agenda during his ten years as a policy adviser at the Treasury. "In the late 1990s I started looking at urban development issues in the run-up to Lord Rogers's Urban Task Force report," he explains. "I also did a lot of work on social investment issues, community development finance and private investment in deprived areas."
He developed his interest further during a three-year spell in the USA.
"I was the Treasury man at the British Embassy in Washington," he recalls.
"Part of that job was scouting for the chancellor on policy issues such as voluntarism, education and urban development. So I got to know places such as Chicago, Boston and Atlanta. When I came back to London towards the end of 2004 the centre for cities was in its development phase, so it seemed an obvious match."
Finch's main objective for the centre has been to press home to policy-makers the importance of economic success to cities. "Both within government and outside there has not been enough of an economic focus on cities.
Thinking has either been concerned with communities or about design issues and gleaming new shiny buildings," he complains.
"There has not been enough of a discourse about why Manchester is doing better than Liverpool or about the performance of smaller cities and towns. If you do not get the economy right, nothing else matters. It is absolutely vital that you get cities focused on their economy and where they are heading."
One major study looked at city centre living and the dominant role of young single people in the make-up of central area populations. Another focused on city leadership and the methods being used by councils in major conurbations to work together to deliver economic growth, strategic planning and transport investment. A third on city markets examined how smaller urban areas such as Doncaster and Sunderland have problems securing private sector investment and are having to reinvent themselves.
Further work planned in the next few years will look at cities' economic performance and the threats posed by factors such as globalisation and public sector spending cuts. The centre has also set up an all-party parliamentary group on urban development with the British Property Federation. This is exploring infrastructure needs in cities from a business angle and what can be done to help councils amass the skills to meet such needs.
Finch cites various influences on his work. Several academics get a mention, including Michael Parkinson of Liverpool John Moores University and Newcastle University's Tony Champion. He also found much inspiration from US cities, recalling endless ministerial trips to the USA when he was based in Washington.
"I probably had a cabinet minister in Washington twice a week every week on a visit," he remembers. "It was usually to the east coast. Ministers and civil servants would go to the USA in droves." He argues that US cities can provide important lessons on innovative financial tools, as the federal system affords them considerable autonomy to draw up such mechanisms.
But he agrees that there is much more to learn from Europe in some respects.
"American cities are primarily concerned with productivity and with squeezing as much output from an area as possible with as few people as possible," he comments. "With a few exceptions, they are less concerned about public realm, quality of life or design issues. European cities offer much more on mixed use, public realm and congestion charging."
As a former Treasury official, Finch is observing the progress of Kate Barker's review of land-use planning with interest. "The government has been trying to reform the planning system for years. There were at least two attempts in the early part of Gordon Brown's stewardship to overhaul the planning system. It was fraught and there was a lot of interdepartmental wrangling, but it did not fully achieve what ministers were after," he reveals.
"So it will be interesting with Barker looking at planning in a review style. Previously planning has been looked at by civil servants, so having Barker come and do it raises the stakes and expectations that there will be a more radical look at the system. The device of using reviews in the Treasury always seems to be to try to accelerate a proposal's course and make it more radical."
Barker's emerging conclusion that economic factors should take more prominence in dealing with individual planning decisions chimes with Finch. "There is a lot of consensus that the planning system is too slow and too opaque," he says. "We need faster, more transparent planning decisions. There is a lot of frustration on the part of the private sector that investment decisions are being delayed or derailed in some cases."
He insists that there should be a stronger link between planning and economic growth. "The process should be more informed by the economic benefits of any given project," he adds. "So if we can see that a proposal would have a direct impact on jobs, it should count more heavily in its favour in comparison with other issues."
He accepts that planning has other considerations to take into account besides economic factors. "Planning has really got three legs to it - economic, social and environmental. You cannot ignore the second and third, and we are not suggesting that. On occasions social and environmental impacts will outweigh economic issues. But I suggest that economic growth should be raised up a few notches," he contends.
"The planning system is there to ensure that development is sustainable and does not detract from the cohesion of a community. But let's refocus the priorities for new development and ensure that we are not forfeiting economic growth by focusing too much on other concerns."
