about
The Centre for Cities is a registered charity (No 1119841) and a company limited by guarantee registered in England (No 6215397). Our core funder is The Gatsby Foundation, one of the Sainsbury family charitable trusts; and our chair is Tom Bloxham MBE, chairman and founder of Urban Splash.
The brainchild of Lord Sainsbury of Turville, the Centre was set up in 2005. Our main goal is to understand how and why economic growth and change takes place in Britain’s cities, and to help cities improve their performance. Through our focus on the drivers of urban success, we are building up a strong track record of research on the economic performance of UK cities. Our work is designed to be relevant, accessible and of practical use to cities and the policy community. Our 2008/09 Annual Report outlines some of the Centre's recent achievements.
We are currently undertaking a programme of research focused on the economic prospects for UK cities, as we come out of recession and into recovery. In 2010 we will focus on helping cities to support private sector employment growth as the driver of the economy. The research stream will discuss the future drivers of urban growth over the next decade - from skills and enterprise to infrastructure and finance, and call upon the next Government to give more powers to cities and city-regions.
We work with a range of case study cities, including Birmingham and Liverpool - aiming to inspire new solutions and fresh thinking on the challenges and opportunities that they face, ranging from worklessness and short term unemployment to skills, training and growth sectors.
Cities don’t follow the national economy – they are the national economy. Cities are where most jobs are, where most of our high-performing businesses are concentrated, and where most innovation occurs. But the performance of our cities is uneven, and the ability to share in opportunity is not equal. We believe successful cities can and should deliver prosperity, innovation, jobs and opportunities – but to do this, they need greater financial autonomy and political devolution.
