Cities Unlimited
Author: Adam MarshallDate: 13/08/2008
Publication: www.epolitix.com
Policy Exchange's latest report - Cities Unlimited - puts forward some radical proposals to address the continuing economic gap between Britain's cities. While we don't agree with everything they've put forward, the basis for the report is right - geography and history do constrain the economic potential of some British cities and towns. Places like Sunderland and Hull have undergone wrenching economic changes over the last half-century, leaving them with enduring economic and social challenges.
It's also true that the Government's regional economic policy, which seeks to promote convergence between the greater South East and the English regions, is increasingly unrealistic.
However, it's not time to write off the cities of the North - or to encourage a mass migration away from Britain's less-successful cities and towns.
Instead, policy-makers need to do more to prioritise resources - focusing regeneration, economic development and transport funding on areas where it will deliver the biggest economic impact. With careful planning, it's still possible to improve the economic performance of Northern cities and sustain the success of the greater South East.
How could both these goals be accomplished?
First, steps should be taken to build up the North's regional economic hubs, Leeds and Manchester, and to ‘network the North'. In the short term, resources should be focused on supporting business growth in the North's best-performing cities - for example, by improving infrastructure and the skills of local workers and thereby encouraging businesses to locate there. With improved transport links, neighbouring towns and cities like Burnley and Halifax would be able to tap into regional growth hot-spots - and develop a new economic role linked to Greater Manchester or the Leeds City Region.
Second, house-building in the South East needs to be geared towards making the entire region both denser and better-linked. There is a strong case for careful expansion in Cambridge, Oxford, and London, using some green-belt land, to ensure that these cities have the houses they need to support their local workforce. Massive expansion in places like Cambridge is both politically and economically unlikely, given local opposition to greenbelt development and the well-documented downturn in the house-building industry. Instead, policy attention should focus on adding denser, high-quality development in these cities - together with the transport links that enable residents to access jobs.
Finally, cities and towns across England need more control over the money that is spent in their areas. The Policy Exchange report makes a strong case for the devolution of regeneration spending - giving councils the ability to experiment with new ways to jump-start their communities. We agree that greater local control over resources would help to grow local economies. However, rather than give every district council in England its own budget, economic development funding should be allocated at the level of ‘real economies' - that is, the sub-regional or city-regional level.
Policy Exchange's urban vision presents challenges to politicians on both sides of the Commons. The Labour Government has staked significant political capital on its regeneration record and is not happy to hear its achievements questioned. The Tories, meanwhile, have been battling to regain votes in the cities, towns and suburbs of the North - and will find it hard to support calls from "Cameron's favourite thinktank" to ‘close down' the very places where they have been working to expand their political base.
Both parties should be focusing on policy ideas that help to improve the absolute economic performance of the North's biggest economic hubs - with complementary policies that help smaller cities and towns to benefit from their growth. That's the best way to keep the North open for business - and to underpin regeneration in the decades to come.
A version of this article first appeared on Epolitix
