Delivering change: Putting city centres at the heart of the local economy

This report offers practical policy solutions to improving city centres to encourage high level jobs growth and footfall on the high street.

Report published on 11 December 2014 by Louise McGough and Elli Thomas

The role of city centres in UK city economies is generally badly understood. Beyond their generally accepted role as retail centres, city centres play a much more fundamental role in bringing people together to exchange ideas and information, as well as goods and services. In particular, city centres provide the agglomeration benefits attractive to the types businesses and firms that increasingly drive national economic growth. And this is likely to become increasingly important as the UK economy continues to specialise in activities based on ideas and information.

Building on previous work by Centre for Cities on the importance of city centre economies, this paper pulls together examples of policies used in cities from around the world to improve their city centres. The first section it sets out the importance of city centre economies to the economic performance of cities as a whole, The second section then presents case studies for five broad types of policy intervention.

 

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Supported by the Key Cities Group

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