We are dedicated to improving the economies of the UK's largest cities and towns
Read moreCaitlin Rollison and Matthew Coombes
Drawing lessons from London and cities overseas, Centre for Cities puts forward seven areas UK cities must consider if they are to bring public transport ridership up to European levels.
Centre for Cities' latest piece of work on housing delves deep into the history of the UK's housing crisis and finds that the UK has a backlog of 4.3 million missing homes.
Samuel Watling and Anthony Breach
Compared to other European countries, Britain has a backlog of millions of homes that are missing from the housing market. Building these homes is key to solving the nation's housing crisis.
Anthony Breach
Planning reforms under Jacinda Ardern have boosted housebuilding and affordability in New Zealand, with big lessons for British housing policy.
Left Foot Forward
Writing for Left Foot Forward, Anthony Breach says that delivering growth will require Labour to deliver planning reform and a housebuilding boom to finally solve the housing crisis.
Conservative Home
Writing for Conservative Home, Anthony Breach notes two key changes the new housing minister can make immediately to leave a positive legacy in planning and housing.
London's productivity growth has stalled since 2007, explaining a large part of the UK's 'productivity puzzle' and leaving it trailing behind its global peers.
Guilherme Rodrigues and Stuart Bridgett
London's productivity growth has stalled since 2007, explaining a large part of the UK's 'productivity puzzle' and leaving it trailing behind its global peers.
Guilherme Rodrigues
The first blog of this series shows that London’s moved from leader to laggard in terms of the UK’s productivity growth, costing billions to the national economy.
Guilherme Rodrigues
A comparison with Paris highlights the weaknesses that emerged in London since the financial crisis
Series: City Minutes
A discussion surrounding the UK's productivity struggles and what role London plays in national productivity slowdown.
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16 November 2023
Join Centre for Cities in Liverpool for this half-day conference exploring the city region's economic performance and how to improve productivity.
29 November 2023
Join Centre for Cities at the London Transport Museum for the launch of a new report on how to increase public transport ridership.
As well as providing a deep dive into the latest economic data on the UK’s cities and largest towns, Cities Outlook 2023 shines a light on the UK's growing economic inactivity crisis.
As well as providing a deep dive into the latest economic data on the UK’s cities and largest towns, this year our flagship publication focuses on the scale and geography of economic inactivity across the country.
Paul Swinney
One year after the publication of the white paper, and three years after a general election, the Government has very little to show on levelling up. This is what should happen now.
Valentine Quinio
What does the UK's growing inactivity crisis say about the state of the labour market and how should policy tackle this urban problem?
Paul Swinney
While many cities perform poorly against the national average, they still play an important role in their regions despite this underperformance.
Three years on from lockdown, central London workers spend on average 2.3 days in the office per week. Will a London running on 59 per cent of January 2020’s office attendance levels be enough to drive up the UK's long term productivity and prosperity?
Paul Swinney and Olivia Vera
Three years on from lockdown, central London workers spend on average 2.3 days in the office per week. Will a London running on 59 per cent of January 2020’s office attendance levels be enough to avoid a slump in the UK's long term productivity and prosperity?
Series: City Talks
The authors of our new report look at hybrid working in London and address several possible future scenarios for work in the Capital.
Paul Swinney
How will the shift to hybrid working limit London’s future potential and how should policy tackle this?
Paul Swinney
Centre for Cities’ latest report gives a detailed picture on what hybrid working looks like in central London.
Explore Centre for Cities' debut research and analysis into the UK's cost of living crisis and how it is playing out across the UK.
Guilherme Rodrigues and Valentine Quinio
This report sets out what the cost of living crisis is, what is driving it, and how the squeeze on disposable incomes is likely to be felt across the UK’s cities and largest towns.
Series: City Minutes
Andrew Carter is joined by Valentine Quinio and Guilherme Rodrigues to unpack the findings of their latest report looking at the UK’s cost of living crisis.
Guilherme Rodrigues
The unexpected rise in inflation squeezes northern towns and cities hardest.
The UK is in the grip of a cost of living crisis, and there is a clear North-South divide in how it is playing out across the country. Explore the latest data for your city or large town.
Centre for Cities advocates that levelling up should improve standards of living across the country and help every place to reach its productivity potential, with a focus on improving the performance of the UK’s biggest cities as a means to address regional inequalities.
Stuart Bridgett, Tom Leeman and Anthony Breach
Centre for Cities' new report in partnership with Aviva argues that for the Government's regeneration schemes to succeed they should focus on city centres and be backed by public funding and planning reform.
Series: City Minutes
Director of Policy and Research Paul Swinney assesses the long-awaited Levelling Up White Paper
Paul Swinney
Investment zones will need to help struggling places offer something different to businesses, rather than doubling down on what they already have, if they are to improve their fortunes.
Stuart Bridgett
The Levelling Up White Paper committed to streamlining the grants system for local government. A year on and the current system is still holding local government back.
Paul Swinney
To pass the Nissan test, policies will have to address the reasons for why knowledge-intensive activities do not locate in the parts of the country the policies are attempting to target.
Paul Swinney
In advance of the Government’s forthcoming Levelling Up White Paper, this briefing sets out what the levelling up agenda should aim to achieve and a strategy for achieving it.
Series: City Talks
Daniel Knowles shares insights from his new book looking at how dependence on cars affects urban geography, economics, and wellbeing.
Series: City Talks
The authors of our new report look at hybrid working in London and address several possible future scenarios for work in the Capital.
Browse our annual flagship reports.
As well as providing a deep dive into the latest economic data on the UK’s cities and largest towns, this year our flagship publication focuses on the scale and geography of economic inactivity across the country.
Cities Outlook 2022 looks in-depth at the state of UK high streets to get a sense of the short-term impact of the pandemic on Britain's town and city centres and the long-term consequences and implications this has for the Government’s levelling up agenda.
After the most challenging of years, Cities Outlook 2021 assesses the impact of Covid on urban life and on the Government’s promise to level up the economy.
Kathrin Enenkel, Valentine Quinio and Paul Swinney
Poor air quality impacts on the health of residents and workers in cities in particular. Cities Outlook 2020 calls for urgent action from local and national government to clean up the air we breathe.
Centre for Cities
As a decade of austerity comes to end, this year’s edition of Cities Outlook looks at how city spending has changed.
Centre for Cities
Our annual health check of the 63 largest cities in the UK, with a focus on the impact of increasing automation.
We actively look to partner with like-minded businesses, universities and funders to help us realise our ambition to improve the economic performance of the UK's largest cities and towns.
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