Because the vast majority of UK economic activity takes place in the largest 63 cities and towns, they are crucial to the levelling up agenda.
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.
This report, published in partnership with Clarion Housing Group, analyses how the pandemic has affected people’s spending, saving and debt, and evaluates what this means for the recovery of the UK’s cities and largest towns.
This report outlines how Mayors provide the Government with the opportunity to develop a new effective set of regional economic development policies to level up across the country and contribute to increasing the UK’s rate of economic growth.
Senior Analyst Elena Magrini on what the Government needs to do in skills policy to level up the UK.
This briefing presents two new indexes to summarise and compare the performance of the UK's largest cities and towns. The findings have implications for policy, particularly the Government’s ‘levelling up’ agenda.
The idea that recent growth of cities has come at the expense of towns has become a mantra. The problem is, it isn’t true.
As part of our ongoing work into levelling up, we've produced a four-part blog series and accompanying City Minutes episodes which explore the nature of the cities versus towns debate and identify what needs to happen to bring greater prosperity to struggling towns.
Senior Analyst Kathrin Enenkel on the relationship between UK cities and towns and the implications this has for people and policy makers.
Ignoring the relationship between cities and towns makes it harder to bring greater prosperity to struggling towns.
Why levelling up towns must mean increasing investment in skills, housing stock and the attractiveness of a place – in conjunction with improving the performance of cities.
Senior Analyst Kathrin Enenkel on how we can level up struggling towns and why improving the performance of cities will be crucial to levelling up towns across the UK.
Why transport policy shouldn’t be at the core of the levelling up agenda.
Why investment in rural towns should focus on skills, health and social infrastructure.
Explore the results of the mayoral elections in Greater London, Greater Manchester, West Midlands, Liverpool City Region, Tees Valley, Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, West of England and West Yorkshire.
Find out everything there is to know about the 2021 metro mayoral elections through polling data, podcast discussions and post-election analysis from Centre for Cities.
Andy Burnham has been re-elected as the Mayor of Greater Manchester. Now he must build back better from the pandemic and improve the economy and people’s living standards for the long-term.
The candidates have prepared proposals and new ideas for their cities. Anthony Breach sets out what they mean for cities and urban politics more generally.
Andrew Carter is joined by three distinguished guests to discuss the ins and outs of the upcoming mayoral elections, with a focus on Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire and London.
There is overwhelming public support for devolution to many of England’s largest cities according to Centre for Cities’ polling by Savanta ComRes ahead of the metro mayor elections in May 2021.
This report examines the pattern of private sector growth within the UK’s seven-year jobs miracle to inform how new jobs can be created as the Government looks to ‘build back better’ and level up the country.
As the COVID-19 pandemic sends shockwaves through the labour market, Centre for Cities tracks the latest unemployment claim statistics across the UK's cities and largest towns.
While in some parts of the country the situation is stabilising, the labour market in cities and large towns in the Greater South East continues to deteriorate.
Where in England has the highest number of new Coronavirus cases?
Almost 10 million new jobs will need to be generated to recover from the pandemic, making job creation the most pressing policy challenge we face in the immediate future.
As the lockdown in response to the Coronavirus pandemic varies across the country, Centre for Cities tracks the recovery of high streets in Britain's cities and large towns.
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.
Some places thrive while others struggle. Explore and compare the latest economic data on how cities and large towns are doing to understand why.
The pandemic has made levelling up four times harder and it risks levelling down otherwise economically successful parts of the country as well.
The Covid-19 recession is very different to previous ones, and its recovery is likely to be so too. We should expect the UK economy, and many of its cities, to experience a sharp bounce back.
Want to know how your city fares on key indicators like population, start-ups and housing?
Go to the city-by-city page
Andrew Carter is joined by three experts to discuss what the German experience can teach the UK about levelling up.
Ben Houchen on what levelling up means for Tees Valley and his vision for the city region.
As a decade of austerity comes to end, this year’s edition of Cities Outlook looks at how city spending has changed.
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.
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.
Find out how to partner with us