The UK is by some measures the most geographically unequal developed economy in the world. While cities and large towns in the Greater South East of England are among the most productive and prosperous places in Europe, most in the North and Midlands lag far behind.
The Government has set out its intention to address this inequality and ‘level up’ underperforming and left-behind parts of the UK through a programme of infrastructure development, investing in education, skills and scientific R&D.
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.
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.
There is a concern that school closures – albeit necessary for public health reasons – will further widen the gap between children living in disadvantaged areas and their better off peers.
A recent study by Centre for Cities, commissioned by Connected Places Catapult, analysed which of Great Britain’s 62 cities and largest towns have the most potential to harness extra public R&D funding and convert it into wider local economic growth – helping level up the whole UK.
As part of his response to Coronavirus, the Chancellor announced that small businesses in retail, leisure and hospitality will be exempted from business rates this year. But how will this play out across the country?
Unlike many other developed economies, the UK’s largest cities and towns do not become more productive as they get bigger. In Germany, France, and the United States, there is a positive relationship between city size and productivity, as measured by GDP per worker.
This relationship does not hold in the UK. A number of small cities, such as Slough and Swindon, are more productive than expected and, with the clear exception of London, most large cities are less productive.
Even after adjusting the size of cities to take into account people who commute into them for work, most of the UK’s large cities still underperform. Their underperformance affects many more people than the underperformance of small- and medium-sized places, and has much larger implications for the national economy.
Among those underperforming cities, if the eight largest closed their output gap, the UK economy would be £47.4 billion larger in total — equivalent to adding two extra economies the size of Newcastle to national output. Manchester, Birmingham and Glasgow account for 70 per cent of this gap. For comparison, if all of the underperforming small- and medium-sized cities closed their output gaps, the UK economy would be £22.5 billion larger in total.
What needs to change
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There is a concern that school closures – albeit necessary for public health reasons – will further widen the gap between children living in disadvantaged areas and their better off peers.
A recent study by Centre for Cities, commissioned by Connected Places Catapult, analysed which of Great Britain’s 62 cities and largest towns have the most potential to harness extra public R&D funding and convert it into wider local economic growth – helping level up the whole UK.
As part of his response to Coronavirus, the Chancellor announced that small businesses in retail, leisure and hospitality will be exempted from business rates this year. But how will this play out across the country?
The Government's plans to level up the UK economy pose a problem for the metro mayor manifestos argues Andy Westwood.
While the Budget was trailed as being a response to Corona virus, the chancellor still made time in his hour-long speech to announce a number of policies to help the Government’s levelling up agenda.
This briefing sets out the five things that should be in the Chancellor’s Red Box if dreams of levelling up are to become a reality.
There is a strong case for new transport infrastructure investment in some cities and large towns. But this only applies to a handful of places where the current transport system is struggling to support the growth of their city-centre economies.
Congestion is holding back major cities, such as Manchester and Birmingham, where new transport infrastructure could help them add billions to the UK economy each year
The collapse of FlyBe has led to questions about the negative local economic impact the loss of connectivity will have on places served by the airline. But Paul Swinney argues that this impact is likely to be overstated.
Transport, skills and taxation should be top of the mayor's agenda after the May election according to Clive Memmott, Chief Executive of the Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce.
