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.
Short-term support to help businesses bounce back from Covid-19 should be combined with the delivery of new housing and transport improvements.
The Chancellor extended much needed short term support for the economy, but his longer term plans offer little hope of levelling up.
Last week, Centre for Cities hosted an event to discuss the next steps for improving the quality of bus services and their contribution to the economy, supported by Abellio.
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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Short-term support to help businesses bounce back from Covid-19 should be combined with the delivery of new housing and transport improvements.
The Chancellor extended much needed short term support for the economy, but his longer term plans offer little hope of levelling up.
Last week, Centre for Cities hosted an event to discuss the next steps for improving the quality of bus services and their contribution to the economy, supported by Abellio.
With the health crisis approaching its end the Government must turn its attention to levelling up.
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.
Ensuring young people across the UK have access to relevant, good quality post-16 education and training options must be part of the Government's ‘levelling up’ agenda.
This briefing sets out in twelve steps what the Budget 2021 should do to ‘build back better’, level up the economy and help the country to recover from Covid-19.
Our latest briefing shows that the Core Cities' city centres have been particularly affected by Covid-19. Policies aimed to kickstart an economic recovery should focus on getting centres working again, in terms of public transport and air quality, commercial property, and investment in skills.
Relocating civil servants will not, on its own, improve Government thinking; here's what will.
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.