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.
Why the current planning system causes a housing shortage, and how a new planning system — with flexible zoning — will end it.
As local lockdowns are expected to become the new norm, Government must ensure businesses are adequately supported and that these local lockdowns reflect the right boundaries.
A city's over-reliance on one industry stores up trouble for when a crisis hits.
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
Showing 1–10 of 74 results.
Why the current planning system causes a housing shortage, and how a new planning system — with flexible zoning — will end it.
As local lockdowns are expected to become the new norm, Government must ensure businesses are adequately supported and that these local lockdowns reflect the right boundaries.
As the lockdown in response to the Coronavirus pandemic begins to ease, Centre for Cities tracks the recovery of high streets in Britain's cities and large towns.
A city's over-reliance on one industry stores up trouble for when a crisis hits.
The benefits of the Government’s u-turn will be felt most in cities and large towns in the North of England and the Midlands where pupils are more likely to be disadvantaged.
If April claimant count data suggested cities and large towns in the North and Midlands were hardest hit, May's release shows that cities with strong economies in the South of England are now catching up.
Rolling back Covid support measures is complicated, but a framework for thinking about it suggests a clearer way forward.
New Job Retention Scheme data shows that firms in different places are taking varying decisions as to how to deal with the current uncertainty. This has implications for their ability to recover as the lockdown ends.
The Government has restated in recent weeks its commitment to 'levelling up' the economy once the current crisis subsides. But how should this be done?
How should the Government roll back its support in a way that allows growth to occur across the country?
