Centre for Cities

City Talks: Giles Wilkes on designing a successful industrial strategy

For several years’ governments have promised an Industrial Strategy to address the UK’s sluggish productivity, address regional inequality and prepare the UK economy for its post-Brexit future. However, no government has yet provided a comprehensive proposal on how this would transform the economy and create a more prosperous country.

To discuss the role of the Government in economic planning, how it develops industrial strategy, and the challenges that it faces Andrew Carter is joined by Giles Wilkes, Senior Fellow at the Institute for Government, Specialist Partner at Flint Global and former Special Advisor to Theresa May and Vince Cable.

Giles is the author of the Institute for Government’s new paper How to design a successful industrial strategy. 

 

City Minutes: Outlook 2021 — Covid and levelling up

The Prime Minister has promised to ‘level up’ the national economy – that was a big challenge even before the pandemic, but how has Covid changed that task?

After the most challenging of years, Cities Outlook 2021 assesses the scale of the impact of the Covid pandemic on urban life, on the Government’s promise to level up the economy, and the prospects for the future.

Andrew Carter is joined by Senior Analyst Elena Magrini to discuss the different challenges that cities and towns up and down the country face, and what places should do to address the short term challenge of Covid and the longer-term task of levelling up.

City Talks: Tony Travers on the Mayor of London

Twenty years ago, London became the first city in the UK to establish a directly elected mayor, marking the beginning of two decades of local government transformation. Since then the three Mayors of London have shaped the capital, and set a precedent for the creation of similar positions in other English cities.

To discuss the office of Mayor of London – its origins, powers, limitations and future – Andrew Carter is joined by Professor Tony Travers, Visiting Professor in LSE Department of Government, Director of LSE London and co-author of London's Mayor at 20: Governing a Global City in the 21st Century.

City Talks: Pat Ritchie on the biggest challenges for Newcastle

The pandemic has hit the UK's biggest cities hardest. In Newcastle's centre, overall footfall is currently at 43 per cent of what it was before Covid. This recovered to only 80 per cent when restrictions were relaxed over the summer — mainly because those who could do so continued to work from home.

This week, Andrew Carter is joined by Pat Ritchie, Chief Executive of Newcastle City Council, Chair of Core Cities Chief Executives Group and Chair of the Government Property Agency.

Pat and Andrew discuss the biggest challenges for Newcastle, including how the city has been impacted by Covid-19 and what the council is doing to respond. They also explore how the future for Newcastle might look in the context of city devolution, levelling up, and building back better. Finally, Pat responds to the Government's announcement on the planning algorithm and reflects on how councils and central government have been working together on Covid.

City Minutes: How has the pandemic affected air quality in cities?

Covid-19 restrictions have pushed concern about air quality down the political agenda. Many councils that had been planning to introduce measures to reduce air pollution levels in their cities have postponed or cancelled them.

Despite this, after an initial drop in air pollution this year it has since been rising again. As a result, NO₂ levels have now hit or exceeded pre-pandemic levels in around 80% of places studied according to new research by Centre for Cities and the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air.

To discuss this issue in more detail, Andrew Carter is joined by the authors of the new research Centre for Cities’ Valentine Quinio and the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air’s Hubert Thieriot.

City Talks: Ben Wilson on the history of cities - humankind's greatest invention

For thousands of years people have been drawn to cities for trade, learning, religion, power and entertainment. From Ancient Uruk and Rome through to modern megacities such as New York and Shanghai, cities have shaped the way people interact and driven human progress forward.

To discuss in more detail how cities have shaped history, bestselling writer and author of a new book Metropolis: A History of the City, Humankind's Greatest Invention, Ben Wilson, joins Andrew Carter for this episode of City Talks.

He argues that with over half the world's population now living in cities, and cosmopolitanism under attack from nationalist sentiment, it has never been more important to understand cities and the role they have played in making us who we are.

 

City Minutes: How important is getting an EU trade deal to Britain’s cities?

At the end of next month, the UK will leave the Brexit transition period and, if a trade deal with the EU is not agreed, will begin trading with the EU on World Trade Organisation terms.

The EU currently is the largest export market for every single city and large town in Britain and so trading under these terms would be damaging to local economies, particularly those in Northern England that are more reliant on trade with the bloc.

For this episode of City Minutes Researcher Tom Sells joins Andrew Carter to discuss his new analysis of the export profiles and key trading partners of Britain’s cities, and what the future could hold for their economies as we exit the transition period.

City Minutes: Reforming business rates

Business rates are one of the most important taxes for local government, yet our current system has come under huge scrutiny in recent years. The tax has been blamed for the struggles of retailers, the death of the high street and for exacerbating the country’s economic divides.

How should the business rates system be reformed?

For this episode of City Minutes Andrew Carter is joined by Centre for Cities' Senior Analyst Kathrin Enenkel and Researcher Tom Sells to discuss their new work setting out the problems with the current system and how they should be fixed.

City Talks: Sir John Armitt on the future of UK infrastructure

From HS2 to Northern Powerhouse Rail to a proposed Scotland-Northern Ireland bridge, improving the infrastructure that links us together is a key cornerstone of the Government’s levelling up agenda.

What role does infrastructure play in creating economic growth? How should local political leaders be involved in commissioning projects in their areas? And have the huge changes brought about by Covid-19 changed the UK’s future infrastructure priorities?

To discuss these issues, and more, Andrew Carter is joined by Sir John Armitt, Chairman of the National Infrastructure Commission and former Chief Executive of Network Rail. He is also the author of the independent Armitt Review of long-term infrastructure planning in the UK.

City Talks: Politicians on levelling up during the Covid-19 pandemic

Covid-19 has made the job of levelling up the UK much harder than it was a year ago. While the Government grapples with the economic and public health effects of the pandemic, many of the policies planned to grow cities’ and towns’ economies – from the devolution white paper to the Green Book review – have been postponed.

So what does the future hold for the levelling up agenda and the people and places it was intended to help?

To get a sense of this Andrew Carter spoke to local and national politicians from the two main political parties:

• Bridget Phillipson MP, Labour MP for Houghton and Sunderland South and Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury
• Councillor Abi Brown, Conservative Leader of Stoke-on-Trent City Council
• Councillor Peter Lamb, Labour Leader of Crawley Borough Council
• Ben Bradley MP, Conservative MP for Mansfield