Tag Archives: global city

The UK has a problem: outside London our cities underperform. They fail to generate as much wealth as they should and many are net drains on the public purse. That’s not the case in every country – the UK is unusual in its concentration of wealth and power in one big city.

In part 1 of my article I set out the first three of the six steps cities need to take to turn that situation around. In this concluding part I identify the final three steps.

Step four: create more employment

The study “Investing in City regions” (2014) by Volterra Partners identifies a correlation between employment density and earnings. Where employees are packed in more closely together, they tend to earn more and work in more knowledge-intensive industries. Employment areas are ten times denser in parts of London than in Manchester. Of course, denser employment makes transportation even more important and reduces the role of the car.

In 1900 just one in ten people lived in cities. Today over half do and nearly all population growth in the next few decades is expected to be in larger conurbations. Around the world cities are the engines of growth and prosperity, with governments working to tackle the challenges that brings with it.

The UK has a major city problem: with the exception of London our cities underperform. Other countries do it better – the concentration on one city at the expense of the rest is unusual. As the Royal Society report The Future of Cities (2014) says:

The relative underperformance of the large secondary cities, and the low number of cities that perform well above the national average, sets the UK apart.