Integration and Isolation
Author: Paula Lucci, Paul Hildreth and Malcolm CooperDate: 18/03/2008
Publication: Focus North
A new research report from the Centre for Cities takes a fresh look at the dynamics underpinning relationships between core cities and their neighbouring urban areas. It reinforces the importance of these relationships in understanding the city landscape of the Northern Economy. The paper also highlights the necessity of building a regional economic development strategy around two key elements: the promotion of core city growth, and the enhancement of physical, economic and social links between these cores and the other cities clustered around them.
Much of the literature on modern cities concentrates on the city as an individual entity, and seeks policy remedies within this context. Until recently, most local development strategies have followed the same logic. Such strategies have tended to draw conclusions limited by evidence of what was happening inside city or local authority boundaries. Implicitly, they have dealt with cities as if they were islands surrounded by open seas.
In reality, cities are open economies which sit within wider regional economies. The development of modern cities has been shaped as much by their relationship with surrounding urban areas as by their own internal dynamics. It is thus imperative to understand the wider economic, business, infrastructure and labour market connections that bind wider urban conurbations together, and to take account of the strength or weakness of these linkages when constructing policy interventions.
The realisation that inter-city relationships are important is central to the concept of the City-Region. City-Regions embrace core cities and the smaller cities and towns that surround them. They are bound together by the way people live and the way people work - the demography of residence can vary significantly from the pattern of employment. They are also connected by the way businesses locate and prosper, and by the manner in which they interact with their customers, their suppliers, their employees and each other.
The Northern Way growth strategy recognized that the eight City-Regions, which accounted for 90% of population and value-adding assets, were the key to transforming the North's economy. Since that time, the City-Regions have developed their own evidence-based development programmes based on the knowledge that places within City-Regions are inter-dependent.
Notwithstanding this progress, there is still a relative paucity of evidence about exactly how economic relationships between cities operate in practice. Much of the existing literature is still theoretical and has yet to be applied to real places.
A deeper practical understanding of economic relationships - between Leeds and Bradford, Liverpool and Chester, Newcastle and Sunderland, or Manchester and Burnley - is critical to the success of City-Region development plans. The same understanding is central to assessing the achievements and challenges of individual cities. How should the economic progress of a core city be transmitted to its smaller neighbours? What models should the latter adopt to enable them to reap the full benefits of symbiotic growth?
This study takes the first steps in closing the inter-city knowledge gap. It poses two questions. How have city linkages contributed to the relative success of London and the Greater South East? Why have Northern Cities apparently benefited less from the potential benefits of similar linkages?
The report employs two case studies - the dynamic relationship between London and Reading in the South East, and the unfulfilled potential of the relationship between Manchester and Burnley in the North West. It suggests that the high growth levels experienced by London and its neighbours arise from inter-dependent and mutually supportive special networks. These allow the Greater South East to operate as a wider and deeper market for employers and employees, for suppliers and customers and for innovation and specialization.
The fact that growth in the North's core cities does not "spill-over" evenly to the smaller cities around them is a product of the absence of such well-developed regional links. One simple measure of this absence is that fact that a commuting train journey between Reading and London takes half an hour, while one between Burnley and Manchester requires almost three times as much time and at least one change of train. The most important outcome of weak linkages in the North is the stubborn productivity gap between that region and the South.
The policy relevance of City-Region economic linkages is overwhelmingly strong. Higher growth and wider prosperity in the North requires the enhancement of City region integration and connectivity. Both core cities and their smaller neighbours will suffer if the some of the latter remain in a state of semi-isolation.
Implementation of the Sub-National Review is introducing a range of new policy instruments such as Regional Single Strategies, Multi-Area Agreements and Economic Development Companies. These can and should be used as tools to foster collaboration across city boundaries. Their employment in such a context is critically dependent on a deeper understanding of the latent synergies within and between the North's City-Regions.
A version of this article appeared in Focus North.
