17.03.08
Stronger city government is key to urban revival – Policy Exchange
…but some cities will still find it difficult to regenerate
In the first of a three-part series of reports on urban regeneration, leading thinktank Policy Exchange report found that British towns and cities in receipt of substantial urban policy funding designed to bring them up to the economic standard nationally are, in fact, declining when judged by a whole range of indices. ‘Cities Limited’ called into question the £30bn spent in the last decade on a plethora of urban regeneration schemes delivered by a myriad of different agencies.
Our search for better alternatives took us to six city-regions in five countries. We went to places that have had to address similar urban issues to UK cities, in order to examine how they have designed and delivered urban policy.
Regeneration, and urban policy more widely, are worldwide issues. Many cities around the globe face similar issues to British cities – bringing business in, developing labour markets, addressing poverty and segregation, and encouraging people to migrate back to the city. Learning from this wealth of international experience is critical to improving the design, delivery and success of policy in the UK. Based on research in six city-regions - Vancouver, Amsterdam, the Ruhr, Lodz, Warsaw and Hong Kong - across three continents, the second report in the series ‘Success and the city: Learning from international urban policies’, analyses how policy can be made to deliver healthy cities.
In Hong Kong, Amsterdam and the Ruhr region, the authors, Tim Leunig of the LSE and James Swaffield of Policy Exchange, found flexible, effective and accountable city-led regeneration characterised by strong local leadership and innovative policy formulation.
Vancouver shares many of these same characteristics but due to its constrained autonomy its successes are harder won and longer in the making. Warsaw and Lodz suffer from an imbalance between local powers and local abilities which has slowed necessary urban changes. In our final report we will apply many of these findings to the urban regeneration of the UK and produce a set of policy suggestions which aim to give British cities – and the people who live in them – the chances they deserve.
Conclusions
Autonomy - The degree of flexibility given to cities matters. Designing and delivering urban change is best done at the city level. The more removed the level of decision-making, the lower the likelihood of success. The Ruhr and Hong Kong exemplify the returns from city-led urban policies. The message is clear: decentralise where possible, centralise only if necessary.
Innovation - Freedom alone does not guarantee success. Devolving powers without ensuring competences leads to poor outcomes. The Polish cities of Lodz and Warsaw have considerable local freedoms but have not brought about change as quickly as expected due to low levels of policy knowledge. Powers on paper need to be matched by ideas on how to bring about change – innovation and a culture of growth are critical.
Accountability - Cities that have re-forged the link to their citizens produce better outcomes. Vancouver and the Ruhr have a strong tradition of engaging civil society, and change on the ground has benefited from this. Hong Kong has not and finds itself more open to attack when it comes to changing the city.
Geography - Policy has limits. Size and location still matter greatly. Vancouver and Hong Kong are relatively successful due in part to their primacy and accessibility. They are global urban hubs and benefit substantially from this.
Editor of the report and Chief Economist at Policy Exchange, Dr Oliver Marc Hartwich, commented on the report’s findings: “Collectively, the message from these cities is clear: the most successful have the powers and ambition to initiate change, the freedoms to think and be innovative with policy, and the mechanisms to hold local change to account. Giving cities powers alone, however, cannot buck geography. The most successful also benefit strongly from their location, size and accessibility, and these are sometimes difficult areas to bring within the bounds of policy.
“What British cities need is the flexibility and the power to make their own decisions. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to regenerating and reviving very different cities across the country. We must also be open to the fact that for some cities shrinking in size may be the best way to make them attractive again. We will explore these issues in our next report, to be published later this year.”
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