In last year's Budget the Chancellor placed a large wager on our cities being able to deliver the growth he needs. His commitment to local growth was framed within a package of support for cities and city-regions and had an explicit purpose; to “increase the productivity of the five biggest city regions outside of London so that they matched UK average productivity", in turn leading to an apparent growth in UK GDP of £31 billion a year.

We should be careful not to bet the house purely on our cities. This is especially true in the light of an EU Referendum which saw our towns vote to Leave whilst cities voted to Remain. Economic models which fail to compute the social implications of such an approach should expect to continue to marginalise and anger the excluded. By the excluded, we of course mean the people of our towns. It’s a trend which we see regularly in our work, with our towns routinely described as left-behind or backward; its residents implicitly framed as ignorant or part of the problem.

Quite understandably, people look to us for solutions to the challenges faced by towns. We will have a lot to say on this, but let's start with two basic principles. First, that there are as many solutions to the challenges faced by towns as there are towns themselves. The naive belief that a one-size-fits-all suite of solutions can be imposed upon towns is part of the problem. Second, we are clear that any solutions should begin and end with the greatest resource those towns have; their people.

Read articles written in online media and news columns, that relate to Centre For Town or where Centre For Towns has helped with providing crucial data.
Sign up to our mailing list below to keep informed of these articles & new data were adding.

In the last three decades, whilst the population of the United Kingdom has increased, this growth has not been evenly distributed. Cities and larger towns have in effect grown younger whilst towns and villages have aged. The table below shows the age and place distribution of population growth since 1981.

This week, as part of our report with Hope Not Hate, we told the story of East Marsh United, a community group formed on an estate in Grimsby. Their story gives us hope. The power of their project is a symbol of what a huge difference people in communities can make, and we stand full square with them, but not just them. Across the country, in town after town, whether it be a church hall in the Cotswolds or the back of a community centre in Hartlepool, small projects punch above their weight every single day. Often staffed by committed volunteers, working on a shoestring but facing down such challenges and doing it anyway. The strength they exhibit, and their perseverance, is a beacon for our country. But there’s a problem.

We will be dropping data into this blog from our data shed for users to download for themselves. Click the links provided to download the data you like.

Subtley, in recent decades Britain has transformed. Our towns and cities have become, as the academics Will Jennings and Gerry Stoker put it, two England’s, with increasingly different views and priorities. This widening gulf was most starkly illustrated by Brexit but the differences go much wider on a range of social attitudes on issues from immigration to civil rights and political differences too.

The Centre for Towns is interested in understanding how public attitudes differ in different places; the concerns, aspirations and expectations of citizens living in towns and cities across the UK. Britain’s political geography is changing – and towns are at the centre of this tilting of the political axis.

The EU Referendum result was a political earthquake that should have shaken Westminster and Whitehall out of its unthinking complacency. But instead of addressing the underlying conditions which have fuelled not only Brexit, but the rise of populist movements and the advent of strongman politics across the world, we have reverted to type, content to deepen our divisions rather than bring people together.

The Centre for Towns is interested in understanding how public attitudes differ in different places; the concerns, aspirations and expectations of citizens living in towns and cities across the UK. Britain’s political geography is changing – and towns are at the centre of this tilting of the political axis.

For far too long the ambitions, needs and values of nine million people in towns across Britain have not been heard.

Our economic model treats cities as engines of growth, which at best drag surrounding towns along in their wake, causing life to become harder, less secure and less hopeful for too many people in towns in recent decades.