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Gap widening between ‘resurgent’ and ‘stuck cities’

 How Can Cities Thrive in the Changing Economy?

The Work Foundation today releases a league table of the productivity of different cities across the UK that reveals wide and growing disparities between ‘resurgent’ cities and those that appear to be ‘stuck’. Lack of vision and failure to collaborate with neighbours are considered significant waeknesses. Historic coastal towns fare particulary badly in this changing environment. Differences risk being exacerbated by the credit crunch as too many UK cities have built up a reliance on financial service jobs compared to their European counterparts, the How Can Cities Thrive in the Changing Economy? report warns.  

"Many refuse to recognise that their economic future relies on trade links with a neighbouring city that, despite being a historic rival, is now thriving. And they are often blighted by either chaotic or complacent leadership."

Mobiles and finance in Africa

  

Cash in hand: why Africans are banking on the mobile phone

The dramatic spread of the handset is revolutionising the way money circulates. The dramatic growth in mobile phone use in Africa - phones now outnumber cash machines by several thousand to one - is paving the way for a new set of services that turn the humble handset into a banking tool with the potential to transform Africa's economy.

Resisting Catastrophic Urbanism in Saint Petersburg

Anti viruses and underground monuments

Saint Petersburg is besieged by elite-backed architectural mega-projects and micro-interventions. Dmitry Vorobyev and Thomas Campbell , describe the dominant strains of 'renovation' and the popular resistance to them arguing that, in St. Petersburg, class conflict takes the form of opposed visions of urban renewal and historic preservation.

 

Smarter, Stronger Cities: UK Urban Policy Innovations and Lessons for the US

A new report from the Centre for Cities and Washington's Brookings Institution has found that the USA has a lot to learn from Britain's urban renaissance. But while British politicians and officials have always been keen to go on the hunt for policy ideas from the States, US politicians don't always follow suit. US mayors - and the next US administration - should look more closely at British policy ideas, to help American cities compete in the future.

"As the United States chooses its next President, we should do more to export our successful urban policies to the US - especially on sustainable growth. US cities could learn useful lessons from our track record of avoiding excessive sprawl and supporting low-income families." Dermot Finch

See also: Americans migrate back to the cities

Shenzhen

Naomi Klein on growth and surveillance in a chinese city from Rolling Stone

Thirty years ago, the city of Shenzhen didn't exist. Back in those days, it was a string of small fishing villages and collectively run rice paddies, a place of rutted dirt roads and traditional temples.

Today, Shenzhen is a city of 12.4 million people, and there is a good chance that at least half of everything you own was made here: iPods, laptops, sneakers, flatscreen TVs, cellphones, jeans, maybe your desk chair, possibly your car and almost certainly your printer. Hundreds of luxury condominiums tower over the city; many are more than 40 stories high, topped with three-story penthouses.

...as China prepares to showcase its economic advances during the upcoming Olympics in Beijing, Shenzhen is once again serving as a laboratory, a testing ground for the next phase of this vast social experiment. Over the past two years, some 200,000 surveillance cameras have been installed throughout the city.

Policing the retail republic

Does regeneration around a giant private mall in central Liverpool mark a worrying attempt to keep out the less well-heeled?

"The rules for the newly privatised city centre fabricate an ideal citizen - aspirational in consumption and thinking big with urban pride. This is depicted as no ordinary regeneration because Liverpool people 'possess so much passion, so much pride and such a desire to shop'."

The renaissance is over

Dermot Finch of Centre for Cities speculates on a time of recession

"The slowdown will test Ministers' resolve on devolution. The Government will now need to deliver on its empowerment rhetoric, in a much tighter fiscal climate. Will Ministers agree to more financial powers for local government, or use the slowdown as an excuse not to devolve? "

See also 'The credit crunch and implications for the UK housing market'

Archbishop leads on debt debate

The Archbishop of Canterbury has  called on the government to do more to protect the poorest and most vulnerable from the likely consequences of an economic downturn. Speaking in the House of Lords the Archbishop highlighted the fact that government targets on alleviating poverty, particularly child poverty, risked not being met and warned that in a period of economic decline the poorest in society, who carry a higher proportion of personal debt, were most at risk.

What legacy?

How will the claims made for the Olympic Park really play out in the lives of East Londoners?

The Olympics site is eating into east London's green spaces and few local residents will be around to benefit from the area's vast redevelopment, says Tony Lloyd-Jones.

'A new "green Olympics" site development will be of little more benefit to local residents than the current vast blue-fenced building site they will have to suffer until the Olympics is upon them, and for several years after as the legacy sites are redeveloped.'

SUCCESS AND THE CITY

Learning from International Urban Policy

Latest Policy Exchange report

"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."