This report from UK think tank Centre for Cities looks at where city densification needs to occur and what policy needs to do differently. Policy attention towards densifying British cities is welcome, and this research uses data on historic neighbourhood age and Centre for Cities’ residential densities dataset to dig deeper into where densification needs...

This report from UK think tank Centre for Cities argues that geographic differences in equity investment reflects differences in the number of investable firms. Equity investment is at the heart of the Industrial Strategy, and it is predominantly urban. Over 80 per cent of equity deals and values are for businesses in cities. A few...

This report from UK think tank Centre for Cities looks at how cities around the world operate their visitor levies and what England can learn from their experiences. Using examples drawn from a range of countries and cities from major visitor destinations such as Barcelona and Amsterdam to smaller places such as Essen, Germany and...

This report from UK think tank Centre for Cities looks at the lessons learnt from rules-based planning conducted in Croydon. This briefing analyses data from when the ‘Suburban Design Guide’ (SDG), a successful ‘experiment’ in rules-based planning conducted in Croydon from 2019 to 2022, was in place. It explains the SDG's success in raising housebuilding...

This report from UK think tank Centre for Cities focuses on the cities that offer lessons for a government looking to raise living standards everywhere. Cities Outlook, our annual health check of the economic performance of urban Britain, offers a deep dive into the latest economic data on how UK cities are performing against a range...

This report from UK think tank Centre for Cities shows that London's suburban high streets are performing better than the rest of the country. Most of London’s suburbs outperform Brighton, Oxford and York city centres – three of the UK’s top five cities and towns for high street occupancy. High average incomes are the main...

This report from UK think tank Centre for Cities addresses exactly where British cities should increase density and how they can do it. Britain needs more homes – and it needs them in its cities. The housing crisis, inefficient urban transport, and the underperformance of major urban economies all point in the same direction: higher-density urban...

This report from UK think tank Centre for Cities explores how transport integration could improve public transport and support economic growth.   Transport is the wiring that allows urban economies to function. But this wiring is faulty in big UK cities outside of London. This presents a problem for a national government wanting to deliver...

This report from UK think tank Centre for Cities discusses how the UK's large cities have performed over the last 20 years. This briefing dives into the latest subregional productivity data to understand the trends over the past 20 years and what it can tell us about local and national economic performance. It shows that...

This report from UK think tank Centre for Cities identifies four key reasons why high street vacancy rates vary so much from city to city and how to improve their fortunes. Centre for Cities looks at the variation in performance across high streets in the centres of the UK's largest cties and towns to understand...