Staff involved: Henry Overman, Neil Lee
This project will analyse patterns of urban ‘decline’, resilience and recovery in Britain in recent decades. The aim would be initially to characterise these patterns in cities in terms of underlying population, labour market and industry trends and then to understand the factors that lie behind them. A number of potential triggers for turning points in city development will then be investigated, such as the impacts of big plant and industry closures, other employment shocks, plus shocks to amenities and housing. The work will build on recent developments in the theory and empirical analysis of regional growth and decline (Breinlich, Holger & Ottaviano, 2014) and on existing case study work on selected US and European cities (Power, Ploger, Winkler 2010). The project will use administrative and large scale survey micro-data e.g. BSD, ARD, NES/ASHE mapped into other geocoded data sources.
The aim is to be able to characterise ‘key events’ that could be early warning systems for areas that are in danger of decline. Part of the aim of the project is to help policy makers come to more informed decisions on how cities can prosper and be more resilient to negative shocks. In this sense it builds on the economy wide approach of the LSE Growth Commission as envisioned by the City Growth Commission (chaired by former Goldman Sachs’ Chief Economist Jim O’Neill and that involved Henry Overman and John Van Reenen as Commissioners). But we need to also consider how we identify cities that are in long-run decline and how their adjustment can be managed.