Centre for Cities

Chief Executive Andrew Carter is joined by Ant Breach, Director of Policy and Research, and Jess Tulasiewicz, Head of Public Affairs and Policy, to discuss the urban implications of Andy Burnham's latest speech where he laid out his vision for the country should he become the new Prime Minister.

Chief Executive Andrew Carter is joined by Ant Breach, Director of Policy and Research, and Oscar Selby, Analyst, to continue the conversation on the merits, importance and the detail of fiscal devolution. As we approach a change in leadership they discuss why the drive towards fiscal devolution must continue and what that might look like. 

Chief Executive Andrew Carter is joined by Rob Johnson, Senior Analyst, and Neela Parker-Talwar, Researcher, to discuss the current debate on growth and inclusion in big cities. Drawing on our recent publication Uneven Cities , which looked at how urban deprivation has changed over the last 15 years, the newly published Milburn Review, and examples such as Liverpool and Manchester, they discuss wh...

Chief Executive Andrew Carter is joined by Joshi Herrmann, founder and editor of Manchester Mill (Mill Media), Dave Hill, founder and editor of OnLondon , and Jane Haynes, politics and people editor at Birmingham Live , to discuss cities in the media. They explore how narratives about cities are formed, why they matter and whether they shape investment and policy.

Chief Executive Andrew Carter is joined by Ant Breach, Director of Policy and Research, to discuss devolution following the passing of the Devolution Act at the end of April. They cover what is included in the Act, what is missing - notably fiscal devolution - and how the Chancellor’s Mais lecture has added momentum to the case for it.

Chief Executive Andrew Carter is joined by Caitlin Rollison, External Affairs and Policy Manager, and Jess Tulasiewicz, Head of Public Affairs and Policy. They discuss the manifestos for the upcoming Scottish and Welsh elections as well as the English local elections and discuss what more politically diverse councils could mean for mayors. 

Chief Executive Andrew Carter is joined by Analyst Maurice Lange as well as Alison Coutinho (Mace Consult) and Guy Rochez (Town) who both worked for Croydon council between 2019 and 2022 when they were designing and implementing a new planning strategy to build more homes in the borough. Building off our recent research into the experiment, Croydon calling: Lessons on rules-based planning, they di...

Chief Executive Andrew Carter is joined by External Affairs and Policy Manager Caitlin Rollison and Intern Zoe Johnson to discuss the findings of our latest briefing ‘ Around the world: How do visitor levies work in other countries? '. As the Government looks to enable mayors to introduce visitor levies in England they dive into examples drawn from a range of countries and cities across the globe...

Chief Executive Andrew Carter is joined by Alex Trew, Professor of Economics at the Adam Smith Business School at Glasgow University and David Nagy, Senior Researcher at CREI in Barcelona. As two of the four authors of the paper The Death and Life of Great British Cities they discuss how the specialisation and diversification of industries shapes cities.

Centre for Cities’ Chief Executive Andrew Carter is joined by Will Jennings, Professor of Political Science and Public Policy as well as Dean for the faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Southampton to discuss his latest paper Perspectives on Place: what the English think about their local area . Coming shortly after the publication of Cities Outlook 2026, which examined variation in di...

Chief Executive Andrew Carter is joined by Rob Johnson, Senior Analyst, to discuss the findings of Cities Outlook 2026 , our annual health check of the economic performance of urban Britain. They discuss the cities that have managed to buck the national trend to improve the quality of life in their place and the three elements that are key to creating economic growth that is felt by everyone and h...

Chief Executive Andrew Carter is joined by Analyst Maurice Lange to talk about the urban density gap following the publication of our recent report ‘ Flat Britain: The urban density gap and how to close it '. They discuss the housing shortage in the UK, the importance of cities in tackling that shortage and they look to other cities in the world that are achieving the kind of density we need in th...

Chief Executive Andrew Carter is joined by External Affairs and Policy Manager Caitlin Rollison to discuss Scottish devolution from a city region perspective following the publication of our recent briefing ‘ Let devolution flourish: How Glasgow spreads prosperity and why the City Region needs devolution ‘. They set out how the agenda has progressed recently and why Glasgow City Region needs a dev...

Chief Executive Andrew Carter is joined by Researcher Oscar Selby to discuss the findings of our latest briefing ' Follow the money: Explaining the performance of London’s suburban high streets '. They explore why its useful to take a closer look at London's suburban high streets to better understand the wider conversation on the economic performance of the UK's high streets and city centres.

Chief Executive Andrew Carter is joined by Analyst Rob Johnson and External Affairs and Policy Manager Caitlin Rollison to discuss the findings of our latest report ' Integrated transport: The size of the prize for mayors '. They dive into the economic benefits of better transport systems for big city regions and the size of the prize for the metro mayors. 

Chief Executive Andrew Carter is joined by Yunze Wang, Analyst, to discuss the findings of our latest briefing ' How productive are the UK’s big cities?' . They dive into what the latest data ONS tells us about big city performance and some of the potential inconsistencies that arise. 

This episode is a recording of our recent event on the New Towns taskforce report. Chief Executive Andrew Carter was joined by Maurice Lange, Analyst, and Ant Breach, Director of Policy and Research, to discuss the government's initial response to the report. The conversation focused on economic geography aspects of the report and as well as touching on the governance and delivery issues involved.

Chief Executive Andrew Carter is joined by Maurice Lange, Analyst, and Ant Breach, Director of Policy and Research, to discuss planning reform. They explore how the government has been doing over the last year as they implement planning reforms to try and meet the housebuilding target as well as what might need to happen if we get a second planning bill.

Chief Executive Andrew Carter is joined by Rob Johnson, Analyst, and Xuanru Lin, Researcher, to discuss the findings of our latest briefing ' Town and Gown: The role of universities in city economies '. They dive into the specific ways in which universities contribute to city economies and the potential impact of funding issues and proposed student levies.

In this very special episode of City Talks Andrew Carter is joined by the Centre for Cities' now former Director of Policy and Research, Paul Swinney, to reflect on his 16 years at the Centre for Cities as he moves on to his next adventure. They discuss what's changed, and what hasn't, in the last two decades in the world of economic policy, what brought Paul to the Centre 16 years ago as well as...