Responding to the Centre for Cities Cities Outlook 2015, which shows smaller towns and cities falling behind their neighbours, Ed Cox, Director of IPPR North, said more powers needed to be devolved to regions to help them create prosperity and ensure smaller places do not fall behind as core cities grow:
“Ranking of smaller towns and cities only paints a partial picture of the complex connections between them. Our research shows that smaller towns and cities play different roles within a wider city region.
While the strongest growth may be in big cities, smaller towns and cities can play vital supporting roles as logistics centres, as hubs of economic specialism or by providing nearby amenity and recreation.
“With more devolved powers, cities have the potential to work more creatively with those places in their hinterlands to stop them falling further behind. Not to do so will have a drag on the whole city region. We need a decade of devolution to create prosperity in all parts of the country.
“This report shows that we cannot afford to leave behind smaller towns and cities in attempts to rebalance the economy. It reveals the troubling extent to which areas outside of big cities are falling behind their near neighbours.
“Not only does poor growth outside of big cities drag down our national economy, it means people living there miss out on the economic recovery and benefits of living nearby.
Big cities do need to see more meaningful devolution to create prosperity and drive the national economy, but our smaller towns and cities must be an integral part of the Northern Powerhouse too.” said Ed.