With images played out on news channels across the globe, last month’s riots damaged UK plc’s brand image at home and abroad. They also damaged the reputation of the city itself as somewhere to live, somewhere to work and somewhere to invest.
“The reputation of cities in Britain has never been very good,” says Tony Travers, director of the Greater London Group at the London School of Economics. “They have long been seen, and Dickens must take some of the credit for this, as crime-ridden, dirty and dangerous places, and they don’t appeal to very many people other than as places to visit. Now, that’s not to say that they’re not powerfully interesting and important as places of economic activity. There’s massive economic theory about agglomeration benefits of cities. But as places to live they are less popular than, let us put it generously, villages.”
Yet Travers, who was speaking at an event organised last week by Estates Gazette and Weber Shandwick to discuss how the reputation of cities can be restored, acknowledges that change can happen. “It is possible for a city to change its reputation,” he says. “In the past 25 to 30 years, Manchester, Leeds and Liverpool have radically altered their brand image. The brand created for large world-leader cities such as London, Paris and New York are very similar. They are shown to be global, multicultural, internationally focused and fun, designed to attract inward investment from all over the world.”
Build up, not build out
So it can be done, but how? “We must continue to invest in and grow our cities and can argue that if we look at our second-tier cities outside of London, some are still too small,” says Andrew Carter, director of policy and research for the Centre for Cities. “We need to think about how we develop our cities and be aware of the need to build up rather than build out.
“Urban policy in the past, and to a degree even now, continues to focus on the built environment and doesn’t demonstrably change the life chances of residents. We should pay closer attention to issues of social mobility, allowing people who have the skills to pursue opportunities.
“We must also focus on making city environments attractive to businesses, investment, to live and to play. This is accomplished through good public services in terms of crime, waste management, litter, transport, education and skills.
“And we should be thinking about mobility. We pay insufficient consideration to labour markets and social mobility in this country, and allowing people that have the skills to pursue opportunities wherever they want. So that’s one thing we need to focus on, the people.”
Both Travers and Carter were speaking at the same event, held in the wake of the Building a Better Britain campaign launched by Estates Gazette and UK Regeneration. Chris Murray, director of the Core Cities Group, contributed too. “It is the response to the riots that offers us the best chance of metering the damage caused to our reputations,” he says. “We have started out well in this regard with far more people out on the street cleaning up the next day in cities such as Manchester and London than were rioting the previous night.
“In the medium term we need to determine how we respond to the underlying issues, but also in terms of reputation how we promote and market our cities. It is critical we do this through every means possible for one simple reason; our cities drive growth.”
Travers’ take is different. “The most important thing our cities need to do collectively to defend their reputations is make clear that these riots were not related to race or immigration. I don’t believe the progress of our cities will be ultimately damaged by the riots and some may even benefit from improved streets and facilities on the back of kick-started regeneration projects.”
Travers says local authorities have a key role to play. “City leaders find it hard to stop being competitive and instead be collaborative. I feel on this issue that they could present a combined front. I agree with the need for greater decentralisation, if cities had more powers locally they would be able to address the causes of the riots more sensibly.
Good public services
Carter concurs. “How do we restore whatever reputation has been destroyed in the places that have been affected? What’s the role of the civic leadership and the public leadership in doing that? Well, actually, it is the obvious things about making city environments attractive to businesses, to investment, to people to live and to play. And that’s primarily and rather boringly always about good public services. It’s about good public services in terms of crime, community safety. It’s about grime, it’s about waste, it’s about management, it’s about litter. It is about transport, it is about education and it is about skills. And those are the things that undoubtedly affect the performance of cities over the longer term, and other more fetishistic or faddish ideas around clusters and science parks and all that sort of stuff should really be left to other places to deal with.”
The Estates Gazette and UKR regeneration conference takes place on 6 December.
www.estatesgazette.com/buidling-a-better-britain
damian.wild@estatesgazette.com
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