Urban policy - helping people or helping places? New evidence from London on social exclusion and the spatial articulation of the distribution of income

That local job creation within a large urban labour market does not have a significant long term influence on the unemployment rates of local residents has long been documented (for example in Cheshire, 1979; Burridge & Gordon 1981; Gordon & Lamont, 1982). Urban ?regeneration policy? continues, nevertheless, to be targeted at small areas within large cities. This has been a continuing element in British urban policy, for example, since the Innner Urban Areas Act of 1978. An explicit aim of such urban policy has been to ?regenerate local economies and provide jobs for local people?. Increasingly European regional policy has also attempted to intervene on the basis of smaller areas within large urbanised regions. In the literature two mechanisms have been explored to explain the failure of local job creation to influence the unemployment rates of local residents. The operation of housing markets and social housing systems and the way that these generate social segregation means that the source of unemployment differentials across urban areas is primarily that poor neighbourhoods are where those with a higher propensity to be unemployed are concentrated. In addition it has been shown that interaction between local labour markets linked by significant commuting flows means that any differential opportunities that result from local job creation are quickly diffused throughout the set of interacting labour markets. Commuting flows adapt so that characteristic specific unemployment rates tend to equality throughout the urbanised region. This paper examines evidence relating to an additional mechanism: local migration. Data were collected for one area of regeneration in west London - Harlesden. This area was the recipient of a City Challenge grant of ?37.5 million running over 5 years from 1993. It is quite typical of disadvantaged neighbourhoods within large British cities. It grew up on the back of a successful industrial economy which has now been subject to 35 years of decline. It has a large concentration of ethnic minorities and - despite evidence of some success in local job creation - a relatively worsening unemployment rate over the 5 year regeneration period. Data for three samples of people of working age were collected: a sample of those who had lived within the area throughout the period of the regeneration; a sample of ?outmovers?; and a third of ?inmovers?. The samples were large enough for statistical analysis and the differing labour market experience of the samples over the five year period was compared. Differences were very substantial, with the out-movers having far the greatest labour market success. The results reinforce the important role of housing markets in articulating overall social inequality to generate the observed geographical patterns of poverty and social exclusion in urbanised regions. They also reinforce the need to distinguish between the goals of regenerating local economies within cities and that of improving the lives of the most disadvantaged. They also underline the need to think more carefully about what exactly is meant by the aim of providing jobs for local people. These and other implications for policy are explored. Burridge, P. and Gordon, I. (1981) Unemployment in the British Metropolitan Labour areas. Oxford Economic Papers, 33, 274-97. Cheshire, P.C. (1979) Inner areas as spatial labour markets: a critique of the inner area studies. Urban Studies, 16(2), 29-43. Gordon, I. and Lamont, D. (1982) A model of labour-market interdependencies in the London region. Environment and Planning A, 14, 238-64.

The distinctive determinants of European urban growth: Does one size fit all?

This paper investigates growth differences in the urban system of the EU12. Alternative dependent variables - growth in population and real GDP per capita - are analysed and instructive differences emerge. The US model which assumes perfect factor mobility does not seem well adapted to European conditions. There is evidence strongly suggesting that equilibrating flows between cities are highly constrained in the EU. Models in which growth of real GDP p.c. are the dependent variable perform well and make it possible to test significant hypotheses. Evidence is found which is supportive of a spatial adaptation of the endogenous growth model with the relative size of the university sector having a highly significant role in explaining growth differences. In addition the analysis supports the conclusion that systems of urban governance are strongly related to growth. The variables are formulated in a way which tests hypotheses derived from 'fiscal federalism' viewing growth promotion as the production of a local public good. While international factor flows appear to be constrained as an adjustment mechanism the density of urbanisation in regions of the EU12 seems to produce a strong local 'growth shadow' effect consistent with commuting flows having an important role in spatial economic adjustment processes. Finally new evidence is found supporting the conclusion that integration shocks in the EU favour core areas but that this effect tends to fade with time.

Housing in Europe: a different continent - a continent of differences

This article provides the introduction to the special issue on ‘Housing in Europe: a different continent – a continent of differences’ in the Journal of Housing Economics in 2018. Europe is a large continent with a long and rich history, consisting of around 50 countries with vastly different institutional settings and government policies for housing and an abundance of quasi-natural experiments. Some countries have remarkably rich public data and some institutions and policy assumptions are all but the opposite of those familiar to US institutions. In this introduction we briefly outline the seven papers of this issue that exploit in one way or another this extraordinary richness for research. Each paper provides novel insights and has important implications. Collectively, they illustrate the potential opportunities for new and exciting research on housing in Europe

Land use regulation and productivity – land matters: evidence from a UK supermarket chain

We use unique store-specific data for a major UK supermarket chain to estimate the impact of planning, which restricts both the size and location of stores, on Store output. Using the quasi-natural experiment of the variation in planning policies between England and other UK countries and a difference-in-difference approach, we isolate the impact of Town Centre First (TCF) policies. We find that space contributes directly to the productivity of stores and planning policies in England directly reduce output both by reducing store sizes and forcing stores onto less productive sites. Our results suggest that since the late 1980s planning policies have imposed a loss of total output of at least 18.3 to 24.9%. This is equivalent to more than a ‘lost decade’ of output growth in a major sector generated directly by government policy

(IN)Convenient Stores? What do policies pushing stores to town centres actually do?

England´s Town Centre First Policy, introduced in 1996, restricted the opening of new retail and other ‘traditional town centre activities’ to ‘Town Centre’ (TC) locations. The aim was to halt the decay of high streets. We explore the impact of the policy on the supply and location of grocery shops and patterns of shopping by comparing English with Scottish TCs before and after the policy change in England. Using store level census data, we show first that supply trends for grocery stores in TCs were similar in both countries prior to the implementation of the policy. After the policy took effect, however, stores in TCs increased relatively more strongly in England, but with no change in grocery employment. Second, using survey data, we show that the policy changed the composition of shops in TCs in favour of convenience-type shops supplied by the “big four” grocery chains. However, although it increased the number of TC shops, the policy had no effect on the number of shoppers choosing TC locations

Evaluating the effects of planning policies on the retail sector: or do town centre first policies deliver the goods

Acknowledgements This paper represents work in progress and is still a preliminary draft. We would like to acknowledge the funding provided to SERC by ESRC, DCLG, BIS and the Welsh Assembly. We have benefited greatly from discussions with many colleagues and professional contacts: we would particularly like to mentio

People of the British Isles: preliminary analysis of genotypes and surnames in a UK control population

There is a great deal of interest in fine scale population structure in the UK, both as a signature of historical immigration events and because of the effect population structure may have on disease association studies. Although population structure appears to have a minor impact on the current generation of genome-wide association studies, it is likely to play a significant part in the next generation of studies designed to search for rare variants. A powerful way of detecting such structure is to control and document carefully the provenance of the samples involved. Here we describe the collection of a cohort of rural UK samples (The People of the British Isles), aimed at providing a well-characterised UK control population that can be used as a resource by the research community as well as providing fine scale genetic information on the British population. So far, some 4,000 samples have been collected, the majority of which fit the criteria of coming from a rural area and having all four grandparents from approximately the same area. Analysis of the first 3,865 samples that have been geocoded indicates that 75% have a mean distance between grandparental places of birth of 37.3km, and that about 70% of grandparental places of birth can be classed as rural. Preliminary genotyping of 1,057 samples demonstrates the value of these samples for investigating fine scale population structure within the UK, and shows how this can be enhanced by the use of surnames