Introduction

We partnered with the Centre for Cities on four online events focused on the future of the UK's cities. LSE academics spoke alongside politicians, council leaders, leading industry figures, and commentators, and sought to answer the key questions facing our urban areas as we ensure that they are fit for future generations.

What next for fiscal devolution in urban areas?

LSE's Prof Neil Lee explored what fiscal devolution should look like, how it should connect to the wider question of the UK’s economic strategy, and whether we are ready for the necessary political and economic trade-offs it would bring.

Prof Lee - Professor of Economic Geography and Chair of the Regional Studies Association - was joined by Cllr Bev Craig, Leader of Manchester City Council; Zoë Billingham, Director of IPPR North; and Anthony Breach, Associate Director of the Centre for Cities.

Catch up on the panel here.

How would a place-based approach to R&D create growth?

LSE's Dr Anna Valero examined how a region-specific programme of research and development (R&D) investment could benefit underperforming city regions across the UK.

Dr Valero - Director of the Centre for Economic Performance (CEP) Growth Programme at LSE, Distinguished Policy Fellow, and member of the Office for Budget Responsibility Advisory Panel - was joined by Chi Onwurah MP, Shadow Minister for Science, Research and Innovation, and Lou Cordwell, Chair of the Greater Manchester Business Board and Professor of Innovation at the University of Manchester. 

Catch up on the panel here.

Why cities need denser housing

LSE's Dr Nancy Holman assessed the sensitive topic of increasing the housing density of the UK's cities. Why is it important to our urban areas? How can we challenge and overcome negative perceptions of densification? How is the UK's low housing density affecting its productivity?

Dr Holman - Associate Professor of Urban Planning and Director of Planning Studies - was joined by Cllr James Lewis, Leader of Leeds City Council; Phil Mayall, Managing Director of Muse Places; and Anthony Breach, Associate Director of the Centre for Cities. 

Catch up on the panel here.

Decarbonising the UK's housing stock

LSE's Prof Nick Robins led a discussion on the vexed question of the carbon emissions related to the UK's housing stock. How can we create energy-efficient, carbon neutral and climate resilient housing? What policy is needed to accelerate the decarbonisation of the UK’s housing stock?

Prof Robins - Professor in Practice for Sustainable Finance at LSE’s Grantham Research Institute and co-founder of the Financing the Just Transition Alliance - was joined by Dr Alan Whitehead MP, Shadow Minister for Energy Security, and Emma Fletcher, Low Carbon Homes Director at Octopus Energy. 

Catch up on the panel here.

At the 2023 party conferences, LSE's Public Affairs Team hosted fringe events led by Dr Julia King (LSE Cities) on creating a sense of place in the UK. 

At our Conservative conference panel, Dr King was joined by Laura Farris MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Ministry of Justice and the Home Office; Nicholas Boys Smith, Founding Director of Create Streets; Cllr Abi Brown, Deputy Chair of the LGA; and ConservativeHome's Angus Parsad-Wyatt. 

You can watch the recording of our Conservative conference panel event here.

At Labour conference, Professor Tony Travers (LSE London) chaired the panel, and Dr King was joined by Baroness Taylor of Stevenage OBE, Labour Spokesperson for Levelling Up in the House of Lords; Cllr Nesil Caliskan, Leader of Enfield Council; Luciana Berger, Chair of the Maternal Mental Health Alliance; and Victoria Hills, Chief Executive of the Royal Town Planning Institute.

Browse a selection of the LSE research which informed these panel discussions below.

1) Building quality homes

Tackling Loneliness Through Housing

https://www.lse.ac.uk/geography-and-environment/research/lse-london/documents/Reports/Those-little-connections-CLH-and-loneliness-FINAL-Nov-2021.pdf

The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) commissioned this piece of research in late 2019 to address an identified evidence gap around the link between loneliness and participation in community-led housing (co-housing in particular). Community-led housing (or CLH) is an umbrella term for a range of models that includes co-housing, community land trusts (CLTs), cooperatives, self-help and self-build housing. CLH emphasises resident decision-making, collaboration and inclusion. Research suggests that residents feel intuitively that this form of housing helps to reduce feelings of social isolation and loneliness, but the links between CLH and loneliness have not been systematically studied. As well as exploring those links, the report also makes 8 recommendations for strengthening resident satisfaction with, and investment in, their community.

Empowering residents  

https://www.levittbernstein.co.uk/site/assets/files/3959/high-rise_housing_report_2023.pdf  

Will the high density housing we are building, and will need to build more of, in London and other urban areas going to be good places to live in the long term? What can we learn from the residential towers built in the 1960s and 70s, or the examples built over the last 20 years? This set of essays looks at the financial and social impact of building upwards on the people who live in these urban heights, focusing on areas like leaseholder rights, improving construction to ease the challenge of maintaining these structures, and mapping what shapes the communities that form in them.

Estate Regeneration and Increasing Social Value

https://sticerd.lse.ac.uk/CASE/_NEW/PUBLICATIONS/abstract/?index=6370

This research was commissioned by housing association Home Group and sets out measures to assess the social value of estates in their current condition, how to develop methods for assessing regeneration options, and the potential social impact of that regeneration under different scenarios. Drawing on Home Group’s success in these areas in places like South Tyneside, the research was made to support managers in assessing the current state, and potential of, the neighbourhoods and communities they manage.

2) Improving public spaces

Urban Neighbourhoods: Health and Wellbeing

https://www.lse.ac.uk/Cities/research/cities-space-and-society/Urban-Neighbourhoods-Health-and-Wellbeing

Urban Neighbourhoods: Health and Wellbeing is a research project designed to deepen and expand knowledge of the links between urban space and urban health.  The focus is to broaden the understanding of what constitutes the ‘built environment’ and how it can be broken down into distinct, measurable components - such as density, accessibility, connectivity, integration - which can be objectively tested against specific health outcomes.

The study will offer a preliminary categorisation of spatial characteristics that, in addition to the well-understood dynamics of social determinants of urban health, either enhance or exacerbate the quality and experience of everyday life in the inner-city. The ultimate objective of such a study is to assist policymakers in identifying spatial variations that can lead to concrete polices and spatial interventions which can make a difference to the health and wellbeing of existing and future residents of the London Boroughs of Southwark and Lambeth.

Configuring Light

http://www.configuringlight.org/

Light structures the kinds of social practices and interactions we enter into at home or on the street, how safe we feel and how well we can navigate through social spaces. Today, fuelled by new technologies and urgent social and environmental concerns, light is increasingly taking centre stage in many urban discussions, especially around economic and environmental costs, safety and well-being, aesthetics and city branding. And yet, despite this centrality, there is very little knowledge and research on what lighting means to people and how they incorporate it into their daily lives and practices. Configuring Light is an interdisciplinary research programme based in the Sociology Department at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE).

It explores the role lighting plays in our everyday life to help build a better social knowledge basis for lighting design interventions. It has centred on collaborations with designers, developers and municipalities including LUCI, Arup, Derby City Council, Speirs+Major, Lend Lease, Social Light Movement, Light Collective and LightFollowsBehaviour. All Configuring Light projects explore how lighting is configured into social life: as infrastructure, as technology, as ambiance or as a particular kind of material that we make and shape through our everyday practices and professional expertise. Configuring Light is committed to developing an empirically grounded social understanding that can work across diverse disciplines and professional practices. To this end, our projects are diverse, including academic research, consultancies, public engagement and knowledge exchange projects.

Green Infrastructure

https://www.lse.ac.uk/geography-and-environment/people/academic-staff/meredith-whitten

Dr Meredith Whitten is a Fellow in Environment based in the LSE's Department of Geography and Environment. She holds a PhD in Regional and Urban Planning from the LSE and was awarded an ESRC Postdoctoral Fellowship.

 Meredith’s research focuses on the urban environment, particularly the intricate, evolving and often contested relationship between cities and nature, and how this relationship is mediated through planning to address urban sustainability, including improving both human and ecological health. She has a particular focus on urban green space and green infrastructure. As such, her work explores evolving institutional, planning and governance frameworks that aim to address impacts stemming from urbanisation and processes of urban change. Her research suggests that locations should be linked by green infrastructure as they are by lighting or drainage, and that managing green spaces should not be siloed into dedicated teams but be something everyone involved in managing the public realm engages with.  

3) Supporting thriving communities

Community Responses to Cost-of-Living

https://sticerd.lse.ac.uk/case/_new/publications/abstract/?index=9903

During the COVID-19 pandemic community organisations took a key and swift role in providing basic provisions where councils were unable to plug the gaps quickly. LSE Housing and Communities set out to understand how these groups formed and worked, how demand for services changed, and what community groups need to continue providing this vital support. The research showed that community groups have an acute awareness of local needs; are mainly volunteer-led; and have been increasingly being relied upon by statutory services to show the power of community action in local areas. Recommendations for supporting them include more long-term funding to cover core costs such as utilities, more space to store provisions, help to mobilise volunteers or transport vehicles. This is vital reading for councillors and those who work on the ground to support volunteer organisations.

Community through Digital Connectivity

https://www.lse.ac.uk/media-and-communications/assets/documents/research/Comm-Infrastructure-Final-Report.pdf

This project examines the role that communications play in promoting, or hindering, community engagement among London’s diverse populations. It looks specifically at how infrastructure, like local online news forums, local papers and ethnic radio stations, helps people communicate with each other, whether this contributes to social capital and building community, or whether it might segregates people across cultural and generational lines. Using Harringay in North London as a case study, the study focuses on communication assets – the resources that enhance urban dwellers’

Super Diverse Streets

https://www.lse.ac.uk/Cities/research/cities-space-and-society/Super-diverse-Streets

The ‘Super-Diverse Streets’ project explores the effects on city streets, social diversity and economic adaptation of migration from 2017. The analysis covers diverse high streets in London, Leicester, Manchester, Birmingham and Bradford, and focuses on how migrants locate, invest in, and transform economies and spaces. Dr Suzanne Hall, lead researcher, noted: “There are hundreds of streets like these across UK cities. Street-based retail provides a foothold into the city as well as a crucial spectrum of economic and civic life... The challenge remains as to how local authorities recognise these diverse environments as valuable to urban vitality in economic, social and cultural terms.”

4) Research in Focus

Experiencing Density

https://www.lse.ac.uk/Cities/research/cities-space-and-society/Experiencing-Density 

‘Experiencing Density’ is a research theme and project that explores resident experiences of life in London’s high-density housing by examining who lives in high-density developments, how different residents experience life in high-density accommodation, and what spatial, design and demographic factors make them work well (or not).

http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/111820/

'Delivering higher density suburban development: the impact of building design and residents’ attitude' builds on Experiencing Density by intensively testing whether design can positively impact both the perception and acceptability of densification.

Dr Julia King - Public Spaces and Youth

https://www.lse.ac.uk/cities/staff-profiles/Julia-King

Dr. Julia King is a Policy Fellow at LSE Cities and a design practitioner. Trained as an architect her research, design practice, and teaching focus on urban marginalization, infrastructure, and micro-economies.

https://www.lse.ac.uk/cities/research/cities-space-and-society/Seen-and-Heard

She led the 'Seen and Heard' project, where, during the consultation for Brent 2020’s bid for London Borough of Culture, young people from the borough often talked about issues with public space – where they felt safe, where they liked to go, what they could do when they were there. Particularly in privatised ‘public spaces’, young people are often treated more as a security risk than users or stakeholders. Many of these spaces are not built to accommodate young people, nor are they necessarily shaped with young people’s needs in mind.

Seen and Heard was a provocative action research project with LSE Cities at the London School of Economics, the Blueprint Collective and Metroland Cultures that explored young people’s place in public space and their role in designing it. The project provided a way for young people to talk about racism, crime, gentrification, and other issues affecting their shared cultural life.

https://www.lse.ac.uk/Cities/research/cities-space-and-society/Apprenticeship-Programme-in-City-Design

'Seen and Heard' led to the creation of the 'Apprenticeship Programme in City Design', which engaged five young adults from the borough to learn through practice at LSE. They were hired as researchers at LSE Cities on hourly paid contracts offering a form of work experience rarely offered to teenagers and young adults within a research centre such as LSE Cities.

The apprentices undertook a 26-month period of online and in person learning which started with participating in a curated curriculum on design, development and planning relevant to the context of Brent and Wembley Park. They were trained to apply methodologies and tools – including social science-based ethnographic survey and mapping - to understand the potential and imagine the future of new public spaces in the Wembley Park development. Their work culminated in the creation of the Samovar Space, which is pictured in our handout.

https://www.lse.ac.uk/research/research-for-the-world/society/are-girls-being-designed-out-of-public-spaces

‘Making Space for Girls’ builds on the foundations lain by Seen and Heard and the Apprenticeship Programme, turning to focus on the experiences of young women. It found that, as one 17-year-old put it, “There's nowhere for girls. There's literally not a specific place for girls. There's places where we go, but no spaces for us.”

To research this further, a seven-week paid learning and working experience with nine 17-21 year old individuals who identified as girls and young women was launched. It put forward a novel way of conducting peer research: Zoom and Miro (an online whiteboard) were used to run weekly discussion sessions, upload lectures, podcasts, and readings; the researchers-in-residence used Instagram to chronicle their self-led weekly site visits, and two in-person guided visits and mapping exercises were run with the researchers-in-residence in their local areas.

The girls were selected from Crewe and Trowbridge, two areas in England that have been allocated significant funding from central government (through Levelling Up and Future High Streets funds) to transform their public spaces. As part of the project the researchers-in-residence were connected with local stakeholders that were effecting change: an architect tasked with revitalising the town centre in Trowbridge, and a planner tending to parks and a new parks strategy in Crewe. Working together, the girls ultimately suggested how to better design public spaces for girls and young women.

All political parties are focused on how to help build more vibrant feelings of community, local pride and belonging, especially in places where they have been lost.

One of our series of levelling up events, this LSE roundtable focused on how policymakers can create a ‘Sense of Place’, especially amongst young people. Hear from the academics and some of the attendees in this short video. 

Hosted at the Brent Civic Centre in the shadow of the Wembley arch, LSE academics Dr Julia King and Dr Meredith Whitten shared research, ideas and best practice with councillors, planning officers, think tankers and community charities in a discussion led by LSE’s Ben Rogers, founder of Centre for London.

The conversation focused on reimagining our understanding of existing public spaces, and changing the way we develop new ones to strengthen a sense of ownership for communities.

Key conclusions for policymakers include:

• With the modern push for more active travel within cities, locations should be linked with green infrastructure as they would be with lighting, drainage or even aesthetic elements.
• Green spaces can be vertical too; you don’t just travel to or even through them, you live in them.
• ‘Blue spaces’ such as canals, brooks and reservoirs can be a fascinating example of what is possible: something that brings value because it is used as both a destination and as an important part of the wider urban fabric (ie: a route from one area to another).
• Councils are often land poor, but do own roads and pavements which connect parks. A more strategic planning approach should take advantage of this fact.
• Massive scale developments often fail to provide anything for 14-25 year olds.
• Young people are often designed out of public spaces as they are viewed as a nuisance, but this simply concentrates them in the dwindling number of spaces available to them.
• Spaces for teenagers are often Multi Use Game Areas (MUGAs), skate parks and BMX tracks, yet research shows the most highly valued and desired facility are swings (which scored as highly for boys and girls).
• VR headsets can be used to view spaces digitally, representing both an important technological innovation and an important tool to draw in younger people.
• Community engagement is a specific and often ignored skill – architects and developers are often left to manage it, but often just want to focus on their projects.
• Policymakers and designers should begin by asking their communities ‘what is the problem we are trying to address?’, and work with them to identify and deliver the solution.

LSE is working in partnership with Bournemouth and Northumbria Universities to discuss challenges and develop policy solutions to stalled economic growth in coastal communities across the UK. Prof Tony Travers and Prof Neil Lee joined academics, MPs, councillors and think tank researchers in a hybrid roundtable, hosted by Bournemouth University. You can read more about the event here. 

Back to Business: How can Labour Unleash Entrepreneurialism?

Panel: Dr Juanita Gonzalez-Uribe, LSE, Rushanara Ali MP (Member of the Treasury Committee), Jamie Driscoll (Mayor of the North of Tyne), Alison McGovern MP (Shadow Employment Minister), Dan Norris (Mayor of the West of England), Yasmin Qureshi MP (Vice Chair, Women and Enterprise APPG), Sarah Wood OBE (Digital entrepreneur and Tech investor), Prof Tony Travers (Chair)

LSE’s packed debate in Liverpool brought together policy experts, national and regional policymakers and entrepreneurs to discuss how to turbo-boost UK entrepreneurialism.

LSE’s Dr Juanita Gonzalez-Uribe set out her research which shows business accelerators can, through advice and funding, create local ecosystems of knowledgeable, equipped and connected entrepreneurs. Yasmin Qureshi further set out how these could revitalise communities by encouraging growth and preventing ‘brain drain’.

Jamie Driscoll detailed how local leaders can better understand local challenges and direct investment to local businesses than the Treasury, calling for devolution. This was echoed by Rushanara Ali who stressed the importance of coherent national strategy and suggested how to improve the viability of small businesses.

Sarah Wood described her experiences as an entrepreneur and how she was helped to overcome obstacles. She emphasised the need for inclusivity, given that less than 1% of venture capital investment goes to solely women founders. Dan Norris argued that education, and how young people think of entrepreneurship, must change, emphasising the importance of inclusive wealth creation.

Alison McGovern MP argued that inequality can come from a lack of decision-making power, and the system needs to be more flexible and give greater local control, such as by reforming Job Centres and ensuring every community has a local growth plan. A lively question session followed. 

How can the Government turbocharge entrepreneurialism across the UK?

The panel event can be viewed here.

Panel: Dr Juanita Gonzalez-Uribe (LSE), Bim Afolami MP (Chair of the Financial Services APPG), Jo Gideon MP (Member of the Entrepreneurship APPG), Tim Barnes (CEO, Centre for Entrepreneurs), Angus Parsad-Wyatt (ConHome, Chair)

LSE’s event in Birmingham, hosted in collaboration with ConHome, again brought together key thinkers on entrepreneurialism to discuss how to increase opportunities across the country for a varied and insightful discussion.

LSE’s Dr Juanita Gonzalez-Uribe set out her research showing entrepreneurs face funding and capability challenges. She noted that small, local institutions like business accelerators help overcome these by providing access to not just capital but also the skills, networks and knowledge that can otherwise only be acquired through lengthy experience.

Tim Barnes argued that the UK is one of the best to start a business and interventions must not damage this. Jo Gideon MP spoke of her own positive experiences as a founder, emphasising the potential for tackling inequality by ensuring wealth-creation opportunities across communities, with specific mention of the skills female entrepreneurs bring to the table and the challenges they can face. Bim Afolami MP called for a cultural change in how we perceive failure, with risk-taking encouraged and perceptions of failure changed. He noted that deregulation is not a panacea.

Follow-up discussion focused on the need for flexible and universally accessible support, and Dr Gonzalez-Uribe raised the need to change regulation to drive defined benefit pension schemes towards risk-taking investment to expand capital available for start-ups. It was further noted that excellent British start-ups are easily founded but can struggle to scale up because of a lack of deep, patient pools of capital. Finally, the role of subsidies and direct government support was cautiously embraced, noting the need to avoid jobs only existing because of subsidy, rather than despite it.

LSE hosted a suite of conference activity around research from Professor Riccardo Crescenzi who has been conducting world-leading research on regional and local devolution of Foreign Direct Investment and how this can stimulate growth and encourage increased optimism and sense of community in towns and cities that are not necessarily seen as the highest priority by central government.

LSE hosted a fringe event on regional growth. Professor Travers chaired and Dr Anna Valero (CEP) set out her research on localised policy-making, clean growth, and smart cities. Dr Valero discussed how regional productivity can be boosted through targeted industrial strategies and localised skills policies, and the role of universities in understanding differences in economic performances between firms and regions.

At our Labour fringe event we had Rt Hon Hilary Benn MP; Liverpool City Region Mayor Steve Rotheram; and Jasmine Whitbread, Chief Exec of London. At the Conservative fringe event the Business Minister at the time joined us alongside the Chair of the Local Government Association James Jamieson, and the Director General of the Institute of Directors.