Wales behind the curve on city regions
"We must grasp this opportunity to enhance sustainable economic performance through the medium of engine-room cities"
THE city region concept in South Wales East has been a Wales Spatial Plan placebo: something and nothing with a benign affect. Some would say glib-regionalism by another name.
Recently, the concept appears to have come of age with the imprimatur no-less of the Welsh Government (the Minister for Business), and the appointment of Dr Elizabeth Haywood, Director of the South East Wales Economic Forum (SEWEF) to lead a task-and-finish group. So why should we get excited about such an idea?
The Welsh economy is in a parlous state: bottom of the UK Competitiveness Index and as such Wales appears to be going backwards, not forwards. How then are we to alter what Professor Robert Huggins called a “destiny away from a future that increasingly appears to be one of irreversible decline”?
It seems that Wales needs to consider a concise menu of ingredients consistent with the powers within its gift. The sector panels and the respective task-and-finish groups are examples of a positive means of engaging with wealth creators. Another ingredient is for Wales to consider a proper city regions approach: leveraging the performance of dynamic cities. Certainly, Cardiff is an essential contender but other contenders might include Swansea and Wrexham or Chester in North Wales.
Concentrating on the Capital region, and the 2005 Enter the Dragon strategy for South Wales East, a review of the vision in 2010 stated candidly that “there are few signs that the region has moved towards the goal set in 2005 of becoming one of the most prosperous regions in Europe”. In other words, a true city region approach has not been adopted.
The concept of city regions has been around for several decades in greater Europe, the Americas and increasingly the Far East. Indeed, the recent IWA conference on city regions provided excellent, best practiced case studies for Vancouver, Stuttgart and Manchester. In England, it was the Competitive European Cities (2004) and the State of the Cities (2005) reports that highlighted the importance of cities to the UK economy. A startling finding was that core English cities were performing at least a third of GDP behind their European counterparts. UK government action followed.
With the exception of the Parkinson report in 2006 (Cardiff: A Competitive European City?), devolved Wales has been behind the curve on this debate. At least, that is, until recently with the reawakening of the idea and crucially potential political buy-in, mindful that it did not appear in respective political parties manifestos earlier this year.
Yes, a true city-region approach could address interconnected, strategic issues such as housing, employment and transport, with transport being the key to providing a truly connected region within and without South Wales East, as per Mark Barry’s Metro paper. Other key matters might include strategic regeneration, green infrastructure, creative innovation and how to address social exclusion. However, the principal argument is for enhanced, but sustainable economic performance. Research shows that governance arrangements spanning functional economic market areas can perform better than areas where arrangements are constrained by administrative boundaries.
In other words, a lack of co-ordination between cities and city regions is hindering growth. This is manifested by the fact that we do not have a unified regeneration programme. Currently, such programmes cross the portfolios of eight different Ministers and involve at least ten different initiatives. If we consider the excellent, recent Roger Tym & Partners report (Strategic Planning for the Cardiff City Region) as a proxy for the state of governance in South Wales East, then look no further than paragraph 3.25 where we discover that there is a “limited cross boundary evidence base” and that there are “difficulties of achieving consensus on anything other than general matters”.
Local matters are taking precedence at the behest of strategic matters in favour of the well being of the whole region. What this boils down to is the fact that for a relatively small region, with 10 local authorities, we have 10 visions from 10 sovereign bodies and, to quote Kipling, never the twain shall meet. You may say, what about SEWEF? It can egg-on, and encourage voluntary co-operation, but it has no power to implement and no budget.
All of this is inimical to sustainable economic performance whereby Cardiff’s engine-room (employment grew by 27% in Cardiff between 1998 and 2008, compared with Wales-wide growth of 14%, and 10% growth across the UK as a whole) is not being leveraged as a true asset for the benefit of the region and Wales.
Apart from functional economic market areas, there is also strong academic interest in agglomeration economies which can enhance productivity and innovation across city-region areas. Latest research undertaken by physicists Bettencourt and West and mentioned in the September issue of Scientific American (2011) suggests that a doubling in size of a city can lead to a productivity dividend of 20%. Equally, research by Falk acting for Regional Cities East in England suggests that a lack of housing can be detrimental to economic performance – a particularly relevant point in light of the lack of a strategic approach to housing allocation in South Wales East to benefit the polycentric region, and Cardiff’s LDP conundrum.
So where do we go from here? The recently announced news of a task-and-finish group to look at this key issue is very welcome. For my part (and my views are apolitical), a true city-region approach will require strong leadership (at all levels), a robust evidence base (provided by an external, independent group as per the MIER report for Manchester) and, where appropriate, robust regional governance (bodies) to drive the agenda (whether in Cardiff, Swansea or Wrexham /Chester).
With severely constrained budgets, a city-region approach provides an opportunity to do more with less – a case of getting ahead together – as well as achieving an economic dividend. However, if we do not grasp this opportunity to enhance sustainable economic performance through the medium of engine-room cities then we will be left behind, destined to homogenous mediocrity.
