Andrew Carter

Three weeks on: How our high streets report sparked a national conversation - Centre for Cities Central government has an active role in improving high streets' performance and renewing city centres.

✍️ Three weeks on: How our high streets report sparked a national conversation...

@andrewcities.bsky.social reflects on the feedback received and discussions had in response to our recent report Checking Out 👇

Paris said au revoir to cars. Air pollution maps reveal a dramatic change. Air pollution fell substantially as the city restricted car traffic and made way for parks and bike lanes.

“Air pollution fell substantially as Paris restricted car traffic and made way for parks, people-streets and bike-lanes.”

Better for the climate, better for health, better for livability & quality of life.

Common sense.

Such a no-brainer, it’s remarkable that more cities HAVEN’T done the same.

Agglomeration benefits the public sector as well as the private sector. This trend will continue

City Talks: Rt Hon Greg Clark on the new Industrial Strategy - Centre for Cities Andrew Carter is joined by former Business Secretary Greg Clark to discuss the Government's new Modern Industrial Strategy.

PODCAST | Rt Hon Greg Clark on the new Industrial Strategy🎙️

@andrewcities.bsky.social is joined by Greg Clark to discuss next steps for the Advisory Council and industrial policy relates in the Government’s growth plan.

Listen to the podcast 🎧👇

Why are young adults in the English-speaking world so unhappy? Society sold the dream of home ownership — then cruelly snatched it away

The Housing Theory of Everything strikes again:

“English-speaking governments, policymakers and societies have raised a generation to play the home ownership game. They have then not so much ripped up the rule book as confiscated the board and all the pieces without explanation”

on.ft.com/44PJSJg

Commons report “The Funding and Sustainability of Local Government Finance” concludes:

“Residents are seeing a deterioration in the services they rely on, while being asked to pay more and more in taxes.”

publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5901/cm...

Plenty of Cinematic walking in sand dunes and forests and lovely silhouettes of humans walking somewhere

Spot on. Humans is a perfect example.

Blog card reads: The sharp end of the housing crisis is in cities. Will the Government’s plan help? Accompanied by a picture of the view from Greenwich in the direction of central London

BLOG | How many new social homes will Government's £39bn Affordable Homes Programme build in 10 years?

And will it be enough to meet steep housing needs in big cities?

Read our latest blog from @mauricelange.bsky.social
www.centreforcities.org/blog/the-sha...

HOC Cmte report latest (in a long list) to call for Council Tax reform.

Govt's response is basically 'yes its not perfect but the 'costs' of reform outweigh the benefits'.

I don't think this is right but interested in what other local govt wonks think.

publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5901/cm...

As said on here recently by @simonparker.bsky.social @stephenkb.bsky.social @jonnelledge.bsky.social and others, a chunky increase in local government funding would be a serious help in ‘improving social fabric’

A UK wealth tax sounds simple: "tax the super‑rich, fund public services"

But it's not.

Our 16,000 word deep‑dive shows revenues are fragile, it puts growth, investment and jobs at risk, and there's no revenue before 2029.

Here’s the evidence:

The billionaire and the tax evading gift shops Asif Aziz's Criterion Capital manages a row of high-profile shops at Piccadilly Circus. So why does his team keeping renting them to students who vanish without paying millions of pounds in taxes?

open.substack.com/pub/londonce... Fantastic piece on how scam shops in central London work

I think this is right to be honest. Devolve the tax rises too, limit the blame heading for central government.

The barrier is the Treasury.

'Big tax hikes so that there is actually a serious prospect that UK will have started reducing its debt by 2029 + £18bn for local government + £3.5bn for two child as your shield against any other spending demands' - that's what I think gets the government into 2028-9 in the best shape.

Increasingly convinced the cheapest way to address this is to reverse local government austerity. Returning English local authority budgets to 2010 levels would cost about £7bn. Factor in population and demographic change and you'd want maybe £15bn. Benefits could be seen quickly and felt widely.

Just as Beveridge confronted the ills of his era, we currently identify five modern giants strangling Britain’s economy and society: ● A Paralysed State: A machinery of government so risk‑averse and inward‑looking that it cannot confront hard choices or deliver lasting reform. ● A Nation Divided: A deeply imbalanced economy that concentrates wealth and opportunity in a few postcodes while vast regions are left behind. ● Building Banned: A planning and delivery system so clogged that Britain cannot build the homes, transport links, and infrastructure a modern economy demands. ● Enterprise Smothered: A regime of regulation and culture of hesitation that saps investment, dulls innovation, and turns ambition into retreat. ● Energy Constrained: A failure to secure abundant, affordable power—leaving households exposed, industry uncompetitive, and our future unprepared.

This note by the Labour Growth Group is good on the politics of growth and stagnation imo. But I worry it just isn't engaging seriously with the question of why economic growth slowed down.

Here are their "five giants" holding back the UK economy...

www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk-...

The Manchester anxiety about “Londonification” is odd and fascinating. The stuff described here - flat, croissants, plastic surgery, fancy gyms and, worst of all, “professionals” - is just the story of mid-sized cities anywhere in the world.

Agree with all points. In the absence of more money being raised via tax (which it should be), it is not clear how widespread disaffection (some of which is evident in the big cities as well) can be tackled.

Requires huge funding for LAs to do basic services and economic development

Agree politics is difficult but at least there is a city focused economic case to work from. Not sure there is a strong economic case for any other placed-based alternative.

If we can get the economics working a bit better some of the politics issues will reduce

There are lots of such examples

You can take the socially-led approach to transport investment like Sheffield Supertram or the demand led approach like Manchester Metrolink. One requires subsidy that hobbles network from day one, the other generates subsidy to act as a fly wheel to fund increasingly socially valuable routes.

City Talks: Remote working and the future of cities - Centre for Cities Chief Executive Andrew Carter is joined by Matt Clancy, Senior Programme Officer at Open Philanthropy and the creator of New Things Under the Sun, a

PODCAST | Remote working and the future of cities 🎙️

@andrewcities.bsky.social is joined by @mattsclancy.bsky.social to discuss hybrid working, productivity, cities and the future of work.

Listen to the pod 🎧👇

In an effort that will no doubt torch my follower base, I have laid out some basic numbers around our fiscal situation. Obvious, but still a little sobering for me.

freethinkecon.wordpress.com/2025/07/15/t...

City Minutes: The varying perfomance of high streets - Centre for Cities Chief Executive Andrew Carter is joined by Paul Swinney, Director of Policy and Research, to discuss the findings of our latest report 'Checking out: The varying performance of high streets across…

PODCAST | The varying performance of high streets 🛍️

@andrewcities.bsky.social and @paulswinney.bsky.social dive into why high streets perform differently from city to city and what can be done to turn around the centres most struggling.

Listen to the pod 🎧👇

City Talks: Delivering new towns - Centre for Cities Chief Executive Andrew Carter is joined by Tom Aubrey, Founder of Credit Capital Advisory and Visiting Senior Fellow at LSE, and Maurice Lange, Analyst at Centre for Cities.

PODCAST | City Talks: Delivering new towns 🎙️

@andrewcities.bsky.social is joined by @thomasaubreycca.bsky.social and @mauricelange.bsky.social to discuss how to deliver and fund projects at the scale of a new town.

Listen now 🎧👇

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buses !!

Here's the funding needed to keep Greater Manchester's publicly-run bus network going each year - and less than half of it comes from passengers' fares

But actually that's far from unusual...

Graphic by Greater Manchester Combined Authority (@greatermcr.bsky.social‬)

A thread 1/8

Why Labour is failing to build the homes Britain needs A year on from the election, the government’s plans for 1.5 million new properties are on shaky ground, with housebuilding in London reaching just 1 per cent short of its target

www.thetimes.com/life-style/p...