The economic importance of smaller cities in the South East

The Centre for Cities has written an interesting report pointing out that some of the smaller cities and larger towns of the South East and East of England punch well above their weight in economic terms. The report, Investing in Growth Cities, looks at the 15 members of Regional Cities East (the sponsors of the research), which range from Peterborough in the north to Southampton in the west, and include Oxford, Brighton and Milton Keynes. It finds they accounted for 27% of net jobs growth in England from 1998-2008 (the Centre for Cities does not say what their share of England's population is, but we reckon it's under 10%). The report goes on to suggest ways the cities might build on this good performance.