The think tank Centre for Cities launched its Cities Outlook 2012 report at what was, by their high standards, a slightly shambolic event at City Hall in London on Monday. (We blogged about the 2011 report here.) Among the speakers was Greg Clark, the minister for cities, who affirmed his commitment to elected mayors and the City Deals initiative. (The text of his speech can be found here.)
While all cities have seen unemployment rise since 2008, the report suggests the North-South divide seems to be growing wider again, as public sector job cuts hit Northern cities harder. The dominance of London and the smaller cities in the South East around it - Milton Keynes, Reading, Cambridge - is evident in almost every measure the Centre looks at, though the CfC argues this is driven more by industrial structure than geography: Southern cities tend to have more knowledge-intensive jobs, which have been less affected by the recession. Among the 'core cities', however, only Bristol has an employment rate above the national average.
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