Where does and should public money go and how can it be best used to influence the geography of growth?

Approach: partnership of international researchers

This project is being carried out by a partnership of international researchers funded by the EU ESPON programme. The lead partner is the European Institute for Urban Affairs at Liverpool John Moores University. The project Director is Professor Michael Parkinson CBE. Its Co-Director is Richard Meegan. The team from the Metropolitan Research Institute in Budapest is led by Dr Ivan Tosics. The team from the University of Tampere in Finland is led by Professor Markku Sotarauta. The project’s Expert Advisers are Professor Sir Peter Hall, University College London and Professor Christian Lefevre University of Paris Est.

Improving the economic competitiveness

The project will primarily explore ways of improving the economic competitiveness of different cities to improve the economic competitiveness of nations and Europe. So the primary focus is on policies to improve economic development rather than those specifically designed to promote social cohesion. The researchers argue that the two are complementary rather than mutually exclusive goals. The issue of cohesion and its significance for competitiveness in a variety of ways is addressed.

The focus on competitiveness will lead towards exploration of the productivity of cities within national systems and in particular the scale, nature of the gap in productivity between the capital cities and the remainder.

Key project questions - performance, policies and prospects

The project will attempt to provide answers about:

• The patterns of development of secondary cities across the ESPON territory.
• The kinds of secondary cities which are or are not making a major contribution to regional, national and European economic development.
• The factors which explain the success of those cities – innovation, human, capital, connectivity, quality of place, governance capacity.
• The kinds of policies for secondary cities used by different governments and their impact.
• The prospects of different kinds of secondary cities making a greater contribution to balanced growth in future.
• The policy implications for local, regional, national and European policymakers.

It will collect a range of quantitative data from 124 secondary cities and 31 capitals cross the ESPON territory. It will focus in detail upon 9 cities  in different areas of Europe: Tampere, Leeds, Cork, Munich, Barcelona, Turin, Lyon, Katowice and Timisoara.

Could we please ask you to fill in the questionnaire?

In the right column under ‘Reference Material’ you can find the questionnaire on secondary cities in Europe. The project director, Professor Michael Parkinson, would be grateful to receive completed questionnaires at any time. But it would be very helpful if they could be completed before the end of December 2010. Your response could make a difference in the outcome of this research. You can read the full project description in the same folder.