Unlocking Inclusive Growth in Polycentric Regions

By Blair Parkinson

Across England, the devolution experiment has largely centred on single-city regions – but as devolution widens, regions containing multiple urban areas with mixed economies, geographies and identities will become the norm. The challenge is how they best organise for growth in a way that can engage investors and communities alike.

Monocentric regions tend to have higher GDP per head, while polycentricity is associated with lower productivity levels, according to OECD analysis. Yet replicating the single-city region template won’t work for multi-city regions. They have distinct communities, economies and identities, with varying needs and opportunities across city, coast and countryside. The key is to connect more deeply - physically, economically and culturally - to build a networked region functioning as one market strengthened by its distinctiveness and diversity.

The East Midlands understands this. Its Growth Plan, launched this week, meets this challenge head-on. It celebrates the region’s geography and demography and embraces the diversity of places as a strength. The plan will guide investment in cities, in the places around them, and in linking them together so the whole region benefits as one. The East Midlands doesn’t fall for the zero-sum trap of cities versus everywhere else; instead, the plan backs the connections and assets that let strength in each place lift demand and productivity in the others.

So, what does this mean for polycentric regions in practice? There is a set of key actions these regions can undertake which will make it easier for investors to want to invest, communities to engage, stakeholders to take part, and prosperity to be shared:

1.    Lean into strategic corridors

·      The East Midlands is connecting its twin cores of Derby and Nottingham via the Trent Arc. Corridors increase effective density by expanding the number of people and firms who can reach each other quickly. This drives agglomeration: better job and skills matching, denser supplier networks and quicker knowledge spillovers. Align transport, housing, skills, employment land and clean energy so local schemes reinforce each other and add up to one investable story (other twin cores such as Norwich/Ipswich or Southampton/Portsmouth could apply the same approach).

2.    Speak with one coherent and consistent voice

·      Create a single source of truth through a spine of evidence and a clear framework of what the region is trying to achieve.

·      Set a motivating ambition at a scale that matters to people and markets.

·      Craft a single investor story which is clear, consistent and easy to join: promote investable opportunities (sector strengths, sites, skills) and a single front door.

3.    Function as a single portfolio

·      Manage a visible pipeline with defined decision rights, gateways and prioritisation. Publish benefits, spend and milestones in one place.

4.    Act as a system leader

·      Use convening and influencing as well as delivery powers to move the dial where you don’t control every lever.

·      Add regional value; don’t replace local delivery. Invest in cohorts, crowd in public and private funding, provide regional certainty to galvanise wider investors, sequence schemes so benefits compound across places, and make the strategic investments only the region can make.

·      Establish delivery compacts. Agree who does what, where and when with your partners.

5.    Bank quick wins to build confidence and a sense of place

·      Move quickly early on, especially on opportunities that will make regional impact quickly.

Polycentric regions done well have the potential to lift the national economy. As devolution moves into its next phase, let them prove it. By connecting places without flattening them, turning difference into advantage, these places can deliver the type of growth that can be shared by the many and not the few.