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Centre-left think tank, the Smith Institute, is calling for a new Suburban Task Force – akin to the Urban Task Force – to boost regeneration in the outer city areas. Despite the image of suburbs as places of relative prosperity, over the last decade much of suburbia has struggled, with shifting employment, poverty and housing patterns falling behind the inner cities.
The report, Towards a suburban renaissance: an agenda for our city suburbs, examines trends in suburban London, Greater Manchester and the West Midlands urban area. It finds that:
- Poverty has become more concentrated in many suburban areas. In London, official data shows that there are now more people in poverty in outer London than inner London (over the last decade, poverty has risen from 20% to 24% of the suburban population).
- The proportion of the most deprived areas within the three city regions increased most rapidly in suburban areas – in the West Midlands up from 42% to 57%. There were also marked increases in suburbs in the levels of people in receipt of Jobseeker’s Allowance and Pension Credit.
- The number of jobs in suburbs has stagnated over the last decade. Inner London, for example, created 500,000 jobs between 2003 and 2013. In outer London it was just 8,000.
- Jobs performed by suburban residents increased at a slower rate than in urban areas. In Manchester, suburban resident job numbers increased by 6%, compared with a 47% rise in urban areas.
- House prices over the last 20 years have increased more rapidly in urban areas. In the West Midlands and Greater Manchester, the most affordable places to live have increasingly become suburban areas (for example, in 1995, 70% of the cheapest 10% of areas in the West Midlands urban area were suburban; by 2014 that figure had risen to almost 90%).
To address these concerns the report calls on government to establish a suburban taskforce. Paul Hunter, head of research at the Smith Institute and the report’s author, said: “To address these concerns we are calling on the on government to establish a Suburban Task Force. 18 years on from the urban taskforce, the suburban taskforce could look at how suburbs can adapt and grow, what support is needed and where, and what roles and actions are required from central and local government and other stakeholders.”
The report, supported by the Barrow Cadbury Fund, argues that without intervention the pressures on suburbia will intensify. Reductions in social housing in inner areas and cuts in benefits alongside rising urban house prices are likely to result in families looking to the suburbs for affordable housing.
Furthermore, the policy emphasis on generating economic growth in central urban areas means the suburban economy is set to continue to stagnate; lower income suburbanites will find it harder to find work locally, and, if there is fiscal devolution, local authorities will struggle raising revenue to invest in growth.
The report sets out interventions that central, local and combined authorities could make, including improving connectivity especially for those on lower incomes for whom travel costs make up a high proportion of their earnings, increasing housing densities to support population growth, sustainability and connectivity and providing funding to help regenerate tired and struggling suburban centres to create more jobs locally.
