Scottish Cities Knowledge Centre Ideas Forum

SMALL CITIES AND LARGE TOWNS: A DISCUSSION ON GROWTH DRIVERS AND CONSTRAINTS
30 January 2014 12.30 -16:30 Norrie Miller Studio, Perth Concert Hall Mill Street, Perth PH1 5HZ

Work continues on policies to support Scotlands economic recovery. This includes new, sometimes separate efforts to promote growth in Scotlands cities and towns. To date, Scotlands seven cities have been emphasised through the Scottish Cities Alliance, while certain challenges and opportunities for towns have been addressed with the Town Centres Review. Of course, areas of overlap exist, with debates about the National Planning Framework, for example, having relevance to settlements of various sizes. The distinction between small city and large town may be entirely administrative and settlements may face common economic challenges and opportunities. This session, hosted by the Scottish Cities Knowledge Centre (SCKC) will seek to explore and tease out the key issues relevant to Scotlands small cities and large towns. In this seminar, discussion will be generated around the following areas: Definitions - the boundaries between large towns and small cities are often a feature of administrative convenience rather than a critical consideration of the role of different settlement nodes within the national economy. What does this mean from the perspective of policy development? Linkages What functional independence do large towns and small cities have? To what extent are they dependent on spillovers from larger metropolitan areas? Moreover, to what extent are large towns and small cities effectively drawn within a wider metropolitan system? What systems we measure, such as housing and infrastructure, will be key considerations here.

Patterns How do patterns of decline emerge in small cities and large towns, relative to larger urban areas? How does this manifest in terms of labour market and investment patterns? As larger urban areas inexorably shift to diverse, service based economies, what industrial compositions are emerging in small cities and large towns?

Governance through revived localist experiments, is there scope to better reconfigure the powers and responsibilities as concern Scottish small cities and large towns? International Examples and Exemplars What can we learn from countries such as Australia, Netherlands and Canada, where authorities similarly wrestle with heterogeneous spatial patterns where varying settlement sizes constitute the functional economic landscape?

Speakers from both policy and academic communities, as well as from the third sector, will contribute to the discussion.

Time

Event

Chair/Interrogator

12:30

Networking Lunch

1:00 1:15 2.00

Introduction Ross Martin (SCDI) Key Note Stuart Black (Inverness) International Key Note Rene Miesen (BrabantStad, Netherlands) Coffee Panel Discussion Jim Metcalfe (Carnegie UK), Kevin Robertson (Stirling), David Littlejohn (Perth), [Town representatives TBC] Closing Remarks Duncan Maclennan and David Waite (University of St Andrews)

Ross Martin

2:30 2:45

Duncan Maclennan

4:00