Urban Divisions Post-Brexit: Empowering Local Leaders in Britain's 'Left Behind' Places

英国有许多地方仍在经历20世纪70年代末后工业时代转向的经济和社会衰退。几十年来，这些地方在全国性的辩论中一直被忽视，因为人们认为，伦敦在其他大城市的支持下，将推动国家经济增长，造福于所有人。然而，正如生活在英国一些最贫穷城镇的许多人所熟知的那样，这些言辞与现实相去甚远，莎拉·奥康纳最近在英国《金融时报》发表的一篇文章中提到了“经济遗忘的城镇”。对他们未来的深思熟虑最近变得更加突出。这是由2016年的退欧公投引发的，当时英国投票脱离欧盟，英国最贫困地区的选民压倒性地支持脱欧。这让城市精英和中央政府政客大吃一惊，也经常遭到谴责。虽然没有人确切地知道英国脱欧对英国的未来意味着什么，但对一些人来说，已经变得明显的是，需要更好地理解所谓的被遗忘的地方，并解决城市和其他地方之间日益加剧的不平等问题。城镇中心是一家致力于提供对英国城镇的研究和分析的智库，它将自己定位为这一呼吁的主要倡导者，该奖学金将旨在为这一呼吁提供关键投入，并将地方领导力和治理视角引入辩论。该研究员的博士研究从中等城市的角度，在城市区域主义、权力下放和紧缩的背景下，研究了英国的地方领导力和治理。借助权力、谈判和可接受性等主题，这项研究表明，城市-地区权力下放造成了新的制度和空间复杂性，并未能改变高度集中的中央与地方关系。同样，这项研究表明，地方领导人如何发挥作用，帮助他们驾驭更广泛的控制，构建他们可以合作的运营环境。对于那些在当前城市体系下既没有政治力量也没有大城市的集体影响力的外围地区来说，情况尤其如此。该奖学金的活动将主要着眼于传播该研究员的博士研究，为领导力和治理理论增加知识，并就英国退欧后权力下放的未来演变和地方赋权的机会为政策和实践提供信息。它还将暴露出可以说是英国最脆弱的地方将需要中央政府的帮助，才能安然度过可能即将到来的风暴。这将通过面向学术和非学术受众的书面文章来实现，形式包括期刊论文、政策简报和媒体参与文章，以及在会议和公共政策活动上的陈述。此外，还将举办利益相关者参与活动，分享该研究员的研究成果，并解决地方领导人在权力下放、紧缩和英国退欧背景下面临的关键机遇和挑战。这也将促进知识交流的价值。还将花一段时间回到现场，向一线从业者讲述英国退欧后城镇面临的关键问题。

There are many places in Britain that continue to experience the economic and social decline of the post-industrial turn of the late 1970s. Over many decades, these places have been neglected in national debates that have been fed by the idea that London, supported by the other 'big cities', will drive national growth to everyone's benefit. Yet, as many of the people who live in some of Britain's poorest towns will be all too familiar with, the rhetoric is far from the reality, with a recent article by Sarah O'Connor in the Financial Times referring to 'the towns the economy forgot'. Deliberation over their future has recently risen to prominence. This was sparked by the EU Referendum in 2016 that saw Britain vote to leave the EU, supported overwhelmingly by voters in Britain's most deprived places. This was much to the surprise and often condemnation of the urban elite and central government politicians. Whilst no one quite knows what Brexit means for the future of Britain, what has become clear for some is the need to better understand the so-called 'forgotten' places and address the rising inequality between cities and 'the rest'. The Centre for Towns, a Think Tank dedicated to providing research and analysis on British towns, has positioned itself as a leading advocate of this call for which this fellowship will aim to provide a key input and bring a local leadership and governance perspective to the debate.The Fellow's doctoral research investigated sub-national leadership and governance in Britain from the perspective of a mid-sized city, in the context of city-regionalism, devolution and austerity. Drawing on the themes of power, negotiation and acceptability, the research suggests that city-regional devolution has created new institutional and spatial complexities and has failed to rework central-local relations away from a highly centralised approach. Equally, the research shows how local leaders play a role in their ability to navigate broader controls for constructing an operating environment that they can work with. This is suggested as being particularly the case for places on the periphery that have neither the political might nor collective weight of the 'big cities' under the current urban system.The activities of the fellowship will be mainly oriented towards the dissemination of the Fellow's doctoral research, to add knowledge to theories on leadership and governance and inform policy and practice in relation to the future evolution of devolution post-Brexit and opportunities for local empowerment. It will also expose what arguably Britain's most vulnerable places will need from central government to be able to weather the storm that is likely to lie ahead. This will be achieved via written pieces for both academic and non-academic audiences in the form of journal papers, policy briefings, and media engagement pieces, and presentations at conferences and public-policy events. In addition, a stakeholder engagement event will be held to share the Fellow's research findings and address the key opportunities and challenges facing local leaders in the context of devolution, austerity and Brexit. This will also promote the value of knowledge exchange. A period will also be spent back out in the field to speak to frontline practitioners about the key issues facing towns in a post-Brexit landscape.