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年代末后工业时代的经济和社会衰退。几十年来，这些地方在全国辩论中被忽视了，这种争论是由伦敦在其他“大城市”的支持下，将推动全国经济增长，造福所有人的观点所助长的。然而，正如许多生活在英国一些最贫穷城镇的人所熟悉的那样，这种修辞与现实相去甚远，莎拉·奥康纳最近在《金融时报》上发表的一篇文章提到了“被经济遗忘的城镇”。最近，对他们未来的思考日益突出。这是由2016年的欧盟公投引发的，英国投票脱离欧盟，得到了英国最贫困地区选民的压倒性支持。这让城市精英和中央政府的政客们大吃一惊，并经常受到谴责。虽然没有人知道脱欧对英国的未来意味着什么，但一些人已经清楚的是，有必要更好地了解所谓的“被遗忘”地区，并解决城市与“其他地区”之间日益加剧的不平等。城镇中心是一个致力于对英国城镇进行研究和分析的智库，它将自己定位为这一呼吁的主要倡导者，为此，该奖学金旨在提供关键的投入，并将地方领导和治理的视角带入辩论。该研究员的博士研究从一个中等城市的角度，在城市区域主义、权力下放和紧缩的背景下，调查了英国的地方领导和治理。以权力、谈判和可接受性为主题，研究表明，城市-区域权力下放创造了新的制度和空间复杂性，并未能重塑中央与地方的关系，使其远离高度集中的方式。同样，该研究显示了地方领导人如何在他们的能力中发挥作用，通过更广泛的控制来构建一个他们可以合作的运营环境。在当前的城市体系下，对于那些既没有政治力量也没有“大城市”的集体重量的边缘地区来说，这种情况尤其明显。该奖学金的活动将主要面向传播研究员的博士研究成果，为领导和治理理论增添知识，并为英国脱欧后权力下放的未来演变和地方赋权的机会提供政策和实践信息。它还将暴露出英国最脆弱的地区需要中央政府的帮助，以便能够抵御可能即将到来的风暴。这将通过期刊论文、政策简报、媒体参与以及会议和公共政策活动中的演讲等形式为学术和非学术受众提供书面报道来实现。此外，将举办利益相关者参与活动，分享研究员的研究成果，并解决地方领导人在权力下放、财政紧缩和英国脱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，与一线从业人员讨论英国脱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.