About the authors

Benjamin Kulka

Benjamin Kulka was Centre for London’s Senior Researcher on this project. His background is in urban governance, skills and employment policy, and urban economics. He previously worked for New Economy Manchester, UNESCO and the German Agency for International Cooperation, and has also worked in policy consultancy for various government stakeholders and clients at both national and local levels. Benjamin has developed projects on a wide range of topics including urban labour markets, poverty alleviation within informal settlements in Cairo, digitalisation, and post-industrial cities. He studied city planning at Technical University Berlin, political science at Free University Berlin, and holds an MSc in Urban Studies from UCL.

Richard Brown

Richard Brown is Research Director at Centre for London. He joined Centre for London in 2014 from the London Legacy Development Corporation, where he was Strategy Director, planning the transformation of London’s Olympic Park and the regeneration of the surrounding area. Prior to this he worked at the Greater London Authority: first as Private Secretary to Mayor Ken Livingstone and then as Manager of the Mayor’s Architecture and Urbanism Unit, which promoted architectural and urban design excellence in London’s policies and projects. He previously worked as a journalist, and as a researcher on local government at the Audit Commission.

Acknowledgements

This project has been supported by and produced in association with EY. Centre for London thanks them for their generous support.

The project has benefited from the advice and guidance of an advisory group, comprising Caroline Artis, Peter Arnold, David Ellis and Lise Evans from EY; Laura Davidson from the City of London Corporation; Professor Ian Gordon from the LSE; Kat Hanna from Cushman & Wakefield; Professor Mark Kleinman from King’s College London; Anthony Painter from the RSA; and Naomi Smith from London First.

The authors would also like to thank EY’s Lise Evans and Peter Arnold for their help through the project; Kat Hanna, who developed the original proposal; and Tom Liu from the ONS for the bespoke data.

The authors are very grateful for all the advice received during the course of this research: nevertheless, the views expressed in this report are solely those of the authors, and any errors and omissions remain our own.