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Mayor of London calls for more power for cities

17 February 2015

by Richard Forster

The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, has said giving more power to cities supplies the solution to Britain’s political gridlock.

Speaking at the Global Cities’ panel discussion at the Brookings Institution in Washington D.C. on the fifth day of his visit to the United States, the Mayor urged the government to accelerate a devolution of power and fiscal authority to cities so municipalities can fund more infrastructure projects and raise revenue.

“When you look at the state of politics in Britain there is no question it is going through a rocky period and politicians are not thought generally to be in touch with people,” the Mayor said. “Devolution is obviously the way forward. Push power downwards to the level of cities and you’ll galvanise British politics.”

The Mayor said the recent UK devolution summit that proposed a transfer of power from Whitehall to Britain’s cities did not go far enough. “We’ve got to go further,” he said. “This thing is in its infancy in the UK compared with America. It is an absolute disgrace and totally wrong in my view that a city like New York is able to control about 50 percent of the taxes it raises, whereas in London that figure is 7 percent. It’s not enough to do all the things we need to do.”

He added: “The answer is obviously there should be more fiscal devolution in exchange for central government stepping back. They give us the freedom but they cut our budgets by the same amount. It’s [a] no lose [situation] for the Treasury to give us the mandate to go for policies that will produce economic growth and new housing and new jobs which will in turn lead to more revenue.”

Speaking alongside the Mayor of San Diego,  Kevin Faulconer, Mayor Johnson said the key priorities for London were affordability of housing and education. But he added “the triumph of the city” was occurring at the expense of the British countryside.

“The paradox of this conversation about cities is pretty soon we’re going to have to start thinking hard about what we’re doing for the villages and what we’re doing for the coastal towns,” he said. “The triumph of the city is now accepted and we need to think about what’s happening in the rest of the countryside as well.”

The Mayor said the private sector is indispensable to the growth of the city in all sorts of ways, citing the Olympics or the Crossrail project as initiatives that would not be possible without the support of London business.

He hailed London’s transport infrastructure and environmental measures. “Cities have got to compete,” he said. “We’ve got to make sure we put in the physical infrastructure as we’ve got an incredible programme right now of transport infrastructure investments, the biggest since Victorian times…we’re extending the Tube, we’re putting new bridges across the river.

“We’re opening up sites across the city that were completely inaccessible before like Battersea Power Station which some of you may remember from the cover of the old Pink Floyd album. That was basically all it was fit for frankly- nothing happened there. Now the Northern Line is being extended there and you’re seeing colossal change in the east of the city because of the Olympics investments and that is helping to attract a skilled workforce from around the world.”

The Mayor declared environmental progress was not possible without political controversy: “I’m a firm believer that green equals jobs. One of the things that city governments face is that in order to do something difficult — like put in great bike lanes — you have to infuriate some people I’m afraid to say.”

Previously during Mr Johnson’s US visit, London and New York re-affirmed their crime-fighting partnership with both cities having their best year in homicides since the 1960s. London’s murder total has halved in 1991 while homicides in New York are down 79.7 percent since 1993. A new record was set in New York yesterday when no murders had been reported in the city for 10 days.

“London and New York are two great global cities that have become much safer in the last twenty years and policing has played a major role in that turnaround,” the Mayor said.

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