Category: Cities

“City” is a contested term, and like all contested terms is used differently by different people. From my perspective as a demographer I would prefer to use it for the biggest and most self-confident of our urban districts. These tend to have clear similarities in terms of their population structure, as well as the range of employment and amenities they offer.  Smaller urban entities should be called towns… and there is nothing wrong with that.

Raymond Williams explored the term in Keywords (see previous post) and in his book The City and the Country.  He traces back the word city to the 13th century noting its increased use in the 16th century and the growing importance of urban life.  The root of the word is the Latin civitas which was a general noun related to civis – citizen.  The built up area of a large town was urbis. So civitas was the body of citizens rather than buildings.  in English the word developed alongside town (from old English tun and Proto-Germanic tunaz or tunan – fortified place), burgh and borough (from old English burg – dwelling within a fortified enclusure – similar to Proto-Germanic burg or old Norse borg).  The unit of local government was generally the borough.  City was regarded as a more dignified and prestigious label than town.  Size was a factor in making this distinction, and the presence of a cathedral often considered defining, although not technically definitive.

The modern implications of city date from the 19th century, often used in special senses such as university city, or provincial city.  The importance of industry in Manchester, Leeds and Birmingham justified teir designation as cities, or major ports in Liverpool, Bristol and Southampton.  And then there is “The City” as the financial heart of London – roughly the square mile of Roman London, with its own laws and customs – where even the monarch is not permitted to enter without special dispensation.  The City of London is England’s second smallest district in terms of resident population – about 5,000 – which increases to 500,000 by day as people come in to work in the banks and exchanges and trading houses which occupy its skyscrapers.

The sort of place I consider a city is big.  A lot of people live there and there’s a lot going on there.  It is diverse and multicultural and liberal.  People come and go whether as international or internal migrants, business travellers or tourists.  There are offices, shops, factories and warehouses.  Major public institutions are based there.  City centres are often thriving (town centres, often not). There is a large range of cultural opportunities, from high art to roots music and graffiti, from top sporting venues (athletics, football, rugby, cricket) to participant street sport (parkour and skateboarding). Alongside the vibrancy is often considerable poverty and disadvantage, sometimes higher levels of crime. Cities often experience higher mortality rates.  The city is not the country, but neither is it the small market town.

This post is going to set out my (reasonably) objective definition of cities of different types: the first being a major English city. Here goes!

• A major English city is an administrative area which is legally entitled to use the word “city” in its official title (I am not going to arbitrarily promote any area to city status)
• A major English city has a council which is responsible for the majority of local government functions, including education and social care

It is not open (in England) for any old place to call itself a city. City status is a privilege granted by the monarch.  In some cases this dates back to “time immemorial”, and in some, city status has been acquired relatively recently, usually as celebration of a royal jubilee or similar occasion.  There are 51 places in England authorised to style themselves cities – and they are a very diverse range of places, in terms of size and other characteristics, from minute fenland Ely to mighty industrial Birmingham.  I am happy to recognise that all 51 are cities, but they are not all major cities in the sense of being large urban areas, with a substantial degree of self-government, major industrial, commercial and retail centres, criminal and civil courts, universities, major sporting stadia, cultural centres like concert halls and theatres.

English local government is confusing to say the least.  It can come in many tiers, and some people have the privilege of being able to vote for a parish council, a district council, a county council, and maybe some kind of sub-regional mayor, as well as a police and crime commissioner. My requirement for major English cities is that the majority of powers are held at city level – particularly town planning, highways, education and social care: in other words, a city runs its own affairs and can take its own direction. If a city is a district within a non-metropolitan county council area (or even a parish within a district within a county) it does not qualify as major for me as it will be the county council which is responsible for highways, schools and social services – the big spending departments.

So which of the 51 qualify under my second condition of having a council responsible for the majority of local government functions? Here they are – my major English cities:

• Birmingham
• Bradford
• Brighton and Hove
• Bristol
• Coventry
• Derby
• Kingston upon Hull
• Leeds
• Leicester
• Liverpool
• Manchester
• Newcastle upon Tyne
• Nottingham
• Peterborough
• Plymouth
• Portsmouth
• Salford
• Sheffield
• Southampton
• Stoke on Trent
• Sunderland
• Wakefield
• Wolverhampton
• York

Of these eight are in the (self appointed) Core Cities Group – Birmingham, Bristol, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Nottingham and Sheffield – where they are joined by Cardiff and Glasgow. Core Cities lobbies central government for the interest of the UK’s larger cities… except that they are not strictly the largest 10 cities. Leicester (out) is bigger than Nottingham (in), for example, if defined by local authority boundaries.

The remaining cities are what I designate as heritage cities.  They mostly have ancient origins.  They were inportant in the middle ages and still are in many cases… but they are no longer responsible for some very important local government functions: they sit below a county council which covers several districts.  These are:

• Bath (a parish within Bath and North East Somerset)
• Cambridge (district and county town of Cambridgeshire)
• Canterbury (district within Kent)
• Carlisle (district within Cumbria)
• Chelmsford (district and county town of Essex)
• Chester (part of Chester and West Cheshire)
• Chichester (district and county town of West Sussex)
• Durham (district within County Durham)
• Ely (parish within Cambridgeshire)
• Exeter (district within Devon)
• Gloucester (district and county town of Gloucestershire)
• Hereford (parish within Herefordshire)
• Lancaster (district and county town of Lancashire)
• Lichfield (district within Staffordshire)
• Lincoln (district and county town of Lincolnshire)
• Norwich (district abd county town of Norfolk)
• Oxford (district and county town of Oxfordshire)
• Preston (district within Lancashire)
• Ripon (distict within North Yorkshire)
• Salisbury (parish within Wiltshire)
• St Albans (district within Hertfordshire)
• Truro (parish within Cornwall)
• Wells (parish within Bath and North East Somerset)
• Winchester (district and county town within Hampshire)
• Worcester (district and county town within Worcestershire)

There remain two cities which I treat as special cases: the cities of London and Westminster, comprising the financial and administrative centres repectively of London.  The boundaries between the 32 London boroughs and the City of London are often fairly invisible on the ground – and most of the boroughs are of no great antiquity.  So I treat London as one big city – defined by the boundaries of Greater London. In total this means that by my definition there are 25 major English cities.

The Centre for Cities is another lobbying group which includes many geographical entities which are not cities by my definition – and are not legally recognised as such.  They do not necesarily follow local authority boundaries.  These include: Aldershot, Barnsley*, Basildon, Birkenhead, Blackburn (with Darwen*), Blackpool, Bournemouth*, Burnley, Chatham (as part of Medway*), Crawley, Doncaster*, Huddersfield, Ipswich, Luton*, Mansfield, Middlesborough*, Milton Keynes*, Northampton, Reading*, Slough*, Southend*, Swindon*, Telford, Warrington*, Wigan and Worthing.  The asterisked places have a unitary council, so all it would take would be for the Queen to declare them cities, and I would promote them to my major English cities category.  The identification of the Centre for Cities’ “cities” was conducted quite carefully and rigorously, but in my view those that do not have the city title and/or self governing status are aspiring cities at best.

So in summary:

There are 25 major English cities by my definition – the premier league of urban areas

There are a further 25 heritage cities – often very attractive places, with some public administration functions, but smaller.

And there are a further 26 aspiring cities – with some of the characteristics of the former categories, but not quite making it yet.

Thoughts?