Alexandra Jones: Parties can let cities find the path to economic recovery

Outside Yorkshire, Labour enjoyed other high profile successes – reclaiming Liverpool from the Liberal Democrats and Coventry from the Conservatives, for example.

But Labour also lost Parliamentary seats across cities in the South, including Brighton, Bristol, Reading and Portsmouth. And post-election analysis from the Centre for Cities has shown that while Labour ended up with three-quarters (77 per cent) of Parliamentary seats in London and the six largest cities outside the capital (including Leeds and Sheffield, as well as Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle and Birmingham), the party received less than half of the vote (42 per cent). If the alternative vote is brought in next May, Labour would be less certain of retaining as many seats, suggesting that complacency about Labour's urban vote would be unwise.

So how can Labour reconnect with the cities?

Our pre-election polling showed that the economy was the top concern among urban voters – over and above crime, immigration and defence.

This suggests that there is political ground for the taking for any party able to reconnect with urban voters on the economy. There is a real opportunity to place a story about future jobs growth within an urban context because cities are where future jobs growth is most likely to happen.

England's cities are its economic powerhouses. In 2008, 62 per cent of jobs in England were located in our 56 largest cities – and two thirds of these jobs were based in London and England's four largest city-regions of Leeds, Manchester, Birmingham and Liverpool.

Even more crucially for recovery in the years ahead, cities are the places where jobs growth is most likely to happen at a time of public spending cuts – 75 per cent of England's private sector workforce is based in its cities.

We'd like to see all three parties focus on how they can support cities like Leeds and York to drive the economic recovery. This means generating some practical ideas about how to support private sector job creation in cities such as Leeds which, in a recent report, we identified as a city with private sector growth potential (between 1998 and 2008, the city generated over 25,000 private sector posts).

So what are these practical ideas? First, we would argue that scarce capital investment budgets should be prioritised on transport improvements, new housing and office space in more "buoyant" cities such as Leeds, which have the demand for these improvements and

are most likely to generate additional jobs.

Second, to allow these cities to grow further and thrive, planning needs to be more flexible and efficient, with applications dealt with quickly.

Third, continued transport improvements, including better integrated connections, will be essential to help businesses stay productive and allow city residents' access to a larger number of job opportunities.

Fourth, the Centre for Cities is calling for further financial freedoms for urban areas so they have the power to raise revenues for key developments locally – particularly when the public purse is under pressure and the property market is sluggish. At the Liberal Democrat conference in Liverpool, Nick Clegg announced that he will be offering new financial powers to cities (tax increment financing). This could result in cities raising additional revenue to, for example, develop derelict mines in the Don Valley or transform the Aire Valley in Leeds.

Fifth, as the Labour Party under the "new generation" considers its response to deficit reduction at a national level, it will also need to think about the impact of reduced public spending from city to city.

Barnsley, for example, added more public sector jobs than private in the decade leading up to the recession. The coalition and its opposition will need to think about what the future growth story will be for these cities and towns and how this can be supported.

The economic growth and regeneration of our cities is at a critical point. Ed Miliband, the new Opposition leader, acknowledged back in April that while he thinks "regeneration spending is very very important" he went on to say that it "isn't the biggest priority we face when we face some other competing priorities".

The challenge ahead for Labour and the other parties is to address the economic concerns of the urban residents in Leeds, Sheffield, Hull and Doncaster and across the UK – and a new approach to regeneration to reconnect with the urban electorate. There's never been a Prime Minister from a Yorkshire constituency. Will Doncaster's Ed Miliband be the first? Whichever party leader can work out how to empower cities to unlock the economic recovery will find themselves in prime position.

Alexandra Jones is chief executive of the Centre for Cities think-tank.