Britain's 2.3 million-home urban density gap (Centre for Cities)

Centre for Cities tomorrow (Thursday) publishes research comparing the densities of UK cities with counterparts in two other G7 countries, France and Japan, revealing the size of Britain's urban density gap.

Key findings and recommendations:

• There would be 2.3m more homes in British cities if they were built at density similar to cities in France or Japan
• Large cities outside of London are responsible for half of the gap: Manchester has at least 236,000 fewer homes than Lyon, and Birmingham 228,000 fewer homes than Fukuoka (see table below)
• London is responsible for a further quarter of the density gap
• The gap is widening: British big cities added roughly half the number of homes across their urban cores in the 2010s than French and Japanese big cities
• British cities' key missing component is mid-rise (4-9 storey) housing: mixed neighbourhoods of mid-rise flats and houses are key to the higher overall urban densities in France and Japan

Low density compared to large cities in France and Japan means several large British cities have a density gap of over 200,000 homes in their urban core:

Sources: OECD; Centre for Cities international residential densities dataset.

So, closing the national urban density gap means prioritising big cities, and primarily Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds and London.

Moving to a flexible zoning system would best support densification in big cities. Within the current planning system, Government should target bold, pro-density versions of its planned reforms of planning committees, Brownfield Passports and site-threshold rules.

The report also recommends:

• More effective and widespread use of existing tools – e.g. Local Development Orders, Mayoral Development Orders, design guides
• Expanding public sector intervention to tackle larger sites that require public sector land assembly, remediation and coordination
• Higher rates of demolition and redevelopment in low-density areas of cities' urban cores to increase the supply of mid-rise housing and make efficient use of existing urban land

Notes

• Methodology – Centre for Cities compares density in cities in Britain, France and Japan using data on floorspace, calculated using census, survey, administrative and satellite data. Density estimates exclude non-residential areas including large parks, golf courses, commercial and industrial areas. 
• Geography – Analysis for ‘Flat Britain' compares cities' urban cores – the parts of cities that are mostly housing. Urban cores cover a much larger area than the city centre, but exclude outer suburbs and commuter towns.