This paper applies an extensive literature that argues that political leadership
and local government activity enhance urban performance. Using the State of the
Cities Database of 56 Primary Urban Areas in England, it tests for the impact of
consolidated governance, political stability, planning performance, average
service performance, local government capacity and planning development
expenditure on jobs and population growth from 1995 to 2005. The regression
analysis finds that the competence of service delivery is weakly associated with
full-time jobs growth and that a consolidated governance structure is weakly
associated with greater population growth. None of the other tests is
statistically significant. Overall, the findings place doubt on the salience of
the political determinants of economic performance in English cities for the
period in question.
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