Is Britain’s growth challenge an urban one? Economic activity in the UK is heavily concentrated in a single global city. London drives productivity, innovation and high-value services, while the rest of the country is divided between smaller cities, towns and rural areas that tend to be less productive and less internationally competitive.

Does this imbalance hold the country back? Should policymakers simply allow London to expand as the UK’s primary engine of growth, or should they actively foster a “second city” to rival the capital? And if so, what is the best strategy?

This year’s Institute of Economic Affairs Hayek Memorial Lecture will be delivered by Edward Glaeser, Professor of Economics at Harvard University and author of Triumph of the City. Professor Glaeser is one of the world’s leading urban economists, whose work has shaped the global debate on cities, housing, productivity and growth.

Date: Wednesday 18 March

Time: 19:00

Venue: Emmanuel Centre, Westminster

Edward L. Glaeser is the Fred and Eleanor Glimp Professor of Economics at Harvard University, where he has taught economic theory and urban economics since 1992. He also leads the Urban Economics Working Group at the National Bureau of Economics Research, co-leads the Cities Programme of the International Growth Centre, and co-edits the Journal of Urban Economics. He has written hundreds of papers on cities, infrastructure and other topics, and written, co-written and co-edited many books including Triumph of the City, Survival of the City (with David Cutler) and Fighting Poverty in the U.S. and Europe: A World of Difference (with Alberto Alesina).