How do inequalities in housing development and transport provisions affect socioeconomic disparities among cities in the United Kingdom?

The goal of this project is to draw on novel data sources to explore to which extent differences in urban productivity can be explained by inequalities in housing and transport provision. There are significant inequalities in cities' economic performance within the United Kingdom, and medium-sized cities appear to achieve lower productivity levels than continental European counterparts. A
recently articulated hypothesis states that differences in public transport provision and compact urban structures play key parts in producing these unequal outcomes. The PhD will review and build on the economic geography and transport economics literature and build long-term evidence, engage with uncertainties arising from interplay of transport, co-dependent housing development and changing urban functional relationships, which in parts result from a higher prevalence of working from home after the pandemic. The research is expected to contribute debates on transport's wider economic impacts in the academic fields of economic and urban geography as well as to the longstanding high-priority policy agenda of addressing regional disparities in the UK.