The Functional Polycentric Region

The East of England is often discussed through the lens of its strongest individual assets. This raises the question of whether the East’s long-term prosperity depends on building up one dominant centre – Cambridge’s knowledge economy - or by connecting a wider network of places more effectively.

A new paper from The Productivity Institute argues that this question matters more than it may first appear. Its central claim is that the geography of a regional economy - where jobs, people and value are located, and how places connect to one another - shapes economic performance. Regions dominated by a single large city tend, on average, to enjoy a productivity advantage. By contrast, more polycentric regions - those with a network of medium-sized cities and towns rather than one overwhelming core - often face a productivity penalty unless they are well integrated.

That matters for the East of England because much of it already looks and behaves less like a classic monocentric region and more like a dispersed, polycentric one.

Using Cambridgeshire as a case study for regional “morphology” it is clear that the spatial distribution of population, jobs and gross value added is not overwhelmingly concentrated in one area. In productivity terms, Cambridgeshire and Peterborough performs relatively well, with GVA per hour worked at 96.2 against a UK index of 100, but its intra-regional commuting rate is only 14%, well below Greater London’s 26% and other places such as Greater Manchester and the North East.

That combination is revealing. It suggests that parts of the East already have many of the ingredients of a successful regional economy, but not yet the same depth of labour market integration seen in the strongest urban systems. For a region like the East, the lesson is not to mimic London. It is to make polycentricity work better.

Across OECD countries and European urban regions, the overall evidence is that monocentric regions generally outperform polycentric ones on conventional economic measures such as productivity and output. The reason is straightforward: agglomeration effects are stronger when people, firms and high-value activity cluster tightly around a single urban core. Polycentric regions spread those benefits more thinly.

But polycentric regions should not be treated as second best. They often come with real advantages: lower housing pressure, less congestion, and better access to space and services. The question is how to organise those advantages into an economic model that can generate stronger growth. The answer is functional integration - connecting places so they behave more like a coherent regional economy, even if they remain spatially dispersed.

The East is not short of economic assets. It is short, in many cases, of the connective tissue that would allow those assets to reinforce each other more systematically. Cambridge is an internationally recognised innovation centre. Peterborough has strategic value as a logistics and growth node. Norwich, Ipswich, Colchester, Chelmsford, Southend and the region’s port and energy corridors all play different roles. Yet the East has often lacked the kind of shared regional narrative, connectivity and institutional coordination that would turn this collection of strengths into something more than the sum of its parts.

The Productivity Institute identifies five practical principles for making polycentric regions work. First, there must be a clear purpose for collaboration. Places do not collaborate out of goodwill alone; they do so when there are tangible shared gains. Second, governance structures should be designed around that purpose, rather than existing as ends in themselves. Third, incentives matter: collaboration is more likely when funding and policy frameworks reward it. Fourth, regions should cultivate the complementary roles of different places rather than forcing them into direct competition. Fifth, transport infrastructure is fundamental because it is what makes regional integration real in practice.

For the East of England, each of those points lands squarely.

A clear purpose for collaboration could be built around innovation diffusion, housing delivery, clean energy, freight and logistics, or the region’s role in connecting London to the Midlands, the North Sea and global markets. The region does not need every town and city to do the same thing. It needs them to do different things well, and to be linked strongly enough that firms, workers and institutions can move between them more productively.

That implies a different way of thinking about transport. Greater London’s labour market is England’s most integrated, with over a quarter of workers crossing local authority boundaries within the region. This integration is not accidental but the result of long-term investment and policy choices. For the East, the challenge is less about building one giant metropolis than about improving medium-range connectivity between research centres, housing growth locations, industrial sites and labour pools. In practical terms, this means cross-regional rail and road links, better east-west movement, and planning transport and housing together rather than separately.

It also implies a different approach to regional governance. The East of England has often sat awkwardly in England’s devolution debate: too close to London to fit some “left behind” narratives, but too diverse and dispersed to organise neatly around one metropolitan centre. The East maybe exactly where the next phase of English devolution needs to think hardest. It notes that completing England’s devolution map will increasingly involve more rural and non-metropolitan areas, many of which lack a single clear economic centre and may therefore benefit most from a polycentric strategy.

That makes the East of England more than a case study. It may be a test case.

There is, finally, a wider opportunity. Post-pandemic working patterns and technology have changed how people work, broadly doubling the number of people that work from home. This reduce some of the traditional advantages of the monocentric model. If more high-value work can be done flexibly, and if distance matters slightly less than it used to, then regions with multiple attractive centres and more space may be better placed than before - provided they organise themselves well.

Figure 1: Integration of labour markets in England

For the East of England, that should be an encouraging thought. The region does not need to become more like London. It needs to become better connected to itself. To become a more integrated economy in which the region’s cities, towns and growth corridors operate as complementary parts of a wider system. That is the promise of a polycentric strategy: not growth concentrated in one place, but prosperity built through connection.