Data and the city: Six ways data is helping cities recover
Remarkable City’s Research Assistant Natasha Kerr is back with A new post looking at how data is helping cities bounce forwards following the pandemic.
Introduction
Covid-19 has affected people’s needs and behaviours and changed what they need from their town centres, wider areas and workplaces. The ‘Great Acceleration’ has meant that trends have evolved faster than were planned for and cities and councils have had to take a real-time view instead of waiting for traditional economic evidence bases that are only commissioned every few years.
Data is now at the centre of how cities think about what is needed in terms of interventions and investment. This could be by tracking footfall and spend, understanding the changes in demographics or by engaging more deeply with their local communities and businesses. We explore these areas and more below.
Please remember to get in touch with us at Remarkable City if you want to talk about how we can help you with your economic data strategy.
1. Tracking spending patterns
Data can help cities to understand where spending is high and where funding is needed. Data sources such as the the Centre for Cities Recovery Tracker, which uses mobile phone data from Locomizer and credit card spend data from Beauclair, show which towns and cities are experiencing high levels of spending. For example, in Blackpool spending is high and more visitors are coming from outside the city than before the pandemic began which demonstrates its quick recovery. In contrast, London is experiencing only 33% of pre-lockdown spending levels and is one of the worst performing cities in terms of spending and footfall. By analysing this data, cities can identify factors that are contributing to higher or lower levels of spending and therefore where funding is needed in order to improve the local economies. Blackpool, whose economy heavily relies on tourism, has responded to the economic obstacles and possibilities brought about by the pandemic by creating a Blackpool Tourism Business Improvement district which aims to help the borough in its recovery and invest £1 million into the tourist economy to increase footfall, spending and overnight stays in the area. Blackpool has therefore identified where spending is strongest, for example in leisure, accommodation, retail and food and drink businesses and will target these areas to boost tourism and help their economic recovery.
2. Monitoring footfall across town centres
Using data such as the Centre for Cities Recovery Tracker, towns and cities can also analyse footfall based on location, time and day of the week. This means they can understand sectors which would benefit from improvements and where and when visitors are coming and why. For example, the GLA and Project Odysseus are using CCTV footage to understand the ‘busyness’ of the streets and analyse high street performance. Projects like this are especially important following the pandemic as footfall in London has decreased rapidly with the overall retail footfall in April 2021 at 44% of what it was in the same week in 2019. All cities experienced a decline in footfall as a result of the pandemic, but some are seeing figures reach levels that are much closer to pre-lockdown than others. Blackpool, for example, is experiencing 77% of pre-lockdown footfall levels, whereas London is experiencing only 33%. Using data such as this, local authorities can consider where funding may be needed for example investment in attractions or accessibility. Durham, for example, where footfall fell below 12% of pre lockdown levels from July 3-4 and July 10-11 2021, has responded by focusing on bringing visitors to the area through an events agenda and projects such as the refurbishment of Darlington’s indoor market which began in January and will include food stalls, a bar and entertainment space. ARC Stockton has also encouraged the council’s to invest in an 11-person events team to organise 90 annual events across the year and is focussing on using arts and culture as a way to bring visitors to the area.
3. Understanding changes in demographics
The pandemic has changed the way that we live in many ways and this has had major effects on high street activity. While data helped cities to understand changing trends and demographics within cities when the pandemic began, for example, using furlough data to understand how many more people would remain home instead of travelling to work, the same can be done now as everything starts to reopen. The dynamic of many high streets has changed considerably and in London especially there was a shift as workers who previously travelled into the city began to work remotely and those within the city also opted to work from home, with 46.4% of London workers saying they worked remotely at some point in 2020 compared to 26.7% in 2019. Additionally, as of June 2021, 1.9 million workers are still on furlough across the country so will also not have to travel for work. It is not only workers, however, that have changed their habits as a higher percentage of all visitors to London are now coming from within the city rather than outside of it with 61% compared to 50% coming from city suburbs and 11% compared to 6% coming from the city centre.
4. Monitoring how high street businesses are faring against online retail
Another change that has been ongoing since the start of the pandemic is an increase in demand for more types of businesses as well as retail, with total retail sales volumes falling by 1.9% in 2020 compared to 2019, the ‘largest annual fall on record’. With many large retail store closures across the country, it is necessary to fill the gaps left in high streets and town centres and boost local economies. Taking into account the growth of online retail, with internet sales reaching as high as 36.3% of total sales in November 2020 and January 2021, it is clear that town centres need to become less retail-focused and more diverse, especially in terms of the experience economy. For example, in Wandsworth, London, a former Debenhams store has been turned into an entertainment venue called Gravity, which includes multiple experience opportunities such as E-Karting, bowling and street golf plus restaurants and bars. Though the ‘Arts, Entertainment and Recreation’ sector was hit especially hard in the pandemic with 78% of businesses in this sector reporting that their turnover had decreased and a large proportion, 17.7%, of the workforce still on furlough as of 13th June 2021, there is an opportunity for these sectors to capitalise on demand and empty property as towns and cities open up.
A recent Vogue article looked at how retail- and fashion-tech have attracted record investment during the pandemic and whilst many of these services will pull customers away from high streets online, a number are hybrid and we think will require physical premises.
5. Listening to people more intently
Data collected from local residents using surveys and conversations can also help authorities to understand what kinds of improvements and businesses people want to see in their town centres. For example, London’s High Streets for All mission was established in March 2021 to work with the local community and conduct conversations with residents to highlight new opportunities for change. Some of the suggestions made by residents include the creation of more park and community spaces, pedestrianisation of more areas and solar panels on bus stops and authorities plan to put some of the suggested improvements into action and increase the number of high streets with renewal strategies, which in March stood at only 10% of all London high streets.
In York, the council has implemented a similar strategy with ‘Our Big Conversation’ which encourages residents to share their opinions regarding York’s future in order to build networks and become more inclusive. As well as Covid recovery, conversations centred around environmental concerns, transport and the local economy are being held to encourage input from residents. The council then aims to use data and opinions collected from surveys, polls, consultations, live sessions workshops and masterclasses to inform a new city centre vision entitled My City Centre York vision. Last week the council hosted held a panel session going through the challenges and opportunities raised by Our Big Conversation.
Sentiment analysis data can also be used by businesses themselves through social media. Social media is a useful tool for businesses and many online platforms such as LinkedIn and Instagram provide them with useful analytics to help them to understand and boost their engagement online. Other platforms, such as the Maybe* platform, also collects and distributes social media data which can then be used by businesses to better understand their customers, competition, the market and help them to increase their online impact and sales. If small businesses are the future of high streets, then data which can help support them will significantly benefit towns and cities in the long term.
6. Changes to holidaying and travel
As covid restrictions saw a 98.3% drop in monthly air passenger arrivals to the UK the time period from February to April 2020, towns and cities need to continue to cater for this change in demand, with more visitors coming from other areas in the UK rather than abroad for their holidays. In 2020, 42.7% of people said they would rather travel within the UK whereas only 24.7% would rather go abroad. Some of the most popular locations in 2021 include Devon, which accounted for 10% of bookings, Cornwall, which accounted for 8.75% and Cumbria which accounted for 7.85%. However, while the pandemic clearly highlighted a preference for ‘staycationing’, 2022 may see a boom in tourism as the pandemic ends. A survey conducted by the International Air Transport Association with 4700 respondents from 11 countries indicated that this may be the case, as 72% stated that they would travel as soon as they could meet friends and family.
Additionally, Traveltek, in March 2021, reported that its bookings were up 52% in one week and 50% of bookings were for travel over 12 months ahead. It is therefore important that towns and cities monitor data such as this to prepare for both more tourism within the UK, but also more people leaving to go abroad in 2022. In London especially, the lack of tourism has hit hard as it was the most visited city by international tourists in 2019 with 21,713,000 visits and lost out on £10.9 billion in 2020 due to travel restrictions. In the West End, footfall was down 45% in April 2021 compared to pre lockdown levels due to the lack of international tourists, which usually would account for one third of visitors, however the New West End Company is hoping this will increase when international travel becomes more accessible in 2022.
We hope you enjoyed this post from Natasha.
We’ve also posted this on our Twitter account @remarkablecity and Remarkable City’s company page on LinkedIn, so please share with your network and let us know what you think and what we’ve missed.
Stay tuned for more posts from Natasha and Duncan coming soon. The topic of our next post will be: what it means for somewhere to be a 'net zero town centre' and how to make this a reality.
The main photo is from the Project Odysseus.
Who are Remarkable City and how can we help in this area?
We are a local economic development agency that has data at its heart. We help councils to use data to gain insights about how business growth and challenges are changing town centre economies and produce strategies that set out what they need to do from an investment, funding and policy perspective.
Going forward town centres are going to increasingly compete with one another for custom and funding. We build inward investment functions for councils powered by the latest digital and data tools to support all their efforts.
We are a proud independent business and are technology and data agnostic, meaning we select the right data providers, software and analysis packages for you based on the systems you already use.
Please get in touch with Duncan Ray, duncan@remarkable.city, or follow us on Twitter @remarkablecity.