Megatrends and the West Midlands 2021: Changing City Centre Business Districts

This provocation looks at the changing business district and is part of the Megatrends in the West Midlands project.

There was an aspiration for city centres simply to ‘get back to normal’ after the Covid-19 pandemic, but the opportunity to do so may have gone. The trend for greater homeworking for people working in business, professional & financial services (BPFS) sectors was accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic. This existing trend is likely to continue. BPFS workers will operate a more ‘hybrid’ working pattern with a mixture of remote and office-based working. The ‘hybrid’ working trend will have knock on effects for the wider city centre ecosystem. Alongside the decline in the traditional retail and office working, there will be a greater emphasis on residential and leisure uses of the city centre.

To meet the changes facing the future city, there is an imperative to ‘build back better’. There will always be a demand for socialising and leisure in the future city centre. Yet there is risk that those working in leisure and hospitality jobs will continue to experience low-paid, insecure working hours and conditions. Further, as office spaces are reconfigured to meet the needs of hybrid, flexible working spaces, property investors can continue to extract wealth out of city centres.

There is an opportunity for large place-based anchor organisations, such as Business Improvement Districts (BIDS), universities, local councils, and business support providers to take a stake in the future city centre. They can use their scale and influence to invest in the office centres of the future and ensure that the wealth generated can make a difference to the people of the city. The vision of the future city centre in Birmingham could look to become a ‘real living wage place’, where low paid work is eliminated. There is a particular emphasis on how place-based organisations such as universities, BIDs, and councils can look to make a stake in, and shape, a fertile inclusive economy in the Birmingham city centre of the future.