Change! Strengthening the Resilience of British Cities in Preparation for Future Pandemics

This working paper uses a global comparative approach to determine the metrics on which the UK can be deemed to have failed the COVID-19 test. By exploring the factors that present more or less plausible explanations for complex international variations in COVID-19 geographies, the paper also offers a diagnosis as to why the UK has fared so poorly compared to its international peers in response to the pandemic. This analysis forms the basis for a series of headline recommendations on what the UK needs to fix in order to prepare itself, and in particular its cities, for future pandemics.

Accompanying the working paper is a technical addendum that sets out in detail the two dozen conjectures considered by the study: all of them more or less compelling arguments that at some stage have been advanced as explanations for the variegated and complex international geography of the pandemic.

Suggested citation

Boyle, M., Hickson, J. and Ujhelyi Gomez, K. (2021). Change! Strengthening the Resilience of British Cities in Preparation for Future Pandemics. Liverpool: Heseltine Institute for Public Policy, Practice and Place.

Boyle, M., Hickson, J. and Ujhelyi Gomez, K. (2021). Addendum - Conjectures and Refutations: Further Interrogating Potential Determinants of COVID-19's Geographies. Liverpool: Heseltine Institute for Public Policy, Practice and Place.