As defined by the New Leipzig charter, the 'productive' city can be characterised, above all, by a “diversified economy which provides jobs while ensuring a sound financial base for sustainable urban development”.   Along with many other guidelines and recommendations, the New Leipzig Charter underlines that future cities should be simultaneously productive and just but the nature of these two features often creates disparities. Evidence in OECD countries shows that not all cities have managed to grow and reduce inequality at the same time. Creating prosperity while ensuring equality needs to be carefully balanced to succeed.
 
Spatial, economic and social division in cities is often related to imbalanced job opportunities, stagnant wages and rising costs. Bustling urban centres attract a homogenous population with specific sets of skills. Housing prices have grown twice faster than inflation in OECD countries, with one in three low-income private renters spending more than 40% of their disposable income on rental costs alone. This exacerbates spatial segregation and administrative fragmentation in cities. Such disparities have been made even more visible during the COVID-19 pandemic, when a large part of the population started working remotely and kept safe, while some, who were on the front lines and low paid, could not do that.

How can urban policies and city-making ensure a balance between the productive and just dimensions?

 How to integrate new economies and production activities (such as manufacturing, re-industrialisation, circular economy, etc. into cities to enhance social interactions and broaden diversity in skillsets and job opportunities?
 
While cities aim to recover from the pandemic and gain resilience for the future, they need to do so in a just manner, considering the incorporation of a new mixed economy which will open up opportunities for different kinds of productive activities. Monospaces within cities can benefit from being broken down by undertakings such as manufacture, small-scale production, new and service-oriented industries and the care economy all of which are well connected to each other and attract a variety of populations, cultures and skills. The introduction of a varied economy can provide opportunity for additional jobs, professional retraining and attract a wide scope of skillsets within urban areas (such as migrant or refugee workers, youth, etc.) introducing a heterogenous economic urban fabric. Urban policy is key in providing a base for this diversification and attraction of different populations into cities for a vibrant, varied and just economic change.
 
The Just and Productive Policy Lab will focus on labour market and discuss strategies to diversify economy and introduce varied activity into the urban fabric, providing wide-ranging job opportunities to existing and new populations with a wide set of skills, based on local assets.

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