Why Are Cities Going Bankrupt? - Martin Daunton

Gresham College Lectures

Watch the Q&A session here: https://youtu.be/G_SpC_BV4jA
In the late nineteenth century, Joseph Chamberlain transformed Birmingham with municipal enterprise and urban improvement, but in the last few years, local authorities have been facing serious financial difficulties, and some of the largest, such as Birmingham, have faced the equivalent of bankruptcy. This lecture will ask why British cities have lost the confident civic pride of the Victorian era and are now struggling to provide basic services from a limited financial base. Most importantly: What can be done to regenerate British towns and cities?
This lecture was recorded by Martin Daunton on 24th April 2025 at Barnard's Inn Hall, London.
Professor Martin Daunton is Visiting Gresham Professor of Economic History.
He is a British academic and historian. He was Master of Trinity Hall, Cambridge, between 2004 and 2014. He is Emeritus Professor of Economic History at the University of Cambridge.
He has written two books on the history of taxation in Britain – Trusting Leviathan and Just Taxes, and co-edited with colleagues in Berlin a volume of essays on the political economy of public finance in leading OECD countries since the 1970s. His book The Economic Government of the World, 1933 to 2023 was published by Allen Lane in 2023.
The transcript of the lecture is available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/cities-bankrupt
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