In December, Demos published Talk of the Town, the first part of a larger collaboration with the charity 4Children, focusing on the fortunes of the towns orbiting England's biggest cities.

We created an original index of socioeconomic performance, comprising measures of education, employment, health and wellbeing, and the built environment. The 30 indicators used ranged from qualification levels to adult obesity, rates of home ownership to bus availability. This allowed us to conduct a like-for-like comparison between 21 of England's largest cities and 42 towns. Two towns were assigned, on the basis of size and proximity, as ‘satellites' of each city in the index.