Regenerating London

Governance, Sustainability and Community in a Global City

Rob Imrie, Loretta Lees, Mike Raco

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2009
• ISBN:
  9781134080748
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Arquitectura
• Subtopic: Planificación urbana y paisajismo

Regenerating London explores latest thinking on urban regeneration in one of the fastest changing world cities. Engaging with social, economic, and political structures of cities, it highlights paradoxes and contradictions in urban policy and offers an evaluation of the contemporary forms of urban redevelopment.

Part I
The dimensions of urban change in London

Chapter 1
London’s regeneration

Rob Imrie, Loretta Lees and Mike Raco

Introduction

Here is a city of diversity. The contrasts which can be found are more extreme than those of most other cities, for overlaid on locally inspired social and geographical differentiations that are intrinsic to all cities are the intensifying and complicating forces of the capital’s national and international roles.

(Hoggart, 1991: 5)

Nearly twenty years ago now, colleagues of ours in Geography at King’s College London published an edited volume titled London: A New Metropolitan Geography (Hoggart and Green, 1991). In that book, they argued that London was being ‘renewed’ at a rapid pace. In this book, we show that the pace has stepped up significantly and in qualitatively different ways. Hoggart and Green (1991) suggested that inner London was not being ‘Americanised’, or becoming a polarised or working-class city. They argued instead that the real risk was of inner London becoming gentrified and almost exclusively reserved for middle to upper income and/or class strata. In this book, which is focused specifically on regeneration in London, we explore the growing tensions between a globally focused growth agenda and the broader pressures associated with the city’s social reproduction, such as housing affordability, sustainability and the provision of public services.

The rationale for the book is to advance understanding of London through the context of urban regeneration, a topic that has barely been a subject matter or topic of concern. Thus, there is a plethora of books about social and economic changes in London, and much exploration of urban and regional planning policies and programmes, but little within this genre that focuses on the specificities of urban regeneration (see, for example, Buck et al., 2002; Hall, 1989; Thornley, 1992). Likewise, much has been written about the social histories of London, and there are numerous literary accounts of the life and times of London’s population (Ackroyd, 2000; Hall, 2007; Picard, 1997; Porter, 1989; Rasmussen, 1960). This book seeks to build on these contributions by developing the argument that the making of London’s geographies has always been related closely to interventions in, and actions upon, physical spaces in the capital and, as such, much more focus on the topic is warranted.

In this book we use the term ‘urban regeneration’ as a normative concept that is rooted in British urban policy. It refers to those policies and strategies that have been designed to deal with urban decline, decay and social and economic transformation in London. Urban regeneration implies an integrated perspective on the problems and potentials of cities. Roberts (2000: 17) defines it as a ‘comprehensive and integrated vision and action which leads to the resolution of urban problems and which seeks to bring about a lasting improvement in the economic, physical, social and environmental condition of an area that has been subject to change’. Couch et al. (2003: 2) state that urban regeneration is ‘concerned with the re-growth of economic activity where it has been lost; the restoration of social function where there has been dysfunction, or social inclusion where there has been exclusion; and the restoration of environmental quality or ecological balance where it has been lost’.

The chapters in the book seek to develop, in a variety of ways, at least three interrelated understandings of urban regeneration in London. First, policy approaches to London’s regeneration have to be understood as part of the capital’s interplay with broader, national state policy programmes and forms of restructuring of welfare provision. In Cochrane’s (2007) terms, urban, spatial, policies and programmes are closely entwined with (national) social policy measures and interventions. Second, the regeneration of London has also to be set, and understood, within the broadcloth of international relations and transnational processes relating to the capital’s position as a global city and as a pre-eminent player in the global economy. Third, while in aggregate terms urban regeneration in London seems to be successful in facilitating economic and cultural regeneration, it is faring much less well in terms of social inclusion and social sustainability, and may well be implicated in contributing to the widening of social and economic inequalities.

As such, much of the rhetoric, and some of the substance, of urban regeneration in London is connected to attaining sustainability as the basis to solving economic, social and environmental problems. This commitment is influenced by the complexity, even the uniqueness, of London’s social and economic contexts, and by a politics of urban change that, in Dikeç’s (2007) terms, requires an analysis of regeneration as part of a political project of active state and corporate interventions in social and welfare spending programmes. Such interventions, while influenced by the specific geographies of London, do not preclude possibilities of policy learning and we hope that by outlining and discussing a number of urban regeneration programmes in London (some of which have been completed, some of which are still underway, some that are large scale and some small scale) the book will inform ideas about, and practices of, regeneration elsewhere.

This introductory chapter sets the context for the volume by outlining the key dimensions of London’s regeneration, and discussing the ways in which they are entwined with, and influenced by, what we argue are the core concerns of contemporary urban regeneration policies: sustainability, community and the governance of policy delivery. We divide the chapter into five further parts. First, we outline the main dimensions of urban regeneration in London, and highlight some of the key continuities and changes in the city’s development politics and strategies, and the role of regeneration projects in reflecting and reproducing London’s socio-economic geographies. This is followed by three sections that consider, respectively, the ways in which London’s regeneration is influenced by issues of sustainability, community and governance. We conclude by outlining the structure and content of the book’s chapters.

The dimensions of regeneration in London

The making of London’s socio-cultural and political geographies has always been related closely to interventions in, and actions upon, its physical spaces. London changed out of all recognition during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as a result of major building and infrastructure projects. Developments, such as the construction of the railways, contributed to the displacement of tens of thousands of people and heralded the opening up of new working-class neighbourhoods or ‘railway suburbs’, such as East Ham and Walthamstow. London was also a focal point for mega projects, and during this period, major public places, streets and buildings were constructed, including Regent Street, the Crystal Palace, the National Gallery and the British Museum. Such was the ferment and pace of change that contemporary observers lamented that the city’s character was being lost as ‘there is always building and rebuilding’ (Ackroyd, 2000: 522; see also Hunt, 2004).

This observation has parallels with more recent, post-1945 phases of building and urban regeneration, in which a host of design, development and construction processes have been at the heart of the capital’s changing social and economic geographies. Patrick Abercrombie’s plan for London, published in 1944, set a context for population dispersal and the building of major inner city housing estates. Later, in the 1950s, prestige projects dotted the London landscape, with major new buildings, such as the Royal Festival Hall, defining the city’s character. By the mid 1960s, London’s global dominance was increasingly manifest in the construction of new property, a trend that intensified in the 1980s. Today, London’s landscape is peppered with major regeneration sites and schemes, and the propagation of a range of infrastructure and renewal projects, such as Cross Rail, the Olympic Games, Paddington Basin and King’s Cross. These are, arguably, as ambitious, if not more so, than some of the predecessors of earlier periods.

These ambitions are part of a broader socio-political process in London that places urban regeneration at the fulcrum of the capital’s economic competitiveness. Like cities elsewhere, regeneration is being ‘put to work’ by politicians as part of a strategy to remove obstacles to economic growth and to create the social and physical infrastructure required to compete for inward investment. There is nothing new about this. It is part of a continuing emphasis in London’s recent regeneration history, or what Cochrane (2007) describes as a ‘growth first’ logic. The attainment of such status is being driven by major property-led regeneration, characterised by the provision of urban infrastructure, such as roads, office parks, retail centres, new dwellings and telecommunications. These interventions, so the regeneration logic goes, will enable London to engage in place marketing, diversify local labour and housing markets, and capture flows of global investment.

Such sentiments are part of policy approaches that conceive of regeneration as closely entwined with globalisation and London’s global city status. Mayor Johnson (and Mayor Livingstone before him) and the coterie of politicians and policy officials in the Department of Communities and Local Government (DCLG), Greater London Authority (GLA) and the London Development Agency (LDA) subscribe to a particular narrative about London’s global development. Beck (1996: 17) refers to this narrative as ‘globalism’, that is, an ideology based on ‘the naive idea that the world market is the patent medicine for all of society’s ills’. On the front page of the LDA’s (2008a) website it is suggested that ‘it’s our job to ensure that London remains a global success story’. For the LDA, it is clear that London is ‘a global city both in a world-class league but also increasingly in a league of its own. It is faced with the challenges and opportunities that are presented by being in that class’ (LDA, 2008b).

The global city emphasis here extends to urban policy and the role of regeneration projects as catalysts for the city’s growth. Growth is conceived of as part of interlocking spatial scales, in which a cascade or trickle-down of economic benefits will follow from the inflow of investment. In the GLA’s (2004a: 3) terms, ‘The Mayor, London Development Agency and Transport for London will … ensure that the development of London as a global business centre supports the spatial and economic development of Europe and the UK and that London’s growth supports the future growth of the core cities.’ This growth logic is aligned to specific spatial plans and strategies that have identified twenty-eight ‘opportunity areas’ as sites where growth is to be concentrated and special efforts made to spread the benefits of development to (deprived) local communities. The sites include King’s Cross, Shoreditch, Elephant and Castle, Wembley, Paddington and the Isle of Dogs.

These pronouncements suggest that the globalism agenda is part of a development politics in London based on ‘picking winners’ and investments in selective, strategic infrastructure projects. As Brenner (2004) notes, states and development agencies are increasingly focusing on new rounds of spatial selectivity in which those areas and sectors that are seen to be successful are being supported through new rounds of state spending and macroeconomic support. The sentiments expressed by the GLA are a manifestation of this development politics. It presents a case for further state investment in the capital to off-set a number of ‘costs’ associated with its recent expansion and development, and to provide some ‘distributional justice’ in terms of national government spending patterns and priorities. The argument is that London’s future development and sustainability should be a national priority if the UK’s wider economic competitiveness is to be maintained. In short, spatial policy’s role is not to redistribute resources across the space economy but to select and support places that are ‘global winners’ (see also Jones, 1997).

This approach to regeneration is not without contradictions, not least in relation to the sustainability of the manufacturing base of the capital. The spatial development plan for London notes that ‘in the highly competitive London land market, manufacturing, wholesale distribution and a number of other industrial activities rely on the planning system to sustain adequate development capacity to meet their strategic needs’. However, as later chapters show, there are tensions between the global development imaginations being put forward and the need to create alternative spaces for different types of industries and activities. The role of manufacturing and ‘bad neighbour’ firms, for instance, is understated in, and even written out of, the globalism discourse. They have been airbrushed out of policy imaginations and frameworks to the extent that predictions of their demise become self-fulfilling prophecies (see Berry et al., 1968; Imrie et al., 1995).

At the same time, there is a growing recognition, at least in policy discourses, that regeneration is not reducible solely to a physical product or process. Organisations like the World Bank (2002) suggest that the facilitation of city competitiveness requires the regeneration of dated social and political organisations, and a policy emphasis on developing the skills and competencies of urban populations by recourse to social capital building programmes. In this context, the understanding of what regeneration is, or ought to be, is interlinked to education and labour market programmes, and other supply-side policies that provide a basis for urban competitiveness. The LDA (2006: 6) is in the vanguard of this process, and has recently restated the case: ‘It is broadly recognised that for London to be a sustainable world-class city, it must ensure that all of its residents have the opportunity to make a positive contribution to London’s economic performance and success.’

This observation is part of a political and policy context that conceives of regeneration as propagating the socially inclusive city, in which people will be provided with the resources to help them to gain access to the opportunities provided by the capital’s economic growth. This formulation is interesting for the way that it places an onus on individuals to acquire competencies and skills that, in turn, will permit them, so it is alleged, to share in the fruits of economic growth. Regeneration, in this formula, eschews a re-distributive (economic) model for one that revolves around individuals’ adaptability to the market opportunities that the ‘growth first’ logic is generating for London. This chimes with New Labour’s broader exhortations for citizens to become ‘active’ in regeneration, in which communities ‘must be fully engaged in the process from the start and … everyone must be included’ (DETR, 2000a: 4; see also section 4 below).

Regeneration, through capacity building of this type, represents an active process of making people and making places, and much of this in London is occurring through specific institutional, political and legal processes, usually interventions in spatial development by powerful state and corporate organisations and networks. These can be thought of, in part, as ‘practices of articulation’, in which, as Dikeç (2007: 9) suggests, particular spaces, and particular people within those spaces, become ‘constituted as objects of urban policy intervention’. The spaces of regeneration in London are constituted in a variety of ways, including what Dean (2007) characterises as the exercise of authoritarian liberalism, in which the propagation of models of social pathology, and punishment of deviant groups and individuals, are to the fore. Thus, neighbourhood renewal programmes include ‘punitive sovereignty’ and ‘target hardening’ programmes that seek to clear the streets of particular groups, while securing them for conspicuous consumption.

The emphasis on social control within London’s regeneration politics is, we would argue, particularly salient in a context where juxtaposed inequalities and processes of social polarisation are greater than in any comparable city in Europe (see Hamnett, 2003; May et al., 2007). As Power and Houghton (2007: 114) argue ‘London is by far the most complex, most diverse and most socially mixed city in Britain – a jigsaw of such vast scale and minuscule pieces that no one quite grasps its totality’. This complexity and diversity is growing with the dramatic turnaround in London’s population. From its peak of 8.6 million in 1939 the city consistently lost population in the post-war period, in large part because of active central government decentralisation programmes (for example the Abercrombie Plan). By 1983 it stood at just 6.8 million and only in 1989 did the population start to grow again. However, by 2006 London’s population was estimated to be 7.57 million and the projections are that by 2026 it could reach 8.7 million. London’s diversity is one of its greatest historical and contemporary strengths. Today it is one of the world’s most multi-racial cities with 25 per cent of its population foreign born and over 300 languages spoken by London’s schoolchildren (GLA, 2004a).

The city’s growing material divisions match this breadth of social diversity. Despite the strength of London’s financial services and claims that ‘London is by far the wealthiest area of the European Union’ (Government Office for London, 2008: 1), large parts of the city have yet to recover from the de-industrialisation of the 1970s and 1980s in which approximately 500,000 jobs disappeared (Turok and Edge, 1998). The GLA’s survey of inequalities across the city in 2002 painted a bleak picture (GLA, 2002a). Despite ten years of sustained economic growth, over a third of children (36 per cent) and 30 per cent of working adults in inner London were living in poverty. Black and minority ethnic (BME) communities have suffered disproportionately from marginalisation, with 73 per cent of Pakistani and Bangladeshi children, for example, growing up in poor households, and employment rates amongst all BME communities averaging only 59 per cent. The contrasts in official unemployment figures for London also make powerful reading, with a rate of only 5.1 per cent for ‘white’ Londoners, as compared to 24.1 per cent for Bangladeshis and 18.9 per cent for Black Africans.

At the same time as inner London contains the highest concentrations of professional and highly paid employment positions in the country, overall unemployment rates are 9.5 per cent, the highest of any sub-region of England and in 2007 four inner London boroughs were listed amongst the top ten most deprived local authority areas in England (see figure 1.1). Whilst much of the attention has been on these spatial and ethnic divisions, it should be noted that material inequalities are manifest in other ways. The gender pay gap in London, for example, is greater than in Great Britain as a whole, with the full-time average pay of female workers being only 77 per cent that of males. The quality and provision of education varies enormously with only 41 per cent of children in the inner London borough of Greenwich achieving five or more A–C Grades at GCSE level as compared to the English average of 57 per cent and that of outer London boroughs, such as Redbridge, where the figure is 71.7 per cent (Mayor of London, 2007).

It is important to recognise that since the early 1980s regeneration policy has not only failed to address such inequalities but has also played a significant role in creating and reproducing them. In some ways there have been real and tangible successes. New development landscapes have emerged in London, often on de-industrialised sites, and the long-term population decline of the city has been reversed. However, the extent to which this has improved the quality of life for the majority of the city’s residents is highly questionable. Perhaps the best example of regeneration policy’s failures can be found in Tower Hamlets where inequalities have mushroomed despite public and private sector investment of over £10 billion in the Canary Wharf development and the in-migration or creation of over 80,000 jobs. A report in 2005, for example, found that ‘the average pay of a male worker in the parliamentary constituency that includes London’s Canary Wharf financial district rose 22 per cent to more than £101,000’ (Thornton, 2005: 1).

In contrast, two-thirds of Tower Hamlet’s children are growing up in households officially defined as ‘poor’ and economic inactivity rates are as high as 46 per cent (Borough of Tower H...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Preface
• Notes on the editors
• Notes on the contributors
• Part I: The dimensions of urban change in London
• Part II: Prestige projects and the sustainable city
• Part III: Sustainability, inclusion and social mixing
• Part IV: Community governance and urban change
• Part V: Conclusions
• Bibliography