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London
- Mike Raco, Frances Brill
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- Published by:
- Agenda Publishing
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- 20 January 2024
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- 28 July 2022
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As one of the fastest growing cities in Europe, London has become a mass generator of employment and a magnet for inward migration. Yet London is also a divided city, whose expansion has generated many planning challenges.
This book explores the tensions, complexities and difficulties in mobilizing policy agendas in London, but it also argues that public policy still matters and makes a significant difference to outcomes. The authors show how the market-led development of London has meant that the state supports more private-sector-led governance and this has given rise to widespread privatization of the city's decision-making processes and policy implementation. As a key command and control centre in the global economy, London's privatized model has become one for other megacities to emulate.
8 - Major infrastructure projects: building, financing and delivering the Thames Tideway Tunnel and Crossrail
- Mike Raco, University College London, Frances Brill, Girton College, Cambridge
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- London
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- Agenda Publishing
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- 20 January 2024
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- 28 July 2022, pp 159-176
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Summary
In this chapter we examine the governance, financing and management of the two largest infrastructure projects currently underway in London: the Thames Tideway Tunnel (TTT) and the Crossrail scheme (now called the Elizabeth Line). Both reflect the London model and have come into being through negotiations between multiple levels of government and global parastate delivery agencies and financiers. As noted throughout the book, the undergoverned nature of London's political institutions means that it has been down to national government to initiate and support the projects financially and legislatively. Mayors and other city actors, such as London First, have played the role of lobbyists, calling for additional funds through narratives of spatial justice and need. In this respect they reflect the broader shift in national spending on infrastructure towards London on the grounds that it supports the only major global centre in the UK that is capable of “competing” internationally for new forms of investment.
At the same time, the projects generate lucrative commercial opportunities for parastate agencies to make financial returns and to use London's built environments as an “asset base” for the mobilization of private capital and debt. We show how companies have become involved and how they are shaping London's infrastructures to meet their financial needs. The projects are especially attractive opportunities for institutional investment by “patient” capital, much of it from international sources, and have been funded in part for their sustainability credentials, while diverting attention away from wider questions over whether or not such growth is desirable and/or who benefits from it.
We begin with the building of the TTT before moving on to the case of Crossrail. In each we discuss the emergence of the projects, who has been behind them and who benefits.
The Thames Tideway Tunnel: the emergence of the project
The 25km TTT “super sewer” is due to be completed in 2024, although it is now anticipated that there will be a significant delay because of the Covid- 19 pandemic (Mayor of London 2020b). National government gave development consent on 12 September 2014 and its financing comes from: £1.3 billion of private shareholder funds up front; a £1 billion revolving credit facility provided by investors; £0.7 billion from the European Investment Bank as an RPI index-linked loan; and £0.45 billion forward start index- linked bonds (Tideway Ltd 2017).
1 - Planning in the shadow of the market: the emergence of a London model
- Mike Raco, University College London, Frances Brill, Girton College, Cambridge
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- London
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- Agenda Publishing
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- 20 January 2024
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- 28 July 2022, pp 1-20
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Summary
This book addresses what, on the face of it, seems a straightforward question: who is governing London and how? Similar questions are being asked in cities and societies across the world in an era that is shaped by relentless processes of globalization, multiple crises and insecurities. The book is therefore an assessment of the governance arrangements that shape the city's planning and development, who controls them and whose interests they serve (and whose they do not). We show that over recent decades there has been a slow but steady corrosion of the public realm, in which powers, resources and responsibilities have been voluntarily ceded to a range of players at multiple scales, found mainly in the private sector. There is a lot to be learned from London. It is a context in which there has been a deliberate and purposeful agenda to generate dependency on private finance and service providers. All planning deliberations and political choices are now conducted in the shadow of the market, with an eye to what these new groups of players – what we term the parastate – want and need. There is nothing inevitable about what has happened. We begin by setting out the “simple story” that dominates policy and (some) academic thinking about London before turning to some of the wider difficulties that policymakers, businesses and citizens increasingly face in the wake of decades of change.
London's simple story: from the city of decline to the triumphant city
During the 2000s many hailed London's economic and demographic expansion as an archetype of a broader narrative of urban triumphalism. For a range of commentators, politicians, academics and planners its recent experiences can be captured in a simple story of change that explains the much- lauded transformation from an earlier period of structural decline. The story begins with a view of its imperial past that acted as a driver of growth in the early modern and industrial eras but left the city ill- suited to the demands of post-war economic and social change. Its urban environments were characterized by poorly planned and maintained infrastructure, with dilapidated housing and commercial property stock and a misfunctioning post war welfare state that had been responsible for the delivery of poor- quality modernist estates and declining private sector dynamism.
References
- Mike Raco, University College London, Frances Brill, Girton College, Cambridge
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- London
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- Agenda Publishing
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- 20 January 2024
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- 28 July 2022, pp 197-212
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2 - Public regulation and planning for the global city
- Mike Raco, University College London, Frances Brill, Girton College, Cambridge
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- London
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- Agenda Publishing
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- 20 January 2024
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- 28 July 2022, pp 21-50
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Summary
This book addresses what, on the face of it, seems a straightforward question: who is governing London and how? Similar questions are being asked in cities and societies across the world in an era that is shaped by relentless processes of globalization, multiple crises and insecurities. The book is therefore an assessment of the governance arrangements that shape the city's planning and development, who controls them and whose interests they serve (and whose they do not). We show that over recent decades there has been a slow but steady corrosion of the public realm, in which powers, resources and responsibilities have been voluntarily ceded to a range of players at multiple scales, found mainly in the private sector. There is a lot to be learned from London. It is a context in which there has been a deliberate and purposeful agenda to generate dependency on private finance and service providers. All planning deliberations and political choices are now conducted in the shadow of the market, with an eye to what these new groups of players – what we term the parastate – want and need. There is nothing inevitable about what has happened. We begin by setting out the “simple story” that dominates policy and (some) academic thinking about London before turning to some of the wider difficulties that policymakers, businesses and citizens increasingly face in the wake of decades of change.
London's simple story: from the city of decline to the triumphant city
During the 2000s many hailed London's economic and demographic expansion as an archetype of a broader narrative of urban triumphalism. For a range of commentators, politicians, academics and planners its recent experiences can be captured in a simple story of change that explains the much- lauded transformation from an earlier period of structural decline. The story begins with a view of its imperial past that acted as a driver of growth in the early modern and industrial eras but left the city ill- suited to the demands of post-war economic and social change. Its urban environments were characterized by poorly planned and maintained infrastructure, with dilapidated housing and commercial property stock and a misfunctioning post war welfare state that had been responsible for the delivery of poor- quality modernist estates and declining private sector dynamism.
4 - Political representation, community politics and the right to regulate
- Mike Raco, University College London, Frances Brill, Girton College, Cambridge
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- London
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- Agenda Publishing
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- 20 January 2024
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- 28 July 2022, pp 77-94
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Summary
London is a city with a long history of radical locally based social movements involved in battles against specific schemes or the activities of public organizations (Ashe, Virdee & Brown 2016; Rosenberg 2015). However, as outlined in Chapters 2 and 3, civil society and community groups in the contemporary city have found themselves caught up in sweeping changes to state systems, modes of political representation and the transformation of urban environments.
It is no longer only local government, public agencies and politicians that are the targets of protest. Instead, the focus has returned to addressing basic questions around what is governed and who is governing, such as: how can and should community groups organize themselves politically in a context in which much of the social infrastructure of places is owned, financed and managed by private actors, working through professionally mediated contracts? And in a city in which the public sector's role and influence has been corroded, where should the focus of political action and campaigns be targeted? Moreover, how can parastate actors be identified and made accountable for their actions when they are operating under contracts and deliberations are subject to strict rules around commercial confidentiality? Under contemporary governance conditions, it is not always clear, even to those working in the public sector or parastate agencies, where their expertise and/or organization fits within wider arrangements.
This chapter discusses the political and regulatory landscapes in which civil society groups and social movements now operate. It develops the discussion in three parts. First, it examines the continued relevance and importance of representative political structures in the city. While narratives of urban political change have focused less on “outdated” representative structures (Du Gay & Lopdrup- Hjorth 2016), in London they continue to have significance. The London boroughs are still key players in shaping modes of representation and authority. Later chapters on housing and tall buildings show that there are significant variations in their approaches to planning and development, and the extent to which they address resident/community politics. However, it is also clear that borough level regulation is increasingly inadequate for deal-ing with the challenges of coordination raised by the growth of the parastate and contemporary forms of community representation and need.
7 - Planning for tall buildings: global ambitions and local discontents
- Mike Raco, University College London, Frances Brill, Girton College, Cambridge
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- London
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- Agenda Publishing
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- 20 January 2024
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- 28 July 2022, pp 141-158
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Summary
London's skyline changed radically during the 2000s. In this respect it has much in common with megacities around the world in which the expansion of tall buildings, both for residential and commercial use, has become a defining feature of twenty- first- century urban growth. By 2019, London already had 360 blocks of 20 storeys or more, with a further 510 schemes in the planning pipeline (New London Architecture 2019). Ninety per cent of these are residential (CTBUH 2021), with investors increasingly drawn to the potential profits that housing can make.
However, few planning issues have proved more divisive and London's discretionary and opportunity- based territorial planning system has consistently struggled to provide a coherent strategic overview of how and where such buildings should be placed, and what purposes they should serve. For advocates of a London model their presence is symbolic of the city's openness, pre- eminence and expansion. In more practical terms they provide new commercial and residential spaces that enable the economy and population to grow within a relatively constrained urban environment. Perhaps most significantly they are presented by London model advocates as being representative of future vision for megacities, with claims made that London's planners have much to learn from growing metropolises across the world – notably iconic cities like Dubai and Shanghai – in which tall buildings now dominate urban development.
And yet for critics, their construction is both functionally and aesthetically damaging to London. They decry such forms of development as piecemeal and corrosive of the city's traditional urban landscapes. In the face of new forms of finance and mega- scale proposals, planners, policymakers and citizens have found that established planning regulations are increasingly inadequate and unable to exert control over developers and investors.
In the words of the pressure group the Skyline Campaign (2014: 1) “this fundamental transformation is taking place with a shocking lack of public awareness, consultation or debate. Planning and political systems are proving inadequate to protect the valued qualities of London, or to provide a coherent and positive vision for the future skyline.” Others such as Transparency International (2020) have undertaken powerful in- depth studies of how London's deal- based planning system opens up opportunities for corrupt practices, especially in permissions over tall buildings.
6 - London’s housing crisis and emergence of new residential landscapes
- Mike Raco, University College London, Frances Brill, Girton College, Cambridge
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- London
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- Agenda Publishing
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- 20 January 2024
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- 28 July 2022, pp 117-140
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Summary
In this chapter we address how a London model of development limits the capacity of both the planning system and the market to provide adequate housing. The topic has come to dominate wider debates over the politics of planning to such an extent that for many citizens and groups it is what planning is concerned with.
Much of what has taken place in recent years was unimagined in the 1990s when organizations such as the LPAC saw a global growth model as being primarily about economic and commercial development. It was imagined that the city's planning system should facilitate growth and that there would be a moderate increase in population as workers were attracted to new employment opportunities. However, as we have seen in earlier chapters, the scale of demographic change eclipsed what was predicted. Allied to this was a growing financialization of housing in national and international markets. A combination of these factors generated a housing crisis that is more intense and extreme than that found in almost any comparable city in the world.
As we will see in this chapter, a large part of the problem relates to who is governing housing and how. In line with broader changes, private developers now largely provide housing, with the vast majority built by big volume house builders, most notably by Barrett and Berkley Homes. Local authorities traditionally provided affordable housing, a contested term (discussed below), but more recently responsibility has been transferred to private developers and not- for- profit housing associations and other agencies subsidized by state funds. These have been further supplemented, since 2012, by the creation of arms- length local housing companies, which are owned solely by local authorities but are able to leverage private capital. The most significant examples of these agencies are listed in Table 6.1.
We begin by outlining the state of private housing markets – both owner-occupied and rental – and the extent of London's housing crisis. In particular, we grapple with how the roll- out of supply- stimulating policies and incremental changes to tenant rights have had only a minimal impact in tackling hous-ing needs and have often made matters worse.
Acknowledgements
- Mike Raco, University College London, Frances Brill, Girton College, Cambridge
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- London
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- Agenda Publishing
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- 20 January 2024
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- 28 July 2022, pp vii-viii
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3 - Private regulation, governance and the rise of the parastate
- Mike Raco, University College London, Frances Brill, Girton College, Cambridge
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- London
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- Agenda Publishing
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- 20 January 2024
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- 28 July 2022, pp 51-76
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Summary
Much of the writing on governance arrangements in London starts with the common- sense assumption that power and responsibilities lie with formal organizations, and that governance practices reflect how powers and resources are distributed between these organizations (Gordon 2018; Travers 2002). Discussions tend to focus on public/private partnerships and/or the networks of actors operating in different sectors, but still working within a clearly defined public sector context, which is taken to be relatively open and subject to systematic analysis.
Such approaches assume that formal actors, operating through hierarchies or command- based structures, use “imperative coordination in pursuit of substantive collective goals set from above … [and] prioritise the effective pursuit of successful policy goals” (Jessop 2016: 167). In other words, the process of policymaking is still thought to operate within traditional organizational structures; that is, policymakers establish objectives and programmes of action, such as the London Plans discussed in Chapter 2, these are delivered by executive arms of the state incorporating a range of actors and, while at times delivery is coordinated through networks with private or voluntary sector groups, the primary responsibility for public policy rests with governments.
This common- sense approach fails to recognize the structural shifts that have occurred in the organization and management of the state itself and how these directly impact the governance of megacities. As noted in Chapter 1, the London model is driven by priorities that increasingly rely on private sector resources, legal codes and knowledge practices. In a growing number of policy fields, what were formally state- run activities are now conducted, managed and delivered by private companies and the range of professional organizations that shape their conduct, in line with nationally and internationally recognized norms and rules.
This is happening on an unprecedented scale, to the extent that it is increasingly unclear who is governing and what is governed, and for what purpose. Critical writers have highlighted the expanding role of the private sector in the delivery of urban projects or in forming alliances with public sector elites. However, the context we describe is one of a more structural set of interactions in which some of the separations between the public and private sectors have effectively dissolved away.
Contents
- Mike Raco, University College London, Frances Brill, Girton College, Cambridge
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- London
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- Agenda Publishing
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- 20 January 2024
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- 28 July 2022, pp v-vi
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Index
- Mike Raco, University College London, Frances Brill, Girton College, Cambridge
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- London
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- Agenda Publishing
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- 20 January 2024
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- 28 July 2022, pp 213-220
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9 - Planning without growth: what next for the London model?
- Mike Raco, University College London, Frances Brill, Girton College, Cambridge
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- London
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- Agenda Publishing
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- 20 January 2024
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- 28 July 2022, pp 177-196
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Summary
The book started with a simple question – who is governing London and how? While much of the writing on megacities limits itself to formal policymaking structures, we have argued that a closer examination of these wider governance questions should be at the heart of any analysis (Le Gales & Vitale 2013). The chapters have charted structural shifts in the organization and management of the state. What were formally state- run activities are now conducted, managed and delivered by a panoply of private sector companies, professional organizations and parastate actors. Private law codes, mobilized at multiple scales, shape the business of megacity governance in unprecedented and underanalysed ways. Elite lobbyists and interests battle for attention and influence. The result is that there is both a crisis emerging in the delivery capacities of policy systems and their accountability and manageability.
It is increasingly unclear who is governing and what is governed in the common- sense understandings of the terms. And while for decades critical writers have focused on the growing role of the private sector in the delivery of urban projects, and in forming regimes and alliances with public sector elites, the context we describe is one of a more structural set of changes in which some of the separations between the public and private sectors have become more porous.
In this final chapter we highlight some of the inbuilt vulnerabilities of the London model and the structural risks that it now faces. First, we highlight the growing significance of the climate emergency and the capacity of the city's governance arrangements to develop the strategies and interventions necessary for building resilient urban environments. As with all aspects of the model, much of the longer- term planning and investment is being left to the private sector and parastate organizations to deliver and coordinate. No issue better reflects the structural problems of governability brought about by decades of reform.
Second, we highlight some of the impacts of Brexit on London's planning and development and the risks it poses to the growth models and certainties embedded in London Plans since the turn of the millennium.
Frontmatter
- Mike Raco, University College London, Frances Brill, Girton College, Cambridge
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- London
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- Agenda Publishing
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- 20 January 2024
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- 28 July 2022, pp i-iv
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5 - Governing the development, financing and funding of the London model
- Mike Raco, University College London, Frances Brill, Girton College, Cambridge
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- London
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- Agenda Publishing
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- 20 January 2024
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- 28 July 2022, pp 95-116
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In this chapter we analyse new forms of funding and financing of the London model and what they mean for governing the city. As noted in Chapter 1, the model itself emerged partly in response to the presence of global and national finance seeking out new opportunities in urban property markets. But as Özogul and Tasan- Kok (2020) argue, when seeking to understand investors and developers it is necessary to unpack the diversity of practices and approaches they employ and the ways in which they navigate the complexity of places and planning systems. Specifically, we look at the rise of patient capital by examining four types of investor: pension funds, sovereign wealth funds (SWFs), property- specific real estate investment trusts (REITs) and then address more predatory forms of finance. We highlight how these newly significant investors have transformed the relationships between the public and private sectors.
The growth of new forms of funding and finance has come hand in hand with the rise of development by project mentalities. Boroughs and the mayors’ executive bodies increasingly view the pursuit of projects as a means of generating financial autonomy in a context of budget cuts from national government and the constant shrinkage of locally determined regulatory powers and responsibilities. In this way, the ideological work of the London model manifests in how the visible presence of projects is presented as a win- win form of planning through which the city's residents and businesses benefit from new growth, in terms of jobs and economic opportunities, while at the same time meeting social and environmental objectives. Growth also creates the funds to introduce better designed and more sustainable urban built environments, often delivered by private sector consultants and experts.
However, we show that far from generating financial autonomy for government bodies or signalling a wider renaissance in localism within London, the shift towards project- led planning has taken the mechanisms of competition and insecurity that exist within financial markets and internalized them directly into the functioning of the public sector. The analysis of these new investment landscapes and actors, and in particular the types of assets they are looking for, demonstrates the limitations of planning and the need for a more holistic approach to urban management that is capable of attending to a diversity of opinions and approaches and therefore is able to regulate this heterogeneity.