Assembling the Healthopolis: Competitive city‐regionalism and policy boosterism pushing Greater Manchester further, faster

Health and care policy is increasingly promoted within visions of the competitive city‐region. This paper examines the importance of policy boosterism within the political construction of city‐regions in the context of English devolution. Based on a two‐year case study of health and social care devolution in Greater Manchester, England, we trace the relational and territorial geographies of policy across and through new “devolved” city‐regional arrangements. Contributing to geographical debates on policy assemblages and city‐regionalism, we advance a conceptual framework linking crisis and opportunity, emulation and exceptionalism, and evidence and experimentation. The paper makes two key contributions. First, we argue health and care policy is increasingly drawn towards the logic of global competitiveness without being wholly defined by neoliberal political agendas. Fostering transnational policy networks helped embed global “best practice” policies while simultaneously hailing Greater Manchester as a place beyond compare. Second, we caution against positioning the city‐region solely at the receiving end of devolutionary austerity. Rather, we illustrate how the urgency of devolution was conditioned by crisis, yet concomitantly framed as a unique opportunity by the local state harnessing policy to negotiate a more fluid politics of scale. In doing so, the paper demonstrates how attempts to resolve the “local problem” of governing health and care under austerity were rearticulated as a “global opportunity” to forge new connections between place, health, and economy. Consequently, we foreground the multiple tensions and contradictions accumulating through turning to health and care to push Greater Manchester further, faster. The paper concludes by asking what the present crisis might mean for city‐regions in good health and turbulent times

Making Madlab : a creative space for innovation and creating prototypes

This paper presents Manchester Digital Laboratory (MadLab) as an “organisation as prototype” in terms of its innovation; emphasising its permeability to external collaboration and internal structure. We present the accumulation of experience and inspiration found in this organisational prototype as a significant development with as much social impact as any single material invention. Few organisations are held up as examples of organisational prototypes although notable exceptions such as Apple Computers and Factory Records do exist. Few of these examples offer a systematic accounting for the basis of organisational innovation and its application elsewhere. This work sets out to understand how inspirations drawn from sources such as literature and popular media and seemingly disparate personal ideas and skills, through processes of invention and innovation can become the basis for a sustainable organisation capable of creating value. In this manner we present MadLab as a prototype that is the product of the personal interests and motivations of the directors and their influences — including science fiction. Whilst the directors did not consciously engage in Science Fiction Prototyping we present their actions, organisational structure and collaboration as a model for the realisation of organisational Science Fiction Prototyping. This empirical study focusses on MadLab; its short history, its people, its activities and the intersecting creative influences on the different groups that make up the organisation. The understanding gained of this organisational prototype is then considered within a more generalised view of organisation types and their potential to create value and achieve long-term viability

Litter, gender and brand: The anticipation of incivilities and perceptions of crime prevalence

This paper isolates litter as a physical incivility in a film-based experiment, demonstrating the impact of litter on participants' anticipation of a wide range of both physical and social incivilities, and on their perceptions of crime prevalence. Such relationships have not previously been examined, partly because litter has rarely been the focus of earlier studies on incivilities. This paper also tests for possible interaction effects in these relationships involving gender (finding no significant interaction), as well as examining whether there is a difference in the anticipation of incivilities and perceptions of crime prevalence between participants exposed to branded as opposed to unbranded litter (finding no difference between the two groups). Litter is often viewed as a tolerable nuisance and not always treated as a priority. This study suggests prioritising funds towards more targeted interventions to reduce litter might result in some ‘quick wins’ – most notably, reducing perceptions of crime prevalenc

Article announcing the 1971 shortlist: Part 8

Cuttings referring to Booker Prize shortlist, including announcemen

Article announcing the winner of the 1971 prize: Part 22

Articles and cuttings announcing the winner of the 1971 Booker Priz

Article mentioning the 1971 prize winner: Part 3

Articles and cuttings announcing the winner of the 1971 Booker Priz