Urban assets and the financialisation fix: land tenure, renewal and path dependency in the city of Birmingham

Cities are places of incremental decision-making involving complex negotiations that produce accumulations of urban assets and path dependency. The ownership, control and co-ordination of urban land and its transformation into an investment asset is a key link between economic interests and urban activities that come together in site-based “financialisation fixes”. A financialisation fix combines a development solution for a specific site with a financial model creating a locally embedded asset. This article examines how land tenure (freehold versus leasehold rights) influences the transformation of a city and the role a local authority plays in the financial management of land assets. This includes an analysis of the application of financialisation to urban assets and the first tax increment financing scheme of 1875

John Smith's settlement? The work of the 1992-93 Labour Party-Trade Union Links Review Group

In this article, I examine the work of the 1992-1993 Labour party trade union links review group. I ask whether the measures it proposed amounted to a new, durable settlement which governed internal relationships within the party. I detail disagreements amongst trade unions over the format that parliamentary selections should take; I evaluate the demands for reform of the party-union link; I ask whether support for reform and for OMOV was falling in the early 1990s; I consider whether unions launched a ‘no say no pay campaign’ with regard to the Labour party; I assess how much restraint was demonstrated at this time by Labour’s affiliated unions; and I consider what might have been at stake in these debates more generally. I conclude that there was considerable antagonism in party-union relations during the early 1990s and that the work of the review group did not amount to an enduring settlemen