'Divercities': place-focused public policy and its impact on perceptions of diversity

What does diversity actually mean to citizens in different places, and how are these views influenced by policy choices? Mike Raco focuses on the importance of place in diversity politics and explains why public policy should focus far more on the creation of effective communities

Key Worker Housing, Welfare Reform and the New Spatial Policy in England

Under the Labour government the character of spatial policy in England has been subject to significant change. The emphasis has increasingly been on spatial policy as an active social policy. This paper uses the example of public sector key worker housing programmes in England to exemplify and analyse the character of these changes. It argues that the new approach also contains an explicit recognition that social policies can and should be re-oriented towards the wider objectives of accumulation and competitiveness and this has broader implications for the organisation and character of the welfare state

Community Strategies in England: Reshaping Spaces of Governance?

The preparation of Community Strategies (CS) has been required of LSPs and Local Authorities in England since the passing of the Local Government Act 2000. This paper examines the process and content of two Community Strategies in southern England as part of an ongoing project to understand their impact and explore ways that CSs may be carried through in a meaningful and effective manner. The paper concludes that the two CSs studied illustrate the challenge faced by LSPs in producing Strategies that are meaningful, inclusive and which follow the spirit of the government CS guidance. LAs and LSPs are also posed with a difficult challenge of seeing through an implicitly required transition from a traditional representative democratic structure/process with a more fluid participatory model. Thus we detect that at least two forms of conflict may arise – firstly with elected councillors threatened by a loss of power and secondly between communities and the LAs who are encouraged to problematise local policy and service delivery in the context of limited resource availability.

Sourcing and commodifying knowledge for investment and development in cities

In this paper we analyse the role of knowledge and research teams in urban development, drawing on the case of London’s residential market. We argue that in large real estate advisory firms, the brokers and consultants who mediate the arrival of investment into a particular site or city are reliant on research teams, which are often hidden from public awareness and under-researched in academic discussions. To acquire sufficient data to meet research demands, advisory firms have vertically integrated new types of knowledge through the acquisition of firms working “at the coal face”, exemplified by estate agencies. Firms commodify the knowledge acquired to reinforce an oligopoly of development consultancy in London. Ultimately, this role – helping other estate professionals navigate the politicized nature of residential development through research-driven work – increases the cost and complexity of urban development processes. Empirically, we critically interrogate: the ways in which knowledge practices are institutionalized at a corporate level and then integrated into wider development practices; the role of specific teams within these practices; and how such knowledge-based activities enable the active seeking out of new geographies of investment. Theoretically, this paper advances urban studies by demonstrating the complementary nature of quantitative and qualitative knowledge. It also uncovers, unpacks and evaluates the activities of under-researched parts of the real estate profession, consultancies, in turn suggesting the ways in which knowledge and expertise have consequences for urban development and investment

Sourcing and commodifying knowledge for investment and development in cities

In this paper we analyse the role of knowledge and research teams in urban development, drawing on the case of London’s residential market. We argue that in large real estate advisory firms, the brokers and consultants who mediate the arrival of investment into a particular site or city are reliant on research teams, which are often hidden from public awareness and under-researched in academic discussions. To acquire sufficient data to meet research demands, advisory firms have vertically integrated new types of knowledge through the acquisition of firms working “at the coal face”, exemplified by estate agencies. Firms commodify the knowledge acquired to reinforce an oligopoly of development consultancy in London. Ultimately, this role – helping other estate professionals navigate the politicized nature of residential development through research-driven work – increases the cost and complexity of urban development processes. Empirically, we critically interrogate: the ways in which knowledge practices are institutionalized at a corporate level and then integrated into wider development practices; the role of specific teams within these practices; and how such knowledge-based activities enable the active seeking out of new geographies of investment. Theoretically, this paper advances urban studies by demonstrating the complementary nature of quantitative and qualitative knowledge. It also uncovers, unpacks and evaluates the activities of under-researched parts of the real estate profession, consultancies, in turn suggesting the ways in which knowledge and expertise have consequences for urban development and investment

State capitalism, capitalist statism: Sovereign wealth funds and the geopolitics of London’s real estate market

We respond to the special issue’s call for a multiscalar, historicised approach to state capitalism through an exploration of Sovereign Wealth Fund investment into London real estate. We point to how the UK’s ostensibly market-led recovery since the 2008 financial crisis has relied in part on attracting ‘patient’ state capitalist investments. In this, we contextualise the relational regulation of real estate markets as the outcome of intersecting state projects by considering the investment motivations of the single largest owner of London real estate, the Qatari Investment Authority, and the utilisation of their investment by UK governance actors. Focusing on Qatari Investment Authority’s involvement in London’s Olympic Village, we highlight how this strategic coupling in the real estate market realised domestic and geopolitical aims for the Qataris while facilitating the UK government's strategy to ameliorate London’s housing shortage by fostering a ‘build to rent’ asset class. In doing so, we contribute to readings of state capitalism as an ‘uneven and combined’ process beyond the traditional state/market binary by placing sovereign wealth fund investment into the context of city governance, the geopolitics of real estate and resultant relational forms of regulation

Anticipating demand shocks: Patient capital and the supply of housing

‘Patient capital’ is presented by many policymakers as a panacea to address domestic (and sometimes city-level) gaps in financing urban development, particularly housing, that emerged in the post-2008 credit crunch. In this article, we analyse the complexities of patient investors’ entry into residential markets in London and their response to the first major, and unexpected, crisis of demand: the COVID-19 pandemic and immediate falls in market demand. We focus on how patient capital and the firms invested in the professionalised rental market, build to rent (BTR), have responded. We highlight three main responses: (1) advancing their lobbying efforts to secure a more supportive political environment; (2) protecting their income streams by offering new payment plans and adaptability to prevent void rates; (3) turning to a ‘reserve army’ of renters backed by the state – so-called Key Workers (KWs). We argue these demonstrate a continual and co-evolutionary dimension to policy promoting patient capital and the need for patient planning to govern patient investment in housing systems. Our findings are in ‘real-time’ and highlight the importance of structural uncertainties and the breakdown of long-term assumptions in shaping investment decisions