Emma Street

Resilience Planning, Economic Change and The Politics of Post-recession Development in London and Hong Kong

For much of the 1990s and 2000s, the emphasis of urban policy in many global cities was on managing and mitigating the social and environmental effects of rapid economic growth. The credit crunch of 2008 and the subsequent recession have undermined some of the core assumptions on which such policies were based. It is in this context that the concept of resilience planning has taken on a new significance. Drawing on contemporary research in London and Hong Kong, the paper shows how resilience and recovery planning has become a key area of political debate. It examines what is meant by conservative and radical interpretations of resilience and how conservative views have come to dominate ‘recovery’ thinking, with élite groups unwilling to accept the limits to the neo-liberal orthodoxies that helped to precipitate the economic crisis. The paper explores the implications of such thinking for the politics of urban development.

'Regulating Design': The Practices of Architecture, Governance and Control

The practices of architecture are influenced and shaped by building regulations, codes and rules that are formulated to provide specific and predictable outcomes for all aspects of architectural production, from conceptual design to urban form. Such regulations and codes are not necessarily enshrined in law but are systematic sets of rules characterised and differentiated by authorship, context and implementation. In all instances, rules and regulations pervade and influence, or codify, the practices of architecture, yet little is known about their impacts on, and implications for, the design and production of the built environment. This Special Issue of Urban Studies seeks to address this lacuna in knowledge by exploring the interrelationships between regulation and the design and production of urban space, with a focus on the practices of architecture.

The New Localism, Anti-Political Development Machines, and the Role of Planning Consultants: Lessons from London's South Bank

Abstract This paper draws on a study of the politics of development planning in Londons South Bank to examine wider trends in the governance of contemporary cities. It assesses the impacts and outcomes of so-called new localist reforms and argues that we are witnessing two principal trends. First, governance processes are increasingly dominated by anti-democratic development machines, characterized by new assemblages of public- and private-sector experts. These machines reflect and reproduce a type of development politics in which there is a greater emphasis on a pragmatic realism and a politics of delivery. Second, the presence of these machines is having a significant impact on the politics of planning. Democratic engagement is not seen as the basis for new forms of localism and community control. Instead, it is presented as a potentially disruptive force that needs to be managed by a new breed of skilled private-sector consultant. The paper examines these wider shifts in urban politics before focusing on the connections between emerging development machines and local residential and business communities. It ends by highlighting some of the wider implications of change for democratic modes of engagement and nodes of resistance in urban politics.

Planning at the neighbourhood scale: : localism, dialogic politics, and the modulation of community action

This paper builds upon literature examining the foreclosing of community interventions to show how a resident-led anti-road-noise campaign in South East England has been framed, managed, and modulated by authorities. We situate the case within wider debates considering dialogical politics. For advocates, this offers the potential for empowerment through nontraditional forums. Others view such trends, most recently expressed as part of the localism agenda, with suspicion. The paper brings together these literatures to analyse the points at which modulation occurs in the community planning process. We describe the types of countertactics residents deployed to deflect the modulation of their demands, and the events that led to the outcome. We find that community planning offers a space—albeit one that is tightly circumscribed—within which (select) groups can effect change. The paper argues that the detail of neighbourhood-scale actions warrant further attention, especially as governmental enthusiasm for dialogical modes of politics shows no sign of abating.

Governing calculative practices: An investigation of development viability modelling in the English planning system

Over the last decade the English planning system has placed greater emphasis on the financial viability of development. ‘Calculative’ practices have been used to quantify and capture land value uplifts. Development viability appraisal (DVA) has become a key part of the evidence base used in planning decision-making and informs both ‘site-specific’ negotiations about the level of land value capture for individual schemes and ‘area-wide’ planning policy formation. This paper investigates how implementation of DVA is governed in planning policy formation. It is argued that the increased use of DVA raises important questions about how planning decisions are made and operationalised, not least because DVA is often poorly understood by some key stakeholders. The paper uses the concept of governance to thematically analyse semi-structured interviews conducted with the producers of DVAs and considers key procedural issues including (in)consistencies in appraisal practices, levels of stakeholder consultation and the potential for client and producer bias. Whilst stakeholder consultation is shown to be integral to the appraisal process in order to improve the quality of the appraisals and to legitimise the outputs, participation is restricted to industry experts and excludes some interest groups, including local communities. It is concluded that, largely because of its recent adoption and knowledge asymmetries between local planning authorities and appraisers, DVA is a weakly governed process characterised by emerging and contested guidance and is therefore ‘up for grabs’.

Risk, Regulation and the Practices of Architects

There is a plethora of regulation relating to building form and performance and, seemingly, much more emphasis on risk identification and its management, particularly in relation to the processes underpinning the development and delivery of building projects. It appears that the practices of architects, like other urban design professionals, are implicated in the construction of risky objects and their mitigation by recourse to systems of managerial governance. Drawing on survey and interview data, it is suggested that a new focus for the understanding of architecture, and urban design more generally, ought to be consideration of the interrelationships between creativity, risk and regulation. The paper describes and evaluates architects’ understanding of, and responses to, what they perceive to be increased exposure to risk (and its regulation) in the design process. The paper is built around the proposition that risk and its regulation are entwined with organisational changes in the nature of project development and delivery, and linked with the emergence of what might be regarded as diffused or dispersed organisational forms that in and of themselves become harbingers of risk while also being one of the means to create new forms of risk governance. In turn, many of architects’ responses to risk revolve around procedures to secure reputation in contexts where loss of standing and repute is perceived to be a significant threat.

An empirical investigation of stalled residential sites in England

Abstract Drawing upon a national database of unimplemented planning permissions and 18 in-depth case studies, this paper provides both a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the phenomenon of stalled sites in England. The practical and conceptual difficulties of classifying sites as stalled are critically reviewed. From the literature, it is suggested that planning permission may not be implemented due to lack of financial viability, strategic behaviour by landowners and house-builders, and other problems associated with the development process. Consistent with poor viability, the analysis of a national database indicates that a substantial proportion of stalled sites are high density apartment developments usually is located in low house value areas. The case studies suggest that a combination of interlinked issues may need to be resolved before a planning permission can be implemented. These include; the sale of the land to house-builders, renegotiation of the planning permission and, most importantly, improvement in housing market conditions.

The Rise of the Private Sector in Fragmentary Planning in England

ABSTRACT English planning system reforms can be understood as part of a broader reorganisation of public services involving private sector providers supplying new markets and taking on functions previously delivered by public servants. While planning activity has long featured a number of different actors, there has been limited discussion of the role that private sector actors play in an increasingly fragmented, and task-oriented system which requires knowledge and skills-sets which local planning authorities (LPAs) typically do not possess. Thus the paper discusses how a ‘fragmentary planning’ has emerged in England, and the implications for governance and research in this area.