Raco, M;
Livingstone, N;
Durrant, D;
(2020)
Seeing Like an Investor: Urban Development Planning, Financialisation, and Investors’ Perceptions of London as an Investment Space.
European Planning Studies
, 27
(6)
pp. 1064-1082.
10.1080/09654313.2019.1598019.
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European Planning Studies paper Mike Raco Nicola Livingstone Dan Durrant Revised Version Dec 2018.pdf - Accepted Version Download (481kB) | Preview |
Abstract
There is a growing orthodoxy that since the global financial crisis European policy-makers and planning systems have become more dependent on inward investment and the availability of global finance to fund welfare services and projects. This process of financialisation, it is claimed, is driven by the needs of developers and investors, who are focused on maximising returns and limiting their social and economic liabilities. Planning agencies and traditional territory-based arrangements are viewed with increasing suspicion, as standing in the way of investment and acting as a brake on much needed house-building and regeneration. However, in this paper, drawing on detailed research with investors and developers in London, we argue that there needs to be a stronger focus in academic and policy writing on the multiple, variegated, and diverse calculations and framings that private sector actors take when making investment decisions. Too often their perspectives are caricatured and/or over-simplified. We show that perspectives and imaginations of planning and regulation are more complex and that many firms have realised that market success results from becoming more deeply embedded in the local political, social, and regulatory environments in which they are investing. A greater understanding of these multiple forms of calculation, in turn, opens up opportunities for the maintenance and/or implementation of more effective forms of territorially-based soft and hard regulation. The paper concludes by outlining a broader research agenda for planning and urban studies.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Seeing Like an Investor: Urban Development Planning, Financialisation, and Investors’ Perceptions of London as an Investment Space |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1080/09654313.2019.1598019 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1080/09654313.2019.1598019 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This version is the author accepted manuscript. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of the Built Environment UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of the Built Environment > The Bartlett School of Planning |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10070629 |
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