Rethinking City-Regionalism As the Production of New Non-State Spatial Strategies: the Case of Peel Holdings Atlantic Gateway Strategy
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51(11) 2315–2335, August 2014 Special issue article: City-region governance, 10 years on Rethinking City-regionalism as the Production of New Non-State Spatial Strategies: The Case of Peel Holdings Atlantic Gateway Strategy John Harrison [Paper first received, March 2012; in final form, July 2012] Abstract City-regions are widely recognised as key to economic and social revitalisation. Hardly surprising then is how policy elites have sought to position their own city-regions strate- gically within international circuits of capital accumulation. Typically this geopolitics of city-regionalism has been seen to represent a new governmentalised remapping of state space conforming to the prevailing orthodoxy of neoliberal state spatial restructuring. Through a case study of the Atlantic Gateway Strategy, this paper provides a lens on to an alternative vision for city-region development. The brainchild of a private investment group, Peel Holdings, the Atlantic Gateway is important because it points towards the production of new non-state spatial strategies. Examining Peel’s motives for invoking the city-region concept, the paper goes on to explore the tensions which currently sur- round the strategy to further identify the potential and scope for non-state spatial strate- gies. Connecting this to emerging debates around the key role of asset ownership and the privatisation of local democracy and the democratic state, the paper concludes by suggesting that the key question arising is can and will the state maintain its degree of governmental control over capital investment in major urban regions in an era where persistent underprovision of investment in urban economic infrastructure behoves insti- tutions of the state to become ever more reliant on private investment groups to deliver the deliver the jobs, growth and regeneration of the future. Organization is at the center of attempts to The problem is one of conceptualizing the defend, enhance the interests of those depen- relation between place-specific interests and dent on some particular place-specific power centres. Both have scalar expressions, conditions—to defend or enhance a space of and those with interests have powers (Cox, dependence (Cox, 1998, p. 15). 2010, p. 219). John Harrison is in the Department of Geography, Loughborough University, Martin Hall Building, Loughborough, Leicestershire, LE11 3TU, UK. Email: [email protected]. 0042-0980 Print/1360-063X Online Ó 2013 Urban Studies Journal Limited DOI: 10.1177/0042098013493481 Downloaded from usj.sagepub.com at NORTHERN ARIZONA UNIVERSITY on May 23, 2015 2316 JOHN HARRISON Introduction: City-regions as England is a vivacious setting within which Political Constructs to pursue city-regional research owing to the smorgasbord of initiatives, policies, stra- Amid globalisation, city-regions are widely tegies and institutional frameworks which recognised as key to economic and social have been summoned up by policy elites in revitalisation. In fact, orthodoxy has devel- recent years to operate across a variously oped around the belief that city-region- defined, city-regional scale (Harrison, 2012). scaled spatial agglomerations are the pivotal This hive of city-regional activity is sympto- social and political-economic formations in matic of how devising new—generally the era of globalised capital accumulation accepted to mean more flexible, networked (Scott, 2001). This is derived from geo- and responsive—forms of planning and gov- economic arguments which confer upon ernance at the scale of city-regions has city-regions the status of competitive terri- ascended to become an officially institutio- tories par excellence. In this respect, we nalised task for political strategists and should not be surprised that policy elites policy elites the world over (OECD, 2007). have looked enviously upon these major Yet for all of the international support, fer- urban and regional growth economies and, vent posturing and triumphalism being captivated by their position at the apex of marshalled by those advocating city-regions the post-Fordist growth dynamic, have as the ‘‘ideal scale for policy intervention in sought to position their own city-regions aglobalizedworld’’(Rodrı´guez-Pose, 2008, strategically within international circuits of p. 1029), critics ultimately believe a ‘thin’ capital accumulation by creating the condi- approach is being adopted (Harrison, 2007; tions necessary to attract transnational Jonas and Ward, 2007). In England, for capital (Brenner, 2009). Accordingly, city- example, the lack of a coherent master plan regionalism no longer refers simply to the has resulted in a set of ‘‘reactionary and geo-economics of city-regions but is incremental adjustments that lack strategic increasingly focused on what Jonas (2012, direction, buy-in and focus’’ (Ayres and p. 823) calls the ‘‘contingently produced Stafford, 2009, p. 619). Stated more bluntly, geopolitical project’’ of late capitalism. initiatives branded as city-regional have pro- From this perspective, emphasis is rightly duced nothing more than a patchwork quilt placed on the need to analyse new modes of assorted, weak and often contradictory of governance and political participation at and overlapping initiatives that have failed the city-region level, alongside the distribu- to live up to expectation. Nonetheless, a tional struggles within city-regions which decade on the enduring appeal of city- shape city-regional institutions and politics. regions remains undiminished among policy Only by doing this, it is argued, can we elites. come to understand ‘‘the contested role of To be sure, the allure of city-regionalism city-regions’’ and as a consequence better as a geopolitical project was embellished in ‘‘theorize capital–state–space relations’’ 2010 when the new Coalition government (Jonas, 2012, p. 827). announced the abolition of the regional tier Notwithstanding the fact that each geo- of governance in England, declaring their political project is specific to the national intention instead to establish Local context within which it is located (Jonas, Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs)—joint local 2013), this paper focuses on recent develop- authority–business bodies supporting local ments in England to enunciate further the economic development by operating across geopolitical construction of city-regions. ‘functional economies’: city-regions in Downloaded from usj.sagepub.com at NORTHERN ARIZONA UNIVERSITY on May 23, 2015 NEW NON-STATE SPATIAL STRATEGIES 2317 other words (HM Government, 2010; BIS/ million and an economy worth upwards of DCLG, 2010). Today, the map of local and £50 billion (gross value added) per annum, regional economic development in England the Atlantic Gateway is England’s largest is divided into a mosaic of 39 sub-national economic metropolitan area outside units (LEPs), each bearing some, little, or London and has the critical mass necessary no resemblance to city-regions. Yet despite to (at least) be considered a ‘global’ city- the change in political orientation at the region (Scott, 2001). Yet it remains one of centre of UK politics, there is little chance the most socially and economically to celebrate. Early indications suggest only polarised. Four of the seven districts with minimal change to the trajectory or fabric the highest local concentration of depriva- of the city-regionalism project in England tion in England (eight out of the top ten if you include areas within 20 miles of the [Despite being] launched with similar ‘can- Atlantic Gateway) and three of the four dis- do’ business and community empowerment tricts with the highest overall levels of depri- bravado, LEPs are likely to fail. Their modus vation are contained within it (DCLG, operandi involves rolling forward existing 2011a). centrally-orchestrated policy regimes, deploy- In an era of state underprovision— ing limited levers and mechanisms to influ- certainly relative to the investment in ence the business community, and ultimately infrastructure and state subsidy that once being unable to correct deep-rooted market characterised the Fordist/Keynesian state— failures (Jones and Jessop, 2010, p. 1144; the Atlantic Gateway represents an impor- emphasis added). tant window onto what may ultimately turn out to be the next stage of city-regionalism So despite the allure of city-regionalism as as a geopolitical project (see Jonas, 2012, a geopolitical project in England, as else- 2013). To develop this argument, the paper where, there remains limited hope that it begins by situating the AGS within the will achieve the ambitious goals—growth broader framework of how city-regionalism and competitiveness, meaningful economic has emerged as a geopolitical project in prosperity, expected affluence, ability to England. This is important because it shows tackle entrenched inequalities, scope to how the AGS is unusual in that its genesis encourage smart planning, enable piece- occurred outside the formal structures of meal democratic rights—that its academic the state—what, following and extending and non-academic architects and propo- Brenner (2004), we might conceive to be a nents purport.1 new non-state spatial strategy. More sub- Launched in 2008, the Atlantic Gateway stantively, it goes on to raise important Strategy (AGS) provides a radical alternative questions about the changing nature of the to the prevailing orthodoxy of neoliberal state, in particular the role of the state in state spatial restructuring and governmenta- regulating local and regional development