Gray, Neil (2015) Neoliberal urbanism and spatial composition in recessionary Glasgow. PhD thesis. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/6833/ Copyright and moral rights for this thesis are retained by the author A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the Author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the Author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given. Glasgow Theses Service http://theses.gla.ac.uk/ [email protected] Neoliberal Urbanism and Spatial Composition in Recessionary Glasgow Neil Gray MRes Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy School of Geographical and Earth Sciences College of Science and Engineering University of Glasgow November 2015 i Abstract This thesis argues that urbanisation has become increasingly central to capital accumulation strategies, and that a politics of space - commensurate with a material conjuncture increasingly subsumed by rentier capitalism - is thus necessarily required. The central research question concerns whether urbanisation represents a general tendency that might provide an immanent dialectical basis for a new spatial politics. I deploy the concept of class composition to address this question. In Italian Autonomist Marxism (AM), class composition is understood as the conceptual and material relation between ‘technical’ and ‘political’ composition: ‘technical composition’ refers to organised capitalist production, capital’s plans as it were; ‘political composition’ refers to the degree to which collective political organisation forms a basis for counter-power. The research question is developed through a review of historical and contemporary urban literature by way of a distinctive marriage of AM and urban geographical literature, with a specific focus on the city of Glasgow as an exemplary case study. Given the widely-acknowledged housing crisis and the commodification of land and property markets more generally, the urgency of addressing the research question is self- evident. Yet tenants’ and residents’ movements are very fragmented in Glasgow, and the UK more generally, despite the obvious impact that the privatisation of space has on basic social reproductive needs. This thesis addresses this lacuna in a two-fold manner: firstly, by stressing the compositional significance of urbanisation as an increasingly hegemonic tendency in capital accumulation strategies; secondly, by arguing for an immanent politics of space based on contemporary urban conditions. Empirical research was conducted through three case studies in Glasgow. The first examines the historical socio-spatial development of the city itself, while the second and third focus more closely on large-scale regeneration projects in the north and east of the city. These studies affirm the prevalence of contemporary urban accumulation strategies in Glasgow, and the pressing need for a commensurate politics of space. ii Contents Abstract i List of Figures iii Acknowledgements iv Author’s Declaration v Introduction 1 Chapter 1: Henri Lefebvre: The Urban Revolution and Spatial Politics 11 Chapter 2: The Urbanisation of Capital: Spatial Fixing in the Built Environment 37 Chapter 3: Italian Autonomous Marxism: Learning from ‘Laboratory Italy’ 64 Chapter 4: Spatial Composition and Territorial Inquiry: Reconfiguring 92 AM Methodologies for Contemporary Urban Glasgow Chapter 5: ‘Shock City’: A Brief History of Spatial Composition in Glasgow 117 Chapter 6: Austerity Urbanism, Post-Politics, Spatial Fixing 157 and the Rent Gap: A Neoliberal Conjuncture at Glasgow North Chapter 7: Mega-Event Regeneration and Spatial Composition in 202 Glasgow’s East End Conclusion 241 References 255 iii List of Figures Figure 5.1: The Glasgow Keelie, Issue 4 150 Figure 5.2: The Glasgow Keelie, Issue 5 151 Figure 6.1: Port Dundas area map 159 Figure 6.2: Stalled Spaces site, Speirs Locks (source: Neil Gray) 172 Figure 6.3: Stalled Spaces sign, Speirs Locks (source: Neil Gray) 172 Figure 6.4: Territorial Inquiry, Port Dundas 183 Figure 6.5: Territorial Inquiry, Pinkston Basin 185 Figure 6.6: Pinkston Basin, Sighthill in Background 187 Figure 6.7: View from Keppochhill Road 192 Figure 6.8: Territorial Inquiry: Cowlairs Park 192 Figure 6.9: Cowlairs Masterplan Model 193 Figure 6.10: Territorial Inquiry: Hamiltonhill Road, Hamiltonhill 194 Figure 6.11: Hamiltonhill Road, post-demolition 195 Figure 6.12: Territorial Inquiry: Edingston Street 197 Figure 7.1: Jaconelli family and friends 204 Figure 7.2: Accord Centre carers 205 Figure 7.3: Anti-ATOS campaign, Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome 206 Figure 7.4: Clyde Gateway area Map 211 iv Acknowledgements Any piece of written work is effectively a collaborative effort, and here I want to acknowledge my debt to various people who have contributed to this thesis in some way. Traditionally in acknowledgements family and friends question follow on from relations in the workplace but since this thesis has argued that we need to consider relations of social reproduction and care in a primary rather than secondary sense, I want to start here with my partner Bechaela, who has been the main carer for our son Gene while I’ve grappled with this thesis. Her patience, care, support and engagement has been as immense for me as it has been for Gene, who has everything he needs. I am immensely grateful. Love and thanks also to Gene for all the fun and cuddles. Thanks also to my parents, Jeanette and Joseph, who always said do what you want as long as you’re happy. This thesis also owes a great deal to my supervisors Andy Cumbers and Dave Featherstone, who have been extremely patient and supportive throughout, especially given my capacious propensity for over-writing, and who generously assisted my ESRC funding application so that I could find the time and space to write here in the first place. Within the department, I’ve found it crucial to engage in collective discussion and debate as a way of resisting academic atomisation. Thanks go to all those involved in the various reading groups and lunchtime sessions I’ve taken part in during the period of this thesis, including those from outwith the department. A lot of the work in this thesis draws on ongoing intellectual and practical political engagement outside academia. Thanks especially to all those involved with Variant and Mute magazines, and to the Strickland Distribution and Glasgow Games Monitor 2014. Thanks also to Margaret and Jack Jaconelli, and to Grace Harrigan, Helen McCourt and Mary McCarthur for providing fight, political inspiration and friendship from below on the contested sites of the Commonwealth Games 2014. I hope this work does some justice to their ongoing struggles, and others like them. v Author’s Declaration I declare that except where explicit reference is made to the contribution of others, that this thesis is the result of my own work and has not been submitted for any other degree at the University of Glasgow or any other institution. Neil Gray 1 Introduction If only Marx had been a geographer (Bunge, 1977, p.75). This thesis argues that urbanisation has become increasingly central to capital accumulation strategies, and that a politics of space is therefore required that is commensurate with this contemporary conjuncture. The central research question concerns whether urbanisation represents a general tendency of capital accumulation that might provide an immanent, dialectical basis for a new spatial politics. By this I mean that as space has become increasingly financialised and commodified, with enormous political impacts at the level of social reproduction and consumption, a politics of space has become more than ever necessary. I begin with Henri Lefebvre’s (2003 [1970]) seminal thesis that urbanisation has tended to supplant industrialisation as the main motor of capital accumulation in Western Europe and North America. This thesis provides a basis for a deeper examination of urban conditions in contemporary urban geographical literature, with a specific focus on the city of Glasgow as an exemplary case study. While much recent urban and economic geography, following Lefebvre, excels at describing the relations between capital, governance and urbanism, it tends to elide the situated, subversive aspects of Lefebvre’s work along with his wider critique of political economy. Such analysis more often pursues a political economy of space rather than a radical critique of the political economy of space (Kipfer et al, 2008, 2013; Brenner and Elden, 2009; Charnock, 2010). As a means to extend, problematise and politicise such currents within Marxist urban and economic geography, I will re-read the radical, heterodox traditions of Italian Autonomous Marxism (AM) in the 1960s and 1970s, drawing lessons from their highly reflexive political praxis, with the aim of adapting and mobilising their most significant theoretical innovation - class composition - for an immanent politics of urban space. Class composition, which is central to this thesis, is understood in AM through a nuanced conceptual relation between what they describe as ‘technical’ and ‘political’ composition. ‘Technical composition’ relates to organised capitalist production, including the division of labour,