Abstract
The idea of ‘crisis’ plays an important role in academic and policy imaginations (Heslop and Ormerod, 2020), particularly since the global financial crisis. Across major western cities, at the same time as policy-makers have had to respond to ‘the (economic) crisis’, many have also experienced intense ‘housing crises’ and the acute divergence of average incomes and house prices. In response, cities such as London have become central sites in debates around housing acquisition by the ultra-wealthy, land value extraction and growing levels of unaffordability. However, much critical geography research on housing crises is state-centred or focused on civil society impacts, with relatively little reflection on the real estate sector and the work that crisis does as a narrative in shaping institutionalised and actor-centred practices. In this paper, we draw on in-depth research with developers, investors, and advisors in London to argue that crisis-driven policy responses have created political risk which is differentially experienced by actors across the sector, with large housebuilders and advisors benefitting whilst smaller niche developers move out. Moreover, we show how consultants, investors and developers have used the crisis situation to create new geographies, products and investor types in the housing market. These, in turn, require regulatory support and demonstrate the inherently political nature of crisis narratives' use. We use the London case to broaden understandings of the impact that conceptualisations of ‘crisis’ have on urban and regional planning practices, and how these influence and shape processes of contemporary urban development.
Highlights
The idea of ‘crisis’ has played an important role in contemporary academic and policy imaginations (Roitman, 2013)
In the following analysis, drawing on in-depth research on London, we examine the ways in which private sector actors seek to navigate both the politics of crisis – including the different types of crisis and related risks they generate and the complexities of working in a housing crisis
We show how the associated, often tension-ridden, political scrutiny embedded within crisis-driven policy is experienced differently by actors within the real estate sector, which has further entrenched the position of larger companies with more experience in understanding and dealing with the planning system as market leaders
Summary
The idea of ‘crisis’ has played an important role in contemporary academic and policy imaginations (Roitman, 2013). The threat and speed of this change, and the focus on one particular understanding of the crisis – as supply induced - creates po litical risk for private actors They respond within the constraints of the market, furthering the crisis of affordability and creating a cycle of crisis through their corporate strategies that add new spatialities to the crisis, enrol new products and attract new forms of investment. We argue the real estate sector has selectively leveraged parts of the housing crisis to introduce new investors and products to the housing system, in this we develop four types of crisis and their related political risks Fourth, we argue these require regulatory changes and that, in garnering the necessary political support, the private sector has used the market-led crisis-driven regulatory context to further entrench their position as the solution to a crisis in which they are implicated
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