“neoliberal urbanization in europe: large scale urban development projects and new urban policy”
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Swyngedouw, E., Moulaert, F., Rodriguez, A. 2002TRANSCRIPT
© 2002 Editorial Board of Antipode. Published by Blackwell Publishing, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden,MA 02148, USA
Neoliberal Urbanization in Europe:Large-Scale Urban Development
Projects and the New Urban Policy
Erik SwyngedouwSchool of Geography and the Environment, Oxford University, Oxford, UK;
St Peter’s College, Oxford, UK; [email protected]
Frank MoulaertFaculty of Sociology and Economics, University of Lille I, Lille, France;
Institut Fédératif de Recherche sur les Économies et les Sociétés Industrielles(IFRÉSI), Lille, France; [email protected]
and
Arantxa RodriguezDepartment of Applied Economics, University of the Basque Country,
Bilbao, Spain; [email protected]
This paper summarizes the theoretical insights drawn from a study of thirteen large-scale urban development projects (UDPs) in twelve European Union countries. Theproject focused on the way in which globalization and liberalization articulate with the emergence of new forms of governance, on the formation of a new scalar gestalt of governing and on the relationship between large-scale urban development andpolitical, social and economic power relations in the city. Among the most importantconclusions, we found that:
• Large-scale UDPs have increasingly been used as a vehicle to establishexceptionality measures in planning and policy procedures. This is part of aneoliberal “New Urban Policy” approach and its selective “middle- and upper-class” democracy. It is associated with new forms of “governing” urban inter-ventions, characterized by less democratic and more elite-driven priorities.
• Local democratic participation mechanisms are not respected or are appliedin a very “formalist” way, resulting in a new choreography of elite power.However, grassroots movements occasionally manage to turn the course ofevents in favor of local participation and of modest social returns for deprivedsocial groups.
• The UDPs are poorly integrated at best into the wider urban process andplanning system. As a consequence, their impact on a city as a whole and onthe areas where the projects are located remains ambiguous.
• Most UDPs accentuate socioeconomic polarization through the working ofreal-estate markets (price rises and displacement of social or low-income
housing), changes in the priorities of public budgets that are increasinglyredirected from social objectives to investments in the built environment andthe restructuring of the labor market.
• The UDPs reflect and embody a series of processes that are associated withchanging spatial scales of governance; these changes, in turn, reflect a shiftinggeometry of power in the governing of urbanization.
Large-Scale Urban Development Projects as Urban PolicyOver the past fifteen years or so, local authorities—alone or in concertwith the private sector—have strongly relied on the planning andimplementation of large-scale urban development projects (UDPs),such as museums, waterfronts, exhibition halls and parks, businesscenters, and international landmark events, as part of an effort to re-enforce the competitive position of their metropolitan economiesin a context of rapidly changing local, national, and global competitiveconditions. In many cases, these projects were supported by a majorityof the local constituency, or at least by a silent majority. In other cases,they were initiated by means of “exceptionality” measures, such as thefreezing of conventional planning tools, bypassing statutory regu-lations and institutional bodies, the creation of project agencies withspecial or exceptional powers of intervention and decision-making,and/or a change in national or regional regulations. On occasion,national governments became the main developers, setting aside bothlocal authorities and constituencies.
This paper will examine the dynamics that have accompanied theimplementation of large-scale UDPs in thirteen European cities withinthe European Union (EU). The analysis is based on research under-taken as part of a Targeted Socioeconomic Research Action (Frame-work IV program of the EU), “Urban Restructuring and SocialPolarization in the City” (URSPIC). URSPIC examined whether large-scale UDPs, as emblematic examples of neoliberal forms of urbangovernance, contribute to accentuating processes of social exclusionand polarization, or whether they foster social integration and promoteintegrated urban development.1 The project intended to contribute tothe analysis of the relationship between urban restructuring and socialexclusion/integration in the context of the emergence of the newregimes of urban governance that parallel the European-wide—albeitgeographically uneven and, on occasion, politically contested—consolidation of a neoliberal and market-driven ideology and politics.The selected UDPs embody and express processes that reflect globalpressures and incorporate changing systems of local, regional, and/ornational regulation and governance. These projects, while beingdecidedly local, capture global trends, express new forms of nationaland local policies, and incorporate them in a particular localized setting.The selected UDPs are listed in Table 1 according to their city’s ranking
548 Antipode
Neoliberal Urbanization in Europe 549
Tab
le 1
:T
he T
hirt
een
Cas
e-St
udy
Proj
ects
of t
he U
RSP
IC P
roje
ct
Typ
e of
Cit
y St
age
of t
he P
roje
ct—
1997
Des
ign
Con
stru
ctio
nC
omm
erci
aliz
atio
n
Wor
ld c
ities
RO
TT
ER
DA
M(R
AN
DST
AD
HO
LL
AN
D)
KO
P V
AN
ZU
IDL
ON
DO
NT
HE
SO
UT
H B
AN
KE
uro-
city
BE
RL
INB
RU
SSE
LS
AD
LE
RSH
OF
ESP
AC
E L
EO
POL
D/E
U D
IST
RIC
TB
ig to
wn
CO
PE
NH
AG
EN
LIS
BO
N E
XPO
199
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RE
STA
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ICE
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EA
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SO
LY
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C V
ILL
AG
ESe
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ary
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n B
ILB
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AB
AN
DO
IBA
RR
AN
AP
LE
SC
EN
TR
O D
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NA
LE
BIR
MIN
GH
AM
CE
NT
RA
L
LIL
LE
EU
RA
LIL
LE
BU
SIN
ESS
DIS
TR
ICT
(C
BD
)
Sour
ce: h
ttp:
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fr (
sele
ct P
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in the world urban hierarchy and their stage of development at thestart of the research project in 1997.
Reordering the Urban: Large-Scale UDPs and the “Glocalisation” of the CityCities are, of course, brooding places of imagination, creativity,innovation, and the ever new and different. However, cities also hidein their underbelly perverse and pervasive processes of social ex-clusion and marginalization and are rife with all manners of struggle,conflict, and often outright despair in the midst of the greatestaffluence, abundance, and pleasure. These dynamics that define theurban experience have, if anything, taken on a heightened intensityover the past two decades or so. There is no need to recount here the tumultuous reordering of urban social, cultural, and economiclife that has rampaged through the city. Many urban communitieshave been left in the doldrums of persistent decline and permanentupheaval and are still faced with the endless leisure time that comeswith lasting unemployment. Others have risen to the challenge thatrestructuring sparks off and have plunged into the cracks and fissuresthat have opened up a vast arena of new possibilities of action andintervention, as governments and economies desperately seek out newniches for revitalizing the urban fabric.
These urban transformations, exhaustively documented in manyacademic research and governmental documents, have invariably beensituated in the context of a transforming spatial political, sociocultural,and economic system. While economic processes were rapidlyglobalizing and cities were trying to carve out their niche within theemerging new divisions of labor, of production, and of consumption,political transformations—pursued by local, regional, and nationalgovernments of all ideological stripes and colors—were initiated in an attempt to align local dynamics with the imagined, assumed, or realrequirements of a deregulated international economic system, whosepolitical elites were vigorously pursuing a neoliberal dogma. Heraldedby some as the harbinger of a new era of potential prosperity and vilifiedby others as the source of enduring restructuring and accentuated socialpolarization and marginalization, the urban arena became a key spacein which political-economic and social changes were enacted. The newurban policy, developing in parallel with the new neoliberal economicpolicy, squarely revolved around re-centering the city. Old forms andfunctions, traditional political and organizational configurations, hadto give way to a new urbanity, a visionary urbanity that would stand thetests imposed by a global and presumably liberal world order. Repos-itioning the city on the map of the competitive landscape meantreimagining and recreating urban space, not just in the eyes of themaster planners and city fathers and mothers, but primarily for
550 Antipode
the outsider, the investor, developer, businesswoman or –man, or themoney-packed tourist.
The urban turned into ruin in the devastating restructuring of the1970s and 1980s. Rebuilding the city—as in the aftermath of a war—became the leitmotif of urban policy. Large-scale and emblematicprojects were the medicine the advocates of the new urban policyprescribed. Accommodation of the EU’s encroaching office expansionin Brussels, the Guggenheim museum in Bilbao, the new financialdistrict in the Dublin’s docklands, the science-university complexAdlershof in Berlin, Copenhagen’s Orestaden project, and the 1998World Expo in Lisbon, among many other examples that are dottedover the map of urban Europe, testify to the unshakeable belief of thecity elites in the healing effects that the production of new urbancomplexes promises for the city’s vitality.
While we agree that large-scale UDPs have indeed become one ofthe most visible and ubiquitous urban revitalization strategies pursuedby city elites in search of economic growth and competitiveness, wealso insist that it is exactly this sort of new urban policy that activelyproduces, enacts, embodies, and shapes the new political and economicregimes that are operative at local, regional, national, and global scales.These projects are the material expression of a developmental logicthat views megaprojects and place-marketing as means for generatingfuture growth and for waging a competitive struggle to attract invest-ment capital. Urban projects of this kind are, therefore, not the mereresult, response, or consequence of political and economic changechoreographed elsewhere. On the contrary, we argue that such UDPsare the very catalysts of urban and political change, fuelling processesthat are felt not only locally, but regionally, nationally, and internation-ally as well. It is such concrete interventions that express and shapetransformations in spatial political and economic configurations. Theyillustrate the actual concrete process through which postmodern forms,post-Fordist economic dynamics, and neoliberal systems of govern-ance are crafted and through which a new articulation of regulatoryand governmental scales is produced. UDPs are productive of andembody processes that operate in and over a variety of scales, fromthe local to the regional, the national, the European, and the globalscale. From our vantage point, the urban project becomes the lens thatpermits the casting of light on (1) how the scalar interplay is etchedinto particular urban schemes; (2) how these projects, in turn, expressthe way forces operating at a variety of geographical scales intersect inthe construction of new socioeconomic environments; and (3) howsocial polarization and exclusion/integration, as well as processes ofempowerment/disempowerment, are shaped by and work through theseforms of sociospatial restructuring.
Neoliberal Urbanization in Europe 551
This paper attempts to provide a panoramic view of changes inurban development strategies and policies in some of Europe’s great-est cities. While being sensitive to the formative importance of localand national configurations, the case studies also suggest a series ofsimilarities that point to a more general process of urban socioeconomicrestructuring and of reorganization of the system of governance. Thelocalization of the global and the globalization of the local becomecrafted in place-specific forms, yet they show perplexing—and oftendisturbing—common threads. In many ways, therefore, urbanenvironments as constructed places are the condensed expression andincarnation of the transformation of sociospatial processes thatoperate on a variety of articulated geographical scales.
Urban Redevelopment Strategies in the European City:Autocratic Governance, Monumental Spaces, andMythical Imaginations A New Urban Policy (NUP)? The Search for Growth and Competitive RestructuringDespite the differences between the case-study projects and thedistinct political-economic and regulatory regimes of which they are part, they share a new approach in urban policy that stronglyexpresses, at the scale of the urban, the main ingredients of a NewEconomic Policy (NEP). New Economic Policy is the policy platformof conservative liberalism. Contrary to what its ideology sustains,conservative liberalism has always maintained a very special andintimate relationship with state intervention (see Keil this volume). Itseeks to reorient state intervention away from monopoly marketregulation and towards marshaling state resources into the social,physical, and geographical infra- and superstructures that support,finance, subsidize, or otherwise promote new forms of capitalaccumulation by providing the relatively fixed territorial structuresthat permit the accelerated circulation of capital and the relativelyunhindered operation of market forces. At the same time, the statewithdraws to a greater or lesser extent from socially inclusive blanketdistribution-based policies and from Keynesian demand-led inter-ventions and replaces them with spatially targeted social policies andindirect promotion of entrepreneurship, particularly via selectivederegulation, stripping away red tape, and investment “partnerships”(see Peck and Tickell this volume). The relationship between NEP,New Urban Policy (NUP), and UDPs is summarized in Figure 1 andwill be explored further in the subsequent sections of this paper.
One of the key components of the new mode of socioeconomicregulation in cities has been a gradual shift away from distributivepolicies, welfare considerations, and direct service provision towards
552 Antipode
more market-oriented and market-dependent approaches aimed atpursuing economic promotion and competitive restructuring. In mostcities, urban revitalization is presented as an opportunity to changeeconomic hierarchies and functions within the urban region, creatingnew jobs and strengthening the city’s position in the urban division oflabor. In this way, the search for growth turns urban renewal into amediated objective, a necessary precondition for economic regeneration.Although this general trend takes quite distinct forms in differentcities (see Table 2 for a description of six of these projects), project-based urban interventions generally involve critical changes in prior-ities and the ascent of a more assertive, dynamic, and entrepreneurialstyle of urban governance. Planners and local authorities adopt amore proactive and entrepreneurial approach aimed at identifyingmarket opportunities and assisting private investors to take advantage
Neoliberal Urbanization in Europe 553
Figure 1: Relationship between NEP, NUP, and UDPs
NEW ECONOMICPOLICY
NEW URBANPOLICY
URBANDEVELOPMENT
PROJECTS
DEREGULATION
PRIVATIZATION
FLEXIBLIZATION ofLABOR MARKET
SPATIALDECENTRALIZATION
NEW URBAN COALITIONS
SHIFT FROM SOCIAL TO ECONOMIC POLICY
NEW STATE ENTREPRENEURIALISM
SELECTIVE DEREGULATION
CITY MARKETING
PARTNERSHIPS
PRIVATIZATION of PUBLIC FUNDS
REAL-ESTATE DEVELOPMENT
FLAGSHIP PROJECTS
SPATIALLY TARGETED AND LOCALIZED
TERRITORIALLY TARGETED SOCIAL POLICY
PRODUCING URBAN RENT
554 Antipode
Table 2. The Role of UDPs in the City’s Growth Strategy: Main Functions andDevelopment Logic for Six Projects
Project Size and Location Main Development LogicNew Functions
The development area islocated in an outlying district(Treptow) in the Southeast ofBerlin, 12 km from the center.It is connected to the suburbanrail network.
The area encompassesapproximately 420 ha, with asite for science (R&Dactivities), a business area, aMedia City, a universitycampus, a park, sites for tradeand industry, and severalresidential areas.
Abandoibarra is a waterfrontsite of 345.000 m2 located in the heart of the city of Bilbao.Situated strategically on theedge of the 19th—centuryexpansion of the city, one ofthe highest incomeneighborhoods.
The site is presented as the new cultural and businesscenter for Bilbao. Two majorsites, the Guggenheim Museumand the EuskaldunaConference and Concert Hall,are the key landmarks of aproject that also includes theconstruction of 80.000 m2 foroffice space, a 27.000-m2
shopping center, a luxury hotel, university facilities, and800 housing units, as well as an additional 122.000 m2 ofgreen areas.
The Leopold quarter is a site of approximately 1 square kmnorth-east of the city center. It was the first extension ofBrussels (1837) beyond itsmedieval walls.
Urban renewal logic. Its mainobjectives are the restructuringof old industrial areas, thepromotion of a future vision foran improved labor marketbased around high-technologyand advances services, andsupporting the formation ofsmall innovative businesses inthe field of technology, tocreate new urban mix ofscience, economy, mediaservices, living, and leisure.
Urban renewal logic. Theproject aims to create a newdirectional center to leadeconomic regeneration in adeclining industrial region/city;promote a postindustrial andinternational city, create a neweconomic structure, fosterdiversification of the urbansectoral mix, and support jobcreation in new and presumablydynamic and growth-orientedsectors such as culture andleisure.
From the developers’ point ofview: capital accumulationfacilitated by the rapidEuropeanization andinternationalization of Brussels.
Berlin Adlershof
Bilbao Abandoibarra
Brussels LeopoldQuarter(QuartierLeopold)
Neoliberal Urbanization in Europe 555
Table 2: Continued
Project Size and Location Main Development LogicNew Functions
Originally conceived as anupper-class residential area, itis now one of the main officeareas of Brussels and thecentral area for the expansionof a proliferating EU-relatedadministration. It is served byan underground line and tworailway stations.
Original area covered 11 ha of downtown docklands on thenorth side of the river, whichruns through the city center.This was subsequently widenedto 29 ha and was recentlyextended to cover all 500 ha of the port area on both sidesof the river.
Development of IFSC on thenorth side of the river; continuedmix of residential, business,service and cultural activitieson both sides of the river.
110 ha immediately east of thecity center. The area is adjacent to the main railwaystation and well connected viamajor roads to the city harbor,airport, and motorway network.Only half of the area hasactually been developed.
Mixed uses: mainly offices forpublic institutions (courts,regional parliament and related functions, PublicRegister, fire-brigadeheadquarters, church,
From the perspective of localgovernment: to assure thecontinuing presence andfacilitate the further expansionof European Union and relatedinternational institutions.Main objectives are: to provideoffice space to the EU and towhatever clients are attractedby Brussels’ status as Europeancapital; to reaffirm Brussels’role as Europe’s capital and tocash in on the economic impactthis has; and to raise thepolitical and cultural positionof the city in the Europeanurban hierarchy.
Economic growth for originalsite; social and economicgrowth and physicalregeneration for extended 500-ha site (of which onlyabout 100 ha are in need ofredevelopment).
Discourse of modernization tocreate a postindustrial city.Because of its mixed use, theCD is supposed to contribute tothe economic regeneration ofthe city and to improve itsurban quality. As host locationof public and private serviceactivities, the CD is alsosupposed to decreasecongestion in the historical citycenter.
DublinDocklandsDevelopmentProject (withInternationalFinancialServicesCentre [IFSC]as flagship)
NaplesCentroDirezionale(CD)
of them. Table 2 also summarizes the developmental view promotedby the city’s economic and political elites and the associated boosteristdiscourses that legitimize the projects and the associated institutionaland regulatory framework.
State-led or State-based: The Myth of the Absent StateIn contrast to discourses of market-led and entrepreneurial activity(risk taking, market-led investments), the UDPs are decidedly andalmost without exception state-led and often state-financed. In acontext of a liberalizing European metagovernance by the EuropeanCommission, of national deregulation, of shrinking or stable socialredistributional policies, of the outright exclusion of some groups atthe national or EU level (for example, immigrants), and of an oftennarrowing fiscal basis for local urban intervention, UDPs are
556 Antipode
Table 2: Continued
Project Size and Location Main Development LogicNew Functions
school, etc), but also offices forbusiness, commercial activities,and sport facilities. Residenceaccounts for 30% of the totalbuilt volume.
The Donau-City (amultifunctional UDP) islocated near the Danube,covering a subcenter with a size of about 17.4 ha. Thehousing projects on the sameriverside cover 41,507 m2. The development axis—Lasallestrasse—runs across the Danube and connects theDonau-City with the inner cityand the surroundingmicroregions on bothriversides.
Commercial and residentialdevelopment: housing (1500 subsidized flats), offices,shopping, leisure and culturalfacilities, school and universitybuildings, research anddevelopment park, apartmenthotel.
Presented as a “bridge to thefuture,” fostering economicgrowth and the formation of aninternational image for Vienna;strong emphasis on symboliccapital formation
The Donau-City (including theViennese site of the UnitedNations Organization (UNO))is regarded as a flagship forVienna, aimed at strengtheningits role as an “internationalmeeting place.” Thedevelopment axis is supposedto attract international businessand foster and act as pivotalpoint in East-West (European)trade and investment; it offershousing for upper classes.
ViennaDonau City
marshaled as panaceas to fight polarization, to reinvigorate the localeconomy, and, most importantly—an explicit goal of these projects—to improve the tax basis of the city via a sociospatial and economicreorganization of metropolitan space. In some cases—such as Lille,Rotterdam, Brussels, Copenhagen, or Birmingham—a mix of projectsis presented. Regardless of the efficacy of such a mix, the mainobjective of these projects is to obtain a higher social and economicreturn and to revalue prime urban land. The production of urban rentis central to such urban redevelopment strategies. Closing the rent gap and cashing in on the produced revalorization of the developmentland is a clear leitmotiv in most projects. Table 3 summarizes this forthree of the case studies, but it is also clearly evident in Copenhagen,Brussels, Dublin, Bilbao, Athens, Vienna, and Birmingham.
Urban redevelopment is considered to be a central strategy in re-equilibrating the problematic fiscal balance sheet of local government.Spatially focused policies aimed at producing increasing rent income,altering the socioeconomic tax basis, and producing profitableeconomic activities are among the few options available, particularlyin a context in which the structure of fiscal revenues is changingrapidly. As the financial-services sector and profit-making via globalspeculative transactions drain major financial means and investments,such activities simultaneously escape government control and gen-erate very limited local fiscal returns. In such context, the revaluationof urban land remains one of the few means open to local governmentsto increase tax returns. Of course, closing rent gaps or producing high-rent-yielding spaces requires a production of built environments thatpermit significant surplus-value creation and/or realization. Yet the politicsof rent-production through the production of the built environment hasremained elusive in much of the recent literature on urban change.
Despite the rhetoric of market-led and privately covered invest-ments, the state is invariably one of the leading actors in the process: inten of the thirteen cases discussed in this paper, its role is outspoken.Risks are taken by the state, shared on occasion with the private sector,but given the speculative, real-estate-based nature of the projects,deficits are likely to occur. Traditional and well-documented processesof socialization of cost and risk and privatization of the possiblebenefits are central characteristics of most UDPs. While, in the past,invoking the social return of the projects legitimized such practices,they are now usually hidden behind a veil of creative accounting or by means of channeling funds via quasigovernmental organizations or mixed private/public companies. As can be gleaned from Table 3, in the cases of Berlin’s Adlershof and Lisbon’s Expo 1998, the statebecame increasingly involved in covering deficits, a condition true inmany of the other cases. It is only in the redevelopment of London’sSouth Bank that no state guarantee is involved and that the state only
Neoliberal Urbanization in Europe 557
558 Antipode
Tab
le 3
:T
he F
inan
cial
Ris
ks o
f the
UD
P an
d th
e R
ole
of th
e St
ate
in T
hree
UD
Ps
UD
PO
rigi
nal F
inan
cial
Con
stru
ctio
n (1
997)
Fin
anci
al R
isks
for
the
Sta
te
Ber
lin
Dev
elop
ers:
BA
AG
(B
erlin
Adl
ersh
of A
ufba
uges
ells
chaf
t mbH
)A
dler
shof
is a
dev
elop
er w
ith a
trus
tees
hip
and
nego
tiate
s be
twee
n th
e pu
blic
adm
inis
trat
ion
and
the
priv
ate
inve
stor
s. M
ain
func
tions
: pu
blic
rel
atio
ns, c
onsu
ltatio
n, c
oord
inat
ion.
A c
ontr
ol g
roup
of
seve
n st
ate
secr
etar
ies
deci
des
the
deve
lopm
ent a
nd th
e ec
onom
ic
plan
, as
wel
l as
timin
g an
d fu
ndin
g.W
IST
A M
anag
emen
t Gm
bH is
the
oper
atin
g co
mpa
ny a
nd h
as
been
foun
ded
for
the
deve
lopm
ent a
nd th
e m
arke
ting
of th
e sc
ienc
e an
d co
mm
erci
al te
chno
logy
site
. It i
s a
100%
sub
sidi
ary
of th
e C
ity o
f Ber
lin.
Fin
anci
ng: T
he m
ain
idea
of t
he p
lann
ing
inst
rum
ent a
pplie
d in
A
dler
shof
is to
use
mea
ns fr
om th
e tr
ust f
und
to d
evel
op a
nd o
pen
up th
e ar
ea to
mak
e it
avai
labl
e fo
r bu
ildin
g. P
rope
rty
valu
es a
re
froz
en fo
r a
set n
umbe
r of
yea
rs, a
nd a
por
tion
of p
rofit
s is
re
capt
ured
by
the
city
whe
n th
e la
nd is
sol
d to
inve
stor
s. T
his
lega
l to
ol a
nd it
s se
lf-fin
anci
ng p
hilo
soph
y ar
e hi
ghly
dep
ende
nt o
n an
in
crea
se o
f the
land
-val
ue le
vels
, whi
ch m
akes
them
vul
nera
ble
to
chan
ges
in th
e re
al-e
stat
e m
arke
t. Si
nce
land
pri
ces
have
bee
n de
clin
ing
sinc
e 19
94 in
Ber
lin a
nd c
onse
quen
tly in
the
deve
lopm
ent
area
, the
re is
less
turn
over
than
exp
ecte
d, a
nd th
e in
com
e fr
om
selli
ng th
e la
nd is
too
low
for
this
pla
n to
wor
k ou
t. A
s a
cons
eque
nce,
BA
AG
rec
eive
s lo
ans
in o
rder
to p
refin
ance
the
deve
lopm
ent m
easu
res.
Thu
s, th
e de
velo
pmen
t of A
dler
shof
de
pend
s m
ainl
y on
pub
lic fu
ndin
g. U
ntil
now
, the
re h
ave
been
no
fina
ncia
lly s
tron
g in
vest
ors.
Fur
ther
mor
e, r
egio
nal a
nd n
atio
nal
finan
cial
sup
port
is c
ombi
ned
with
mon
ey fr
om th
e E
urop
ean
BA
AG
est
imat
es th
at u
p to
the
year
201
0, p
riva
te a
ndpu
blic
inve
stm
ent w
ill a
mou
nt to
2.8
1 bi
llion
Eur
o in
Adl
ersh
of. O
f tha
t, 2.
19 b
illio
n E
uro
is e
stim
ated
to c
ome
from
pri
vate
sou
rces
, whi
le 6
10 m
illio
n E
uro
will
be
publ
icin
vest
men
ts. U
ntil
2000
, onl
y 23
,1%
of t
hese
res
ourc
es w
ere
com
mitt
ed o
r al
read
y sp
ent.
By
the
end
of 2
001,
560
mill
ion
Eur
o ha
d be
en in
vest
ed in
Adl
ersh
of, m
ainl
y pu
blic
fund
ing.
The
deb
ts o
f BA
AG
’s tr
ust f
und
reac
hed
122.
9 m
illio
n E
uro
in D
ecem
ber
1999
, for
whi
ch th
e st
ate
is li
able
. By
Sept
embe
r 20
00, t
he le
vel o
f ind
ebte
dnes
s ha
d ri
sen
to12
7.3
mill
ion
Eur
o.
Thi
s gr
owin
g de
bt p
uts
a gr
eat b
urde
n on
the
publ
ic b
udge
t.T
he fi
nanc
ial c
omm
ittee
of t
he p
arlia
men
t agr
eed
in J
une
1998
to in
vite
the
Aud
itor-
Gen
eral
’s O
ffic
e to
insp
ect t
hefin
anci
al s
ituat
ion
of th
e A
dler
shof
pro
ject
and
of o
ther
deve
lopm
ent a
reas
in th
e ci
ty.
Tod
ay, i
n 20
02, B
erlin
’s fi
nanc
ial s
ituat
ion
caus
es g
reat
conc
ern.
The
gre
ates
t num
ber
of la
rge
urba
n de
velo
pmen
tpr
ojec
ts (
Adl
ersh
of is
onl
y on
e am
ong
seve
ral)
—co
nstit
ute
a lo
ng-t
erm
dra
in o
n pu
blic
fina
nces
. Thi
s is
esp
ecia
lly th
eca
se in
the
five
deve
lopm
ent a
reas
whe
re th
e de
ficits
hav
eco
ntin
uous
ly r
isen
. The
com
mitm
ent t
o th
e lo
ng-t
erm
finan
cial
sch
eme
of th
e bi
g pr
ojec
ts is
not
mat
ched
by
the
Neoliberal Urbanization in Europe 559
Tab
le 3
:C
ontin
ued
UD
PO
rigi
nal F
inan
cial
Con
stru
ctio
n (1
997)
Fin
anci
al R
isks
for
the
Sta
te
Stru
ctur
al F
unds
to b
uild
up
the
infr
astr
uctu
re o
n th
e sc
ienc
e an
dte
chno
logy
site
(W
IST
A);
the
nonu
nive
rsity
res
earc
h in
stitu
tions
ar
e su
ppor
ted
by th
e st
ate;
mos
t com
pani
es r
ely
on th
e su
bsid
ized
re
nts
and
on d
iffer
ent a
id p
rogr
ams;
the
cons
truc
tion
of th
e ca
mpu
s de
pend
s on
fund
s fr
om th
e fe
dera
l gov
ernm
ent a
nd th
e re
gion
al g
over
nmen
t (L
and)
of B
erlin
.
Lis
bon
Dev
elop
ers:
Par
que
EX
PO 9
8 SA
(a
new
ly c
reat
ed s
tate
com
pany
)E
xpo
1998
has
exte
nsiv
e de
velo
pmen
t pow
ers
and
is u
nder
wri
tten
by
the
Port
ugue
se g
over
nmen
t; th
e so
cial
cap
ital i
s en
tirel
y pu
blic
; the
m
ain
shar
ehol
ders
are
the
stat
e an
d th
e m
unic
ipal
ities
of L
isbo
n an
d L
oure
s. P
arqu
e E
xpo
is th
e m
ain
shar
ehol
der
of s
ix o
ther
com
pani
es c
onst
itute
d to
run
the
real
-est
ate
oper
atio
n (E
xpo
Urb
e),
Exp
ositi
on 1
998,
and
som
e of
the
faci
litie
s re
mai
ning
aft
er th
e ex
posi
tion
(the
Oce
anar
ium
, the
mul
tipur
pose
pav
ilion
, the
ref
use
trea
tmen
t pla
nt, a
nd th
e tr
ansp
ort t
erm
inal
, tra
in, a
nd m
etro
).F
inan
cing
: The
fina
ncia
l mod
el w
as d
esig
ned
to im
plem
ent t
he
expo
sitio
n at
zer
o co
st, n
ot in
clud
ing
the
exte
rnal
ope
ratio
ns
supp
orte
d by
EU
fund
s. T
he m
ain
reve
nues
for
impl
emen
ting
the
Exp
o an
d th
e ur
ban
proj
ect c
ame
from
the
expo
sitio
n an
d th
e sa
le
of th
e la
nd. H
owev
er, t
he e
xpec
ted
retu
rns
wer
e no
t ach
ieve
d.
Par
que
Exp
o 19
97 b
udge
t:•
Exp
ositi
on (
ticke
t sal
es, p
ublic
ity, s
pons
ors)
: 309
mill
ion
Eur
o•
Sale
of l
and
and
prop
erty
: 653
mill
ion
Eur
o
expe
cted
tax
inco
me
or th
e re
turn
s of
sal
es o
f pub
lic la
nd.
The
y ab
sorb
fina
ncia
l res
ourc
es th
at c
ould
be
used
for
muc
h-ne
eded
impr
ovem
ents
in o
ther
are
as. T
he im
pend
ing
fisca
l str
ess
was
dis
cuss
ed a
t the
beg
inni
ng o
f the
199
0s, b
utth
e po
licy-
mak
ers
faile
d to
red
uce
the
proj
ects
to a
reas
onab
le n
umbe
r an
d si
ze.
Apa
rt fr
om b
eing
the
mai
n sh
areh
olde
r, th
e st
ate
guar
ante
ed a
nd p
rovi
ded
the
cond
ition
s fo
r re
leas
ing
the
land
at n
o co
st to
Par
que
Exp
o an
d fo
r al
loca
ting
EU
fund
ing
of th
e pr
ojec
t. T
he a
mou
nt a
lloca
ted
dire
ctly
to th
eE
xpo
unde
r th
e U
rban
Ren
ovat
ion
Prog
ram
of t
he E
U’s
Com
mun
ity S
uppo
rt F
ram
ewor
k w
as a
bout
hal
f of t
he to
tal
sum
for
urba
n re
nova
tion
for
the
who
le c
ount
ry fo
r fiv
eye
ars—
arou
nd 2
40 m
illio
n E
uro.
The
fina
l bal
ance
bet
wee
nco
sts
and
reve
nues
is s
till u
nkno
wn.
It w
as e
stim
ated
that
accu
mul
ated
exp
ense
s un
til th
e ye
ar 2
009
wou
ld m
ake
ato
tal o
f 185
0 m
illio
n E
uro,
of w
hich
375
mill
ion
Eur
o w
ere
finan
cial
cos
ts (
Parq
ue E
XPO
98,
Bud
get R
epor
t,L
isbo
n, M
arch
199
9). T
he m
ain
chan
ges
to th
e in
itial
budg
et w
ere
the
high
er b
uild
ing
and
infr
astr
uctu
re c
osts
and
low
er-t
han-
expe
cted
rev
enue
from
the
sale
of t
icke
tsan
d sp
onso
rs (
250
mill
ion
Eur
o). I
n ad
ditio
n, P
arqu
e E
xpo
will
rec
eive
rev
enue
s (6
0 m
illio
n E
uro)
from
the
sale
of a
few
of t
he E
xpo
pavi
lions
to th
e st
ate
for
the
inst
alla
tion
ofad
min
istr
ativ
e ac
tiviti
es a
nd c
ultu
ral f
acili
ties.
560 Antipode
Tab
le 3
:C
ontin
ued
UD
PO
rigi
nal F
inan
cial
Con
stru
ctio
n (1
997)
Fin
anci
al R
isks
for
the
Sta
te
•O
ther
com
pani
es (
sale
of c
ompa
ny s
hare
s): 7
7 m
illio
n E
uro
•E
urop
ean
Fun
ding
(E
RD
F a
nd C
ohes
ion
Fun
d): 3
04 m
illio
n E
uro
(inc
lude
s fu
ndin
g fo
r pr
imar
y in
fras
truc
ture
wor
ks
insi
de th
e E
xpo
site
and
for
exte
rnal
ope
ratio
ns: t
rans
port
in
fras
truc
ture
, met
ro a
nd tr
ain
stat
ion,
mul
tipur
pose
pav
ilion
, an
d en
viro
nmen
tal w
orks
) •
Stat
e-di
rect
fund
ing
(soc
ial c
apita
l): 8
7 m
illio
n E
uro
•O
ther
(re
ntin
g of
spa
ces)
: 51
mill
ion
Eur
o.
Lon
don
Dev
elop
ers:
The
dev
elop
ers
are
publ
ic in
stitu
tions
and
not
-for
-pro
fitSo
uth
Ban
kco
mpa
nies
that
hav
e in
itiat
ed th
e re
gene
ratio
n sc
hem
es. S
ome
priv
ate
deve
lope
rs a
re a
lso
activ
e in
the
area
. F
inan
cing
: hou
sing
sch
emes
are
mai
nly
finan
ced
by lo
ans
(Ham
bros
Ban
k), r
even
ues
from
ren
ts (
car
park
, sho
ps)
and
gran
ts
from
the
Hou
sing
Cor
pora
tion
Gra
nt. P
ublic
spa
ce im
prov
emen
ts
are
finan
ced
by g
rant
s fr
om th
e Si
ngle
Reg
ener
atio
n B
udge
t,lo
cal c
ounc
ils, t
he N
atio
nal L
otte
ry, a
nd th
e bu
sine
sses
’ ow
n fu
nds.
Publ
ic fu
nds
are
used
for
new
tran
spor
t inf
rast
ruct
ures
. Pri
vate
in
vest
ors
have
turn
ed th
e C
ount
y H
all i
nto
a ho
tel a
nd le
isur
e ce
nter
. Par
t of t
he S
hell
offic
es h
as b
een
turn
ed in
to lu
xury
ap
artm
ents
by
priv
ate
inve
stor
s.
In o
rder
to m
ake
up fo
r th
e in
crea
sing
def
icit,
Par
que
Exp
ora
ised
land
pri
ces
and
chan
ged
prev
ious
cos
ts a
nd a
gree
men
ts.
It is
exp
ecte
d th
at r
even
ue fr
om la
nd sa
les w
ill b
ring
an in
com
eof
850
mill
ion
Eur
o by
200
9—an
incr
ease
of 3
0 pe
rcen
t fro
mth
e in
itial
est
imat
e. T
hese
tren
ds p
ushe
d pr
oper
ty v
alue
s up
at th
e E
xpo
site
: Exp
o fla
ts a
re n
ow, o
n av
erag
e, th
e m
ost
expe
nsiv
e in
Lisb
on. T
hus,
the
stat
e, th
roug
h a
publ
ic d
evel
oper
,is
com
petin
g w
ith th
e lo
cal m
arke
t for
rai
sing
hou
se p
rice
s.A
ccou
nts
have
als
o to
be
sett
led
with
the
mun
icip
aliti
es o
fL
isbo
n an
d L
oure
s fo
r th
e in
vest
men
t in
infr
astr
uctu
rew
orks
(th
e eq
uiva
lent
of 1
87 m
illio
n E
uro)
whe
n th
e si
te is
hand
ed b
ack
to th
e ci
ty.
No
stat
e gu
aran
tees
. Nat
iona
l sta
te in
volv
emen
t thr
ough
Sing
le R
egen
erat
ion
Bud
get s
ubsi
dies
. The
con
sequ
ence
sfo
r pu
blic
bud
get a
re n
eglig
ible
. The
con
sequ
ence
s fo
rot
her
spen
ding
sec
tors
(so
cial
, edu
catio
n, tr
aini
ng, b
asic
urba
n in
fras
truc
ture
, and
so
on)
are
negl
igib
le.
contributes through spending on social programs, training, and theprovision of basic infrastructure.
A common theme is that most of the projects are decidedly rent-extraction-based. Their success rests fundamentally on (1) the produc-tion of potential extra rent and (2) the subsequent realization of theproduced land rent. The employment and economic activity generatingconsequences of the projects, however important they may turn out tobe, are all subject to the successful appropriation of the “manu-factured” land rent embodied in the new built environment. Thepublic-private or public-public initiatives rework the urban fabric suchthat the potential rent from new developments is significantly higherthan existing rent levels. Sinking capital and investment into theproduction of a new built environment revalues, at least potentially,the monetary value of the land and the built environment—benefitsthat are almost always reaped by the private sector. This is particularlynoticeable in the cases of Dublin, Brussels, Bilbao, Berlin, Athens,Copenhagen, and Naples (for greater detail on these cases, seesources cited in the acknowledgments).
Institutional Fragmentation and “Pluralistic” GovernanceThe newly emerging regimes of governing urban revitalization involvethe subordination of formal government structures to new institutionsand agencies, often paralleled by a significant redistribution of policy-making powers, competencies, and responsibilities. In the name ofgreater flexibility and efficiency, these quasi-private and highly auto-nomous organizations compete with and often supersede local andregional authorities as protagonists and managers of urban renewal.Moreover, the fragmentation of agencies and the multiplicity of institu-tions, both formal and informal, are often portrayed as positive signs,suggesting enabling institutional thickness, a considerable degree oflocal embeddedness, and significant social capacity-building. In addition,these institutional and regulatory configurations are celebrated as anew form of governing, signaling a better and more transparent articu-lation between government (state) and civil society. The “stakeholder”participation on which partnerships are based becomes a normativemodel that is presented as a democratic forum that permits open andnondistorted communication and action.
Yet the actual configuration of such project-based institutions revealsan extraordinary degree of selectivity. Although a varying choreographyof state, private sector, and nongovernmental organization (NGO)participation is usually present (see Table 4 for a comparative over-view), these forms of urban governance show a significant deficit withrespect to accountability, representation, and the presence of formalrules of inclusion or participation. Indeed, accountability channels areoften gray, nonformalized, and nontransparent, frequently circumventing
Neoliberal Urbanization in Europe 561
562 Antipode
Tab
le 4
:F
rom
Pla
nnin
g to
Pro
ject
s: E
xcep
tiona
lity
Mea
sure
s an
d L
ocal
Dem
ocra
cy
UD
PT
erri
tori
al
Exc
epti
onal
ity
Incl
usio
n of
Inst
itut
iona
l Com
plex
ity
Soci
al R
etur
nsF
ragm
enta
tion
Mea
sure
s/
Nei
ghbo
rhoo
dA
ccou
ntab
ilit
yP
opul
atio
n in
D
ecis
ion-
mak
ing
Rot
terd
amA
ttem
pt to
N
o ex
cept
iona
lity
In la
ter
stag
e of
H
ighl
y co
mpl
ex. I
ndep
ende
nt
Yes
, but
ver
y lim
ited
and
Kop
van
Zui
dco
nstr
uct p
hysi
cal
mea
sure
s, b
ut
proj
ect a
nd in
an
Stat
e-M
unic
ipal
Par
tner
ship
for
in a
djac
ent n
eigh
borh
oods
.lin
k/br
idge
with
eros
ion
of tr
ust i
nin
dire
ct w
ayK
op v
an Z
uid.
Inv
olve
men
t of
1990
s: s
tron
ger
stre
ss o
nce
ntra
l city
polit
ical
pro
cess
.pr
ivat
e in
vest
ors.
Com
plex
of
soci
al p
roje
cts
in a
djac
ent
Ele
cted
bor
ough
polic
ies
for
urba
n re
gene
ratio
n an
dne
ighb
orho
ods
coun
cils
soci
al r
enew
al d
iffic
ult t
o co
ordi
nate
Lon
don
Det
achm
ent f
rom
O
ne o
f the
mos
t Y
esN
ot c
ompl
ex: f
rom
gra
ssro
ots
Yes
The
Sou
th B
ank
adja
cent
war
ds.
dem
ocra
tic m
odel
s or
gani
zatio
n to
par
tner
-dom
inat
edB
ridg
e w
ith c
entr
al
in U
RSP
IC s
ampl
epl
anni
ngL
ondo
n
Ber
lin
Det
achm
ent;
fillin
g D
emoc
ratic
con
trol
No
Part
ners
hip
betw
een
the
publ
ic
Indi
rect
Adl
ersh
ofga
pson
pub
lic
sect
or (
Ber
lin)
and
sem
ipri
vate
ov
ersp
endi
ngde
velo
per.
Litt
le s
tate
/mun
icip
ality
co
ordi
natio
n
Bru
ssel
sD
etac
hmen
tPe
rmis
sive
att
itude
N
oPr
olife
ratin
g nu
mbe
r of
pri
vate
N
o (n
egat
ive
soci
al
Esp
ace
Leo
pold
of
aut
hori
ties
deve
lope
rs a
nd o
f “in
form
al”
retu
rns)
(EU
)to
war
ds p
riva
te
publ
ic/p
riva
te r
elat
ions
deve
lope
rs
Lis
bon
Few
or
no li
nks
Dis
cret
iona
ry
No
No
rela
tions
with
ove
rall
plan
ning
A
mbi
guou
sE
xpo
1998
with
ori
enta
l zon
es
plan
ning
age
ncy
in L
isbo
n; n
o lin
ks w
ith o
ther
of
Lis
bon
UD
Ps in
Lis
bon
Neoliberal Urbanization in Europe 563
Tab
le 4
:C
ontin
ued
UD
PT
erri
tori
al
Exc
epti
onal
ity
Incl
usio
n of
Inst
itut
iona
l Com
plex
ity
Soci
al R
etur
nsF
ragm
enta
tion
Mea
sure
s/
Nei
ghbo
rhoo
d A
ccou
ntab
ilit
yP
opul
atio
n in
D
ecis
ion-
mak
ing
Cop
enha
gen
Att
empt
to
Lin
ked
to th
e N
o. N
o lin
kage
s to
Ver
y co
mpl
ex. I
ndep
ende
nt
Am
bigu
ous.
Perh
aps
Oer
esta
den
conn
ect O
rest
aden
O
eres
und
com
mun
ity
stat
e-m
unic
ipal
par
tner
ship
/so
cial
ret
urns
to th
e ci
tyto
the
city
R
egio
naliz
atio
n em
pow
erm
ent
com
pany
. In
real
ity, c
ontr
olle
d as
a w
hole
and
in th
e lo
ngSt
rate
gy. D
emoc
ratic
pr
ogra
ms
in
by th
e M
inis
try
of F
inan
ce in
ru
nde
ficit
in th
e in
itial
de
priv
ed d
istr
icts
D
enm
ark
phas
eof
Cop
enha
gen
Dub
linD
etac
hmen
t in
Dev
elop
men
t In
itial
ly N
o, b
ut
Initi
ally
an
excl
usiv
e, e
xecu
tive-
Loc
al: n
one
in th
e in
itial
Dub
lin
earl
y ph
ase—
Aut
hori
ty: r
espo
nsib
lesu
bseq
uent
ly Y
es:
styl
e Q
uang
o w
ith o
wn
com
plet
est
age
of th
e pr
ojec
t but
D
ockl
ands
at
tem
pt to
cre
ate
to n
atio
nal
loca
l nei
ghbo
rhoo
dpl
anni
ng p
ower
s. C
hang
ed to
loca
llo
cal s
ocia
l pro
gram
s no
wD
evel
opm
ent
new
sec
tor
to th
e go
vern
men
t. L
ocal
ex
clud
ed in
firs
t so
cial
-par
tner
ship
mod
el o
f w
ell d
evel
oped
and
oth
er
Proj
ect w
ith
east
of e
xist
ing
gove
rnm
ent a
nd lo
cal
phas
e bu
t now
re
gene
ratio
n in
199
7 w
ith o
wn
initi
ativ
es c
omin
g on
IF
SC a
s C
BD
. Att
empt
to
com
mun
ities
initi
ally
dire
ctly
rep
rese
nted
plan
ning
pow
ers
coex
istin
g st
ream
(in
clud
ing
soci
al
flags
hip
build
bri
dges
and
excl
uded
from
on
the
Gov
erni
ng
alon
gsid
e th
ose
of lo
cal
hous
ing)
; a m
ajor
fil
l gap
s in
late
st
deci
sion
-mak
ing.
Now
Cou
ncil
of th
e go
vern
men
t. D
ual p
lann
ing
cont
ribu
tor
thro
ugh
IFSC
phas
eth
e m
ost d
emoc
ratic
Urb
an D
evel
opm
ent
regi
me
(loc
al a
utho
rity
and
ac
tiviti
es a
nd ta
x re
venu
esm
odel
in th
e U
RSP
ICC
orpo
ratio
n (U
DC
).U
DC
) no
w y
ield
ing
com
plex
to
gro
ss d
omes
tic p
rodu
ctsa
mpl
e
deve
lopm
ent s
cena
rios
and
exch
eque
r re
sour
ces
Bil
bao
Fill
ing
gaps
; C
ombi
natio
n of
N
oN
o, b
ut in
nova
tions
in m
anag
ing
Am
bigu
ous.
Ben
efits
for
Aba
ndoi
barr
abu
ildin
g br
idge
sst
atut
ory
plan
ning
st
ruct
ures
and
pub
lic-p
ublic
ad
jace
nt a
reas
but
no
inst
rum
ents
and
pa
rtne
rshi
ps fo
r “c
once
rted
” tr
ickl
e-do
wn
effe
cts
disc
retio
nary
ur
bani
sm
564 Antipode
Tab
le 4
:C
ontin
ued
UD
PT
erri
tori
al
Exc
epti
onal
ity
Incl
usio
n of
Inst
itut
iona
l Com
plex
ity
Soci
al R
etur
nsF
ragm
enta
tion
Mea
sure
s/
Nei
ghbo
rhoo
d A
ccou
ntab
ilit
yP
opul
atio
n in
D
ecis
ion-
mak
ing
man
agem
ent b
y a
spec
ial p
urpo
se
urba
n de
velo
pmen
t co
mpa
ny (
mix
ed
econ
omy
firm
)
Ath
ens
Det
achm
ent;
Cen
tral
sta
te le
vel
No.
Vir
tual
ly
The
dev
elop
men
t pro
ject
dep
ends
A
mbi
guou
s. T
he p
roje
ct’s
Oly
mpi
c un
derm
inin
g so
cial
co
ntro
ls th
e no
thin
g ha
s be
en
on tw
o go
vern
ance
/gov
ernm
ent
soci
al r
etur
ns in
clud
e V
illag
ean
d ec
onom
ic
rede
velo
pmen
t do
ne to
invo
lve
syst
ems,
a “
norm
al”
and
anso
me
pote
ntia
l gai
ns in
cohe
renc
e of
pr
oces
s an
d co
ntai
ns
neig
hbor
hood
“e
xcep
tiona
l” o
ne. T
he n
orm
al
empl
oym
ent d
urin
g th
e su
rrou
ndin
g in
volv
emen
t of t
hepo
pula
tions
in th
e sy
stem
dea
ls w
ith r
egul
ar
cons
truc
tion
phas
e. T
helo
calit
ies
loca
l aut
hori
ties
and
deci
sion
-mak
ing
deve
lopm
enta
l iss
ues,
whi
le th
eO
lym
pic
Vill
age
also
popu
latio
n pr
oces
s“e
xcep
tiona
l” is
the
syst
em th
at
incl
udes
a p
ublic
hou
sing
prep
ares
and
adm
inis
ters
the
sche
me
for
the
post
-Oly
mpi
cO
lym
pics
era.
No
cent
ral c
omm
itmen
tex
ists
that
gua
rant
ees
hous
ing
for
loca
l pop
ulat
ion
Vie
nna
Fill
ing
gaps
; bri
dge
Onl
y su
perf
icia
l A
mbi
guou
sPr
olife
ratio
n of
pri
vate
dev
elop
ers
Neg
ativ
e so
cial
ret
urns
: D
onau
-to
cen
tral
city
dem
ocra
cy: h
eari
ngs
and
publ
ic a
utho
ritie
sin
stitu
tiona
lizat
ion
of
City
with
out p
ower
publ
ic-p
riva
te p
artn
ersh
ips,
high
-inco
me
grou
ps a
scl
ient
ele
of s
ocia
lde
moc
racy
Neoliberal Urbanization in Europe 565
Tab
le 4
:C
ontin
ued
UD
PT
erri
tori
al
Exc
epti
onal
ity
Incl
usio
n of
Inst
itut
iona
l Com
plex
ity
Soci
al R
etur
nsF
ragm
enta
tion
Mea
sure
s/
Nei
ghbo
rhoo
d A
ccou
ntab
ilit
yP
opul
atio
n in
D
ecis
ion-
mak
ing
Nap
les
The
pro
ject
has
T
he p
riva
te
No:
onl
y th
roug
h N
o co
ordi
natio
n w
ith o
ther
pro
ject
s.
Impr
ovem
ents
of p
ublic
C
entr
o in
crea
sed
deve
lope
r ha
d a
form
al p
oliti
cal
No
rela
tions
with
pla
nnin
g in
the
tran
spor
t inf
rast
ruct
ures
Dir
ezio
nale
frag
men
tatio
n in
do
min
atin
g in
fluen
ce
repr
esen
tatio
n in
ci
ty a
nd m
etro
polit
an a
rea
the
city
on n
atio
nal,
regi
onal
, th
e ci
ty c
ounc
il. N
oan
d lo
cal g
over
nmen
tpr
ovis
ion
of
info
rmat
ion
and/
or
dire
ct c
onsu
ltatio
n
Bir
min
gham
Fill
ing
gaps
Urb
an m
achi
ne
No
The
City
Cou
ncil
dive
rted
fina
nce
Neg
ligib
le fo
r de
priv
ed
CB
Dpo
litic
s. C
osts
hid
den
from
thei
r ed
ucat
ion
and
hous
ing
com
mun
ities
in th
e fr
om c
ounc
il an
d bu
dget
s th
roug
h a
priv
ate
sect
or
imm
edia
te a
rea
publ
icco
mpa
ny th
at th
ey o
wn.
Thi
s w
as
used
as
mat
ched
fund
ing
for
EU
R
egio
nal F
unds
Lil
leF
illin
g ga
psU
se o
f spe
cial
F
orm
ally
, C
oord
inat
ion
with
oth
er U
DPs
onl
y So
me
tric
kle-
dow
n ef
fect
s.E
ural
ille
stru
ctur
e fo
r co
nsul
tatio
n w
ithon
pap
er
Impr
oved
pub
lic tr
ansp
ort
deve
lopm
ent
citiz
ens
syst
emco
mpa
ny
Key
: Ter
rito
rial
frag
men
tatio
n: fu
nctio
nal a
nd p
hysi
cal s
epar
atio
n fr
om a
djoi
ning
poo
rer
neig
hbor
hood
s; b
uild
ing
brid
ges
with
nei
ghbo
rhoo
ds; f
illin
g ga
ps in
aban
done
d, d
eind
ustr
ializ
ed, o
r em
ptie
d-ou
t zon
es. E
xcep
tiona
lity
mea
sure
s: s
peci
al la
ws,
spe
cial
pla
nnin
g to
ols,
new
non
- or
quas
igov
ernm
enta
l sys
tem
s or
agen
cies
, avo
idan
ce o
f dem
ocra
tic c
ontr
ol, a
nd s
o on
.
traditional democratic channels of accountability (eg to a repre-sentative elected body). As Table 4 suggests, the structures ofrepresentation of the participating partners are diffuse and unregu-lated. There are rarely formalized mechanisms of representation, andit is often difficult, if not impossible, to identify who represents what,who, and how. Finally—and most importantly—participation is rarelystatutory, but operates through co-optation and invitation, usually bythe key power brokers within the institutions. This invariably influencesthe regulatory environment, shapes the interventions, and produces aparticular imagination of the urban in line with the demands, dreams,and aspirations of the included, while marginalized or otherwiseexcluded groups remain symptomatically absent. This process hasbecome the dominant mode of institutional organization and suggestsa shift from a system of representative urban government to one ofstakeholder urban governance that is centered on newly establishedinstitutional arrangements. In our case studies (and this is especiallyclear in Berlin, Athens, Brussels, Lisbon, and Bilbao—see Table 4), a complex range of public, semipublic, and private actors shape aninteractive system in which different, but allied, views and interestsare “negotiated.” Public-private partnerships epitomize the ideal ofsuch cooperative and coordinated mode of “pluralistic” governance.
The emergence of a more fragmented and pluralistic mode of urbangovernance has also contributed to the redefinition of roles played bylocal authorities. In particular, it has served to reinforce the tendencytowards a more proactive approach, letting local authorities actsimultaneously as enablers, partners, and clients. At the same time,the new structures of governance also express the outcomes of anongoing renegotiation between the different levels of government—local, regional, and national—regarding competencies and powers inthe management of urban revitalization. These institutions are bunkeredagainst popular participation and influence by local communitygroups and, indeed, against democratic control and accountability.The cases of London, Lisbon, Brussels, and Bilbao reveal an extraordinarydegree of autonomy and impermeability of the managing organizations.Often, this organic autonomy has helped to reinforce the tendency toavoid a social and political debate over alternative paths and strategies.
Of course, as Table 4 illustrates, the level and degree of institutionalreorganization of the systems and institutions of urban governance is highly variegated and context-dependent. Moreover, as the processof planning and implementation is confronted with social protest orcritique, institutional and organizational forms adjust or transform inorder to maintain legitimacy, social cohesion, and sufficient politicalsupport. Despite the great diversity of local, regional, and nationalchanges in the forms of urban governance and despite their often verydifferent agendas (ranging from merely economic growth-based
566 Antipode
initiatives to integrated projects aimed at improving social conditionsin the city), the project-based nature of these interventions is accom-panied by new institutional configurations, characterized by powergeometries that differ from those of the traditional arenas of govern-ment. A veil of secrecy pre-empts criticism and discussion, and ahighly selective leaking of information is justified on the grounds of commercial confidentiality and technical impartiality. Indeed, aconspicuous feature of these large-scale projects is the relatively lowresistance and conflict they generate. With the exception of Dublinand Brussels, there has been no major “grassroots” contestation ofthe UDPs. In this sense, the role of local growth coalitions is criticalin framing a discourse of renewal, innovation, achievement, andsuccess.
From Planning to ProjectsLarge-scale urban projects are often presented as project-focusedmarket-led initiatives, which have replaced statutory planning as theprimary means of intervention in cities. Planning through urban“projects” has indeed emerged as the main strategy to stimulateeconomic growth and to “organize innovation,” both organizationallyand economically (see Table 4). Large-scale projects and events are perceived as strategic instruments aiming at reshaping the city.Against the crisis of the comprehensive Plan—the classic policy instru-ment of the Fordist age—the large, emblematic Project has emergedas a viable alternative, allegedly combining the advantages of flexibilityand targeted actions with a tremendous symbolic capacity. Essentiallyfragmented, this form of intervention goes hand in hand with aneclectic planning style where attention to design, detail, morphology,and aesthetics is paramount. The emblematic Project captures a seg-ment of the city and turns it into the symbol of the new restructured/revitalized metropolis cast with a powerful image of innovation,creativity, and success. And yet, despite the rhetoric, the replacementof the Plan by the Project has not displaced planning from the urbanarena. In fact, the case studies reveal that in most examples there is a strong strategic component and a significant role for planning.However, in the process, there has been a drastic reorganization of theplanning and urban policy-making structures and a rise of new modesof intervention, planning goals, tools, and institutions.
Urban Projects and the Neoliberal Urban OrderVisioning the City as an Elite Playing FieldThe UDPs included in our study have a variety of characteristics, buttheir sheer dimensions elevate them to central icons in the scripting of the image of the future of the cities in which they are located.
Neoliberal Urbanization in Europe 567
Invariably, the main aspiration is to turn the city into a global com-petitive actor in the domain in which the elites feel it has somecompetitive advantage. Needless to say, the imagin(eer)ing of thecity’s future is directly articulated with the visions of those who are pivotal to the formulation, planning, and implementation of theproject. Consequently, these projects have been and often still arearenas that reflect profound power struggles and position-taking ofkey economic, political, social, or cultural elites. The scripting of theproject highlights and reflects the aspirations of a particular set oflocal, regional, and national—and sometimes also international—actorsthat shape, through the exercise of their socioeconomic, cultural, orpolitical power, the development trajectories of each of the areas. Assuch, the UDPs can be considered as “elite playing fields,” on whichthe stake is to shape an urban future in line with the aspirations of themost powerful segment(s) among the participants.
Clearly, the association of coalitions of elite players changes overtime and from place to place, and alliance formation and break-upredefines development trajectories in important ways. Struggles for inclusion in or exclusion from the elite circles become pivotal in shaping wider process of social, cultural, political, and economicintegration or exclusion. Each case study narrates the sociohistoricaldynamics of alliances in the choreography of social-power struggles(for detailed accounts, see sources listed in acknowledgments). Inconjunction with structural socioeconomic changes, these are instru-mental in shaping the fortunes of urban environments, as they decidefundamental rights to housing, access to services, access to land and the like. Again, the role of the state, the system of governance,and the position of the citizens vis-à-vis these institutional forms will be central in determining the mechanisms of inclusion/exclusionthat are shaped by the new urban development trajectories. Yet, the underlying motive is to reinvigorate a successful accumulationstrategy and accompanying hegemony of vision that revolves aroundthe requirement to turn the projects into viable—that is, profitable—economic ventures.
From a Social to a Spatial Definition of Development:Targeting Places rather than PeopleAlmost all of the case-study projects pay at least rhetorical attentionto social issues associated with the planning and implementation of the project. The assumed trickle-down mechanisms, occasionallyaccompanied by targeted policies to facilitate social inclusion pro-cesses (see Table 4), are considered of sufficient strength to permit asocially balanced and successful development. However, in contrast tothe universal, inclusive, and blanket support policies that characterizedKeynesian and welfare-state interventionism, economic regeneration
568 Antipode
is now primarily achieved via place-bound and spatially targetedredevelopment schemes. While national funding and incentives are diminishing, private development capital (from local, national, orextranational origin) is being mobilized for the implementation ofterritorially defined urban projects. In addition, given the reduction inuniversal welfare programs, the “territorial” approach or “targeted”-area approach have replaced universal support structures. Moreover,the slimming-down of national social redistribution is accompanied bypolicies that direct funds and attention to particular social groups,identified on the basis of their location, their place, and the charac-teristics of their living environment. Similarly, the EU’s urban socialprograms take on an outspoken, spatially focused character.
In sum, there has been a shift from universalist to spatially targetedand place-focused approaches in the 1990s. Targeting policies/inter-ventions to geographically circumscribed areas and to economicallydynamic or promising activities is presented as a path to remedysocioeconomic exclusion. Indeed, in the policy discourse, UDPs arepresented as instruments that can also help to overcome socialexclusion. The official rhetorical attention to social issues is mobilizedpolitically to legitimize projects, while the underlying and sometimesexplicit objective is different. The assumption of trickle-down, how-ever, does not hold true in a context characterized by an absence ofregulatory (labor, financial, and income) standards or income redis-tribution systems at the national or EU level. This accounts, of course,for the significant differences in sociospatial inequality between, forexample, Denmark, with its long social-democratic tradition, and theUK, with its much more liberal-conservative legacy. The targeting ofspaces for “development” permits recasting particular social groups asproblematic, excluded, marginalized, and nonintegrated. Consequently—so the official argument goes—strategies of integration and inclusionshould be pursued by means of territorial, place-based policies, ratherthan through national or European-wide socioeconomic measures,redistribution, and political-economic strategies. From the perspectiveof this NUP, it is places that need to be integrated, not citizens; it isplaces that need redevelopment, not people that require jobs andincome. Of course, the above is not a plea for dismissing communitycapacity-building and local-level initiatives, but they need to beframed in more general redistribution and regulatory polices athigher-scale levels—those of the national state and, more importantly,the European Union.
Interurban Competition for National or European FundsAs most of the UDPs are nationally or EU (co-)funded (see Table 3),municipalities or other forms of local governance compete fortargeted funding. In general, the concentration of public investments
Neoliberal Urbanization in Europe 569
in these large-scale project locations involves redistributing resourcesaway from other uses and areas. In addition, funds are allocated on a project-formulation basis, not on the basis of social needs or con-siderations of fostering the social economy. Either explicitly orimplicitly, the competitive tendering process by national or inter-national organizations favors projects that have a sound institutionaland organizational basis capable of engaging in the complex tasks ofproject formulation, lobbying, negotiation, and implementation. Thisrequires not only a set of sophisticated skills, but also significantfinancial resources, as well as easy access to the centers of power. Allof this is usually not available to the weaker social groups and areas in the city, which are consequently falling behind and are dependenton ad hoc measures imposed from above. Moreover, given the needto foster alliances between often-rival economic and political elitegroups to create the necessary hegemony of vision to compete suc-cessfully for state support and private investment, the developmentactivities are often masked in a web of secrecy and hidden behind ascreen of commercial confidentiality.
In the context of more targeted interventions and reduced universalsocial support, which is increasingly organized and conducted by andthrough elite coalition formation, public resources are drained fromuniversal programs to targeted territorial projects geared at support-ing a particular social configuration—a process that itself harborsexclusionary mechanisms. The misty organizational structures inBrussels, the exclusive elite coalitions of Birmingham, and the shiftingalliances in Copenhagen and Naples illustrate the variety of processesthrough which this takes place.
Authoritarian Management, Exclusion, and Client FormationThe new systems of urban governance—the quasigovernmentalinstitutional framework based upon forging synergies between thepublic sector and the elite fractions of civil society—also justify the adoption of discretionary forms of management. Thus, the way the process develops creates the conditions for the establishment ofcentralized and more autocratic management, which privileges directappointments. Thus, the role of lobbies, family ties, business con-nections, and forms of “clientelism” become dominant. These formsof coalition-formation at the level of project formulation and imple-mentation accentuate a growing gap between actual governance andcivil society, intensify processes of political exclusion, and promote a dual society in terms of a coalition of public/private interests on the one hand and a growing group of disenfranchised on the other.While the above suggests that growth machines, elite coalitions, andnetworks of power are centrally important in shaping developmenttrajectories, it is evident from our case studies that different growth
570 Antipode
machines are associated with different interests and lead to differentmechanisms of inclusion/exclusion.
Nonetheless, the “coalitions” of public and semipublic actorsinvariably produce an exclusive group involved in a common discourseon the progress of the project, a discourse that is not easily opened topublic scrutiny or that would invite or permit dissidence. Importantdecisions and arrangements are made by steering committees, boardsof directors of operating companies, nonaccountable quasigovern-mental organizations, and the like, and are often kept away frompublic scrutiny. Outsiders are usually not tolerated. There is, at best,only a highly formalized form of public participation that maintains keypower in the hands of the existing elite structure and even preventsnewly emerging elites (such as, for example, immigrant entrepreneursand an emerging group of sociocultural elites in the transnationalcommunities in cities like Brussels or Vienna) to enter the establishednetworks of governance and dominant elite coalitions. These coalitionscreate a public discourse on the importance of the project and defineit as a particular milestone in the shaping of the future of the city, andtheir interventions are presented as essential to maintaining a viableposition in the interurban competition at a pan-European or globalscale.
The reactions of the local state to exogenous and endogenouspressures manifest in the establishment of these new forms of urbangovernance (public-private partnerships, development co-operations,new administrative structures, and new political forums) that circum-vent, bypass, ignore, or marginalize certain social groups. The nationalstate itself is often instrumental in shaping and organizing such ex-clusive growth coalitions and in providing the extraordinary regulatoryenvironment in which they can operate outside a system of publicaccountability. In some cases, such as Copenhagen, Brussels, andVienna, such growth-coalitions reproduce or re-enforce existing butthreatened corporatist forms of governance. Informal networks of a relatively small number of individuals occupying key positions in public administration, business, or design/architecture form a newfield of power. In the tendering of large-scale projects, these networksare of crucial importance. Needless to say, the projects are thereforeclosely associated with the interests of the particular coalition sets(and their clients); they are usually self-referential, closed circles thatconsolidate their power while preventing access to others.
UDPs, Speculation, and the Production of Land RentAs producers of urban space, UDPs are inherently speculative andhence highly risky, in the sense that their financial and economicviability depends on the future realization of the produced increasedurban rents. Of course, the latter depend not only on the particular
Neoliberal Urbanization in Europe 571
characteristics of the project or the vitality of the local economy, butalso on national and international economic conditions. In addition,such projects provide opportunities to extract from the state (at alocal, national, or EU level), in addition to its direct contributions,further resources in terms of public investment for infrastructures,services, and buildings. Most of the project’s development costs aresupposed to be met from the sale or renting of land or buildings—rents the value of which has been jacked up through state support, re-regulation, zoning changes, infrastructure investment, and the like.
All this suggests that it is financially very attractive for real-estatedevelopers to concentrate on developing projects for the more well-to-do customers, for housing as well as for businesses. In fact, thefinancial viability of market-driven urban revitalization projects is, of course, invariably predicated upon closing existing rent gaps bymeans of the production of a new built environment that is at leastpotentially capable of generating high income. The uncertain and,hence, intrinsically speculative character of the production of newland rent points towards the key role of the state as the preferredinterlocutor for carrying the financial risks associated with such real-estate-based urban restructuring (see also the chapters by Smith andWeber this volume).
Whether successful or not, the dependence on rent returns for thefeasibility of UDPs invariably targets high-income segments of thepopulation or potentially high-productivity-based economic activitiesand makes the success of the project dependent on the dynamics ofthe real-estate sector (see Table 5). This does not contribute toalleviating the process of social segmentation and exclusion and oftenleads to the creation of islands of wealth in an impoverished environ-ment, resulting in the city becoming a patchwork of socioeconomicallyhighly diversified and more mutually exclusive areas. To the extentthat low-cost or social housing is included in the project, the lowerrevenue from such targeted housing policy undermines the financialfeasibility of the project and requires, in turn, considerable statesupport or subsidies. Table 5 summarizes the relationships betweenreal-estate development, the production of high rental returns, and aproject’s financing structure. Moreover, given the real-estate-basednature of these projects, the public funding is, through private rentappropriation, transferred to the private sector. Consequently, thereis a flow of capital from the public to the private sector via the builtenvironment, often without mediation by means of socially targetedpolicies or instruments.
The City as PatchworkGiven the often radically new socioeconomic functions associatedwith UDPs, a process of transfer and of dislocation of jobs inevitably
572 Antipode
Neoliberal Urbanization in Europe 573
Table 5: Relationship between Dynamics in the Real-Estate Market and UDPDevelopment: Nine Cases
Project Real-Estate Market, the Production of Rent, and the Development of the UDP
Berlin The reunification of Germany was decisive for the development Adlershof of Berlin’s real-estate market and triggered a sudden rush of
initiatives from international and national investors anddevelopers. This was re-enforced by a strong competition forattractive sites. Today, the Berlin real-estate market showsincreasing supply-side reserves and demand structures that fallshort of expectation. These developments have had a majorimpact on the progress and pace of the project implementationin Adlershof. Here, a high volume of office and housing siteshas been planned without considering the decreasing demand.Due to the restraint of private investors, project developmenthas slowed down in Adlershof.
Bilbao As in most other cities throughout Spain, since the mid-1980s, Abandoibarra the real-estate market in Bilbao has experienced an
extraordinary boom. During the 90s, housing prices in the citycontinued to rise, although the rate of growth decreased in thelast third of the decade. Real-estate prices in Abandoibarraboth benefited from and contributed to this boom. In the lessthan four years that separated the beginning of redevelopmentworks and the marketing of the first housing land slots, landprices in Abandoibarra more than doubled (2.3 times). Real-estate price increases have spread throughout the city, but theytend to be proportionally higher in Abandoibarra’s adjoiningneighborhoods. And, while it cannot be said that land priceincreases in the city are exclusively related to Abandoibarra’sredevelopment, it is nonetheless certain that this scheme iscontributing significantly to this trend as well as to thealteration of housing prices differentials among differentneighborhoods across the city.
Brussels Due to the continuous demand for additional office space in theLeopold Leopold Quarter—a demand led by the EU institutions, but Quarter also by both national and international banking and insurance
sectors—rental values have systematically increased over thepast decades. Rents in the Leopold Quarter are now amongstthe highest in the country (up to 200 Euro per m2). Theincreasing demand for office space has also generatedspeculative activities in the area: remaining residential blocksare systematically bought by property developers and eventuallydemolished and replaced with offices, regardless of land-useplanning regulations. Other residential pockets have beenupgraded and made available for wealthy (international)residents, or are now de facto (and illegally) used as offices forsmaller organizations (for example, lobby groups and lawfirms). Globally operating real-estate agents (such as JonesLang Wootton and Healey & Baker) have come to dominatethe Leopold Quarter market, while construction and propertydevelopment remains mainly in Belgian (and French) hands.
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Table 5: Continued
Project Real-Estate Market, the Production of Rent, and the Development of the UDP
Copenhagen In general, the prices in the housing market skyrocketed duringOrestaden the second half of the 1990s and the social geography within the
city has become more polarized. There still exists an importantsocial-housing sector, but the role of this sector has graduallydeclined, because housing construction subsidized by themunicipality and the state has almost stopped since thebeginning of the nineties. The municipal housing policy hasincreasingly been used as a tool to regulate the tax base ofCopenhagen, favoring the middle classes. The UDP follows this trend.
Lille Euralille and other UDPs in the Lille agglomeration did not Euralille lead to skyrocketing increases of land and housing prices.
However, inside the agglomeration, real-estate marketdynamics have produced a displacement of lower-middle-classand working-class population to “cheaper” areas. Gentrificationprojects in particular (first Vieux Lille, then Euralille,Wazemmes, and Moulins) with more offices, exquisite services,and middle- to upper-class housing estates, led to local pricerises, driving deprived population groups to otherneighborhoods, especially to the south of Lille or even outsidethe agglomeration. The UDP has contributed to this growingspatial differentiation of real-estate and rental values.
Vienna Rents skyrocketed in the second half of the 1980s and haveDonau-City been stagnating since then. This can be explained by a
contradictory movement. On the one hand, there still exists animportant public-housing sector. Housing constructionsubsidized by the municipality was intensive until 1996, andrestrictive rent laws were applied until 1982. On the other hand,liberal regulation is advancing: subsidies for construction ofhousing have been dramatically reduced over the last years.Furthermore, publicly subsidized housing is increasinglyoriented towards the upper middle classes. The UDP is aparadigmatic case illustrating these changes.
Naples During the 1980s, prices in the real-estate market grew Centro dramatically to reach record levels in 1991 and 1992, Direzionale particularly in selected central areas. They subsequently
declined almost as fast as they had previously risen, continuingto fall until 1997, when the first signs of recovery appeared andprices stabilized or began to increase again. Apartments in theCentro Direzionale di Napoli (CDN) became available at thepeak of the market price for prime location units and thus couldbe expected to yield quite significant returns. The developer,however, sold 90% of the residential units to a state-runpension fund for the employees of public companies andguaranteed his return. By law, only families working for stateagencies are entitled to rent those apartments, and rental pricesare set lower than the market price according to the rules of the
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Table 5: Continued
Project Real-Estate Market, the Production of Rent, and the Development of the UDP
1978 Fair Rent Act. This decision removed these units from thesale and rental markets, creating a separate segment that issomewhat insulated from market dynamics. The project hadalso a depressing effect on the value of building land for otheroffice projects in the city.
Dublin Property demand in both the housing and office markets, both Docklands within the UDP site and in the surrounding neighborhoods, has Development grown rapidly in the 1990s and land prices in the area have Project (with soared due to the presence of the IFSC. With companies IFSC as queuing to get into the successful IFSC site as the economy flagship) boomed in the 1990s, the intense demand for office space
squeezed other real-estate markets, most notably the provisionof social and affordable housing within and around the UDP.Average house prices tripled between 1989 to 1999, while theprovision of social housing evaporated due to the post-1986retrenchment of public-sector welfare spending. The housingsituation is particularly acute in the docklands UDP andneighboring areas. Local residents cannot compete withinvestors or the predominantly young professionals whopurchase or rent the limited supply of private residential unitsavailable in the area. The result has been gentrification of theinitial UDC site and the exclusion from the life of the area,through the property market, of many of the latest generationof the indigenous population.
London The real-estate market on the South Bank is subject to South Bank contradictory tendencies. On the one hand, the South Bank is
one of the most expensive spots in central London because ofits central location opposite the city and Westminster. In termsof real-estate prices, it is exceeded only by those two areas. On the other hand, the South Bank’s community developmentgroup, Coin Street Community Builders, owns 6.5 acres of landon the South Bank, which is designated for the construction ofco-operative housing schemes and public spaces. This has acertain downward effect on real-estate prices. However, therecently opened new underground line (the Jubilee Line) hassignificantly improved the South Bank’s connections with therest of Central London and will certainly have an upward effecton real-estate prices. Furthermore, the successful“reimagineering” efforts through public space improvementsand consistent place marketing, together with the opening ofmajor nearby attractions such as the new Tate Gallery, will alsohave an effect on real-estate prices. Meanwhile, the housingmarket remains strongly dominated by Local Authority housing(38%), housing co-operatives (28%), and semipublic institutions(17%). Only 15% of residents live in privately owned housesand 2% in privately rented flats. Another estimated 2000 adultslive in hostels, on the streets, and in other nonpermanentaccommodation (estimates for 1994).
takes place. Spatial labor markets become out of joint or are mis-matched. Targeted labor-market policies might remedy some of thisdisjuncture, but the sheer scale of labor-market restructuring oftenimplies prolonged stress on the labor market combined with painfulprocesses of adaptation and, frequently, a growing separation betweenremaining local communities and the incoming new workforce. Thisseparation is often accentuated through now-generalized processes ofderegulation of labor markets at national and EU levels. This leads toa double-edged dualization of labor markets. Increasingly, dual orsegmented labor markets are seen, with a group of highly paid andskilled executives on the one hand and large groups of less secure—often-informal—workers on the other, and many other categories in between. The segmentation of labor markets, which is facilitated by the national deregulation of labor-market rules and other changesin the national regulatory frameworks, becomes cemented in and ex-pressed by the socioeconomic composition of the UDPs. The inclusionof the existing labor pool proves difficult or impossible, while retrain-ing and targeted labor-market entry policies tend not to be verysuccessful, despite the prolonged support for such programs.
This socioeconomic restructuring, combined with a mosaic of newlyconstructed built environments with their associated increased rents,produces urban islands, a patchwork of discrete spaces with increas-ingly sharp boundaries (gated business centers, leisure, or communityspaces). This is re-enforced through a combination of physical, social,and cultural boundary formation processes. The overall result is theconsolidation of a fragmented city, which accompanies the reorgan-ization of the sociospatial fabric of the urban agglomeration (see alsoMacLeod this volume). In some cases, this mosaic takes the form ofsuburbanization of poverty, while internal differentiation accentuatessociospatial differentiation and polarization, a process that often takesoutspoken racialized forms (notably in Brussels, Berlin, Rotterdam,and Vienna).
Conclusion: Neoliberal Urbanism and Democratic DeficitUrban regeneration and development policies in the European city, inthe context of national and EU-wide tendencies towards the imple-mentation of neoliberal socioeconomic policies, brought about criticalshifts in domains and levels of intervention and in the compositionand characteristics of actors and agents, institutional structures, andpolicy tools. Over the last decade and a half, urban regeneration policyhas become an increasingly central component of urban policy. Forthe most part, urban regeneration schemes based on large-scale UDPshave emerged as a response to urban restructuring processes asso-ciated with the transformation of production and demand conditionslocally, nationally, and globally; they generally combine physical
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upgrading with socioeconomic development objectives. In particular,such projects have become an integral part of neoliberal policies toreplace more traditional redistribution-driven approaches. The searchfor growth and competitive redevelopment has become the leadingobjective of the NUP in an attempt to reassert the position of cities inthe emerging global economy. Enhancing the competitive advantageof cities is seen as largely dependent on improving and adapting thebuilt environment to the accumulation strategies of a city’s key elites.Therefore, physical reconstruction and economic recovery tend to gohand in hand and, very often, are perceived as quasi-simultaneousprocesses: megaprojects are viewed as providing a solid foundationfor fostering future growth and functional transformation. At thesame time, urban revitalization is projected beyond the cities’ limitsand linked to regional recovery and internationalization strategies.
How do the various UDPs reflect this NUP? Figure 1 already sum-marized various critical dimensions of this policy. Most UDPs havecaused increased physical and social fragmentation in the city. Notableexceptions include Kop van Zuid in Rotterdam, which established a physical-functional—but not a social—“bridge” with the rest of thecity, and Oerestaden in Copenhagen, which has—after prolongedprotest—recovered some housing and service functions that wouldotherwise have been lost. The other projects have primarily filled gapsfor the (higher) middle-class real-estate and consumption-goodmarkets, but not for other, usually poorer and/or immigrant sectionsof the urban population. While economic gaps have been “plugged,”greater social disparities and sociospatial fragmentation have beenproduced.
A central issue involved in urban regeneration policies is the relationof UDPs to existing planning instruments and regulations. Whilethese projects are generally inserted into existing statutory planningguidelines, the initial conception, design, and implementation lies at the margins of formal planning structures. The framework of“exceptionality” associated with these initiatives favors a more auto-nomous, if not autocratic, dynamic marked by special plans and pro-jects that relegate statutory norms and procedures to a secondary andsubordinated place. Many local authorities and national governmentsjustify the exceptionality of a UDP on the basis of different factors:scale, the emblematic character of the operation, timing pressures, the need for greater flexibility, efficiency criteria, and the like.“Exceptionality” is a fundamental feature of the new urban policy,based on the primacy of project-based initiatives over regulatory plansand procedures. These changes involve, among other things, theemergence of new policy tools, actors, and institutions, and they haveimportant consequences for urban policy-making in general and for local democracy in particular. These projects exemplify like no
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other the trends towards a new local mode of regulation of urban(re)development and management shaped by the pressures of com-petitive restructuring and changing social and economic priorities, as well as by major political and ideological shifts. Indeed, theemergence of NUP rests significantly on the establishment of newforms of intervention at the local level that, to a large extent, con-stitute a rupture with traditional forms. Entrepreneurialism is aboutthe public sector running cities in a more businesslike manner, inwhich institutions of local governance operate like the private sectoror are replaced by private-sector-based systems. Indeed, the NUP isclosely associated with fundamental shifts from traditional govern-ment structures to a more diffused, fragmented, and flexible mode ofgovernance. The combination of different spatial and administrativescales in urban policy-making and the increasing fragmentation of competencies and responsibilities is one of its most striking aspects.In most cities, the full dimension of urban regeneration cannot beadequately apprehended without reference to the multiplicity ofagents, the articulation of spatial scales at which they operate, and thefragmentation of agency responsibility within the urban arena. Insome cases, this trend seems to be linked to a shift from hierarchicalrelationships (in terms of the traditional territorial hierarchy of statu-tory planning procedures) to a more collaborative and stakeholder-based, but often socially highly exclusive, scheme in which partnershipsbetween and networks of a variety of elites play a key role. However,at the same time, fragmentation and diversity are also accompanied bytendencies towards the exclusion of certain groups and collectivesfrom participating in the decision-making process. A democratic deficitemerges as a central element of this strategic approach.
The fragmentation of the mode of governance redefines the role and position of local authorities. Indeed, in the name of greaterflexibility and efficiency, these new institutions compete with andoften supplant local and regional authorities as protagonists andmanagers of urban renewal. In fact, the new governance structures ex-press the outcomes of an ongoing renegotiation between the differentlevels of government—local, regional, national, and European—andbetween public and private actors over competencies, decision-makingpowers, and funding. The establishment of these new structuresfrequently involves massive redistribution of policy-making powers,competencies, and responsibilities away from local governments tooften highly exclusive partnership agencies, a process that can bedescribed as the “privatization of urban governance.”
The fragmented character of many of the UDPs—which are oftenself-contained, isolated, and disconnected from the general dynamicsof the city—contrasts sharply with the strong emphasis on coordinatedaction of different actors, the encouragement of partnerships, and the
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building of networks and support coalitions. These are presented as providing a potentially superior form of urban management, moreflexible and efficient, and thus better adapted to the competitivetrends of global urban change. The trend towards a more flexible and network-oriented approach is often perceived as a validation of“bottom-up,” less hierarchical, and more participatory dynamics.However, participation is often limited to selected professionals—architects, planners, economists, engineers, and so on—who havebecome increasingly influential, while the nonprofessional sector andless powerful social groups are largely excluded.
In the same way, the shift from centralist, formalized, bureaucratized,hierarchical, top-down planning approaches to decentralized, morehorizontal, informal, flexibilized, bottom-up, and network planningapproaches has gone hand in hand with increasing inequality in accessto decision-making. The role of experts is strengthened at the expenseof a diminishing role of the public in general and of traditionalorganized groups in particular, with a consequent loss of democraticaccountability. Yet these new forms of governance are often legitimizedon the basis of their superior ability to offer a more inclusive, non-hierarchical, and participatory approach to planning. However, therealities of a network based on the primacy of the expert anddominated by the fusion of technical, economic, and political elitessuggest a selective exclusion of major sections of civil society in termsof access to decision-making processes.
As is succinctly summarized in the Viennese case study, “theadvantage of these personalized networks is mutual trust and highadaptability; its disadvantage is a decrease of public accountability, aweakening of civil society and an erosion of the existing parliamentarydemocracy.” In those cases in which neighborhood movementsreacted to the initial lack of local democracy (Rotterdam, Dublin),participation had to be partly restored, and neighborhood demands,as well as concerns about social issues, climbed a few notches up thepolicy priority list. Nevertheless, the limited and spatially targetedinterventions associated with project-based urban restructuringpolicies prevent these movements from transcending the localizedissues associated with a project’s implementation and from translatingthese social demands into more generalized policy models at higherspatial scales. This is arguably the most significant implication of the NUP. The downscaling of urban policies to place-specific inter-ventions in a context in which traditional redistributional policies are being reduced at higher-scale levels forces social movements tooperate through localized actions. This, in turn, militates against theurgent need to translate these place-specific actions and demands into more general social and economic programs articulated at thenational, EU, or international scale.
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Acknowledgments and ReferencesThe analysis presented in this paper draws upon the results of a thirty-month research project on Urban Redevelopment and SocialPolarization in the City (URPIC). The support of the EuropeanUnion’s IVth Framework Program is gratefully acknowledged.
The project was co-ordinated by Frank Moulaert, ArantxaRodriguez, and Erik Swyngedouw. Although the present paper cannotprovide full empirical details on each of the thirteen city cases, detailedcase-study results have been published in the following journals:Journal of European Urban and Regional Studies 8(2) 2001, Geo-graphische Zeitung 89 (2 and 3), 2002, Rassegna Italiana di Sociologia41(4), 2001, and Ciudad y Territorio—Estudioas Territoriales (CiTET),November 2001 and forthcoming 2002.
Case studies will also be published in Urbanising Globalisation, by F Moulaert, A Rodriguez, and E Swyngedouw, Oxford UniversityPress, forthcoming 2002.
The project reports, images and further details on each of the pro-jects can be found on the World-Wide Web at http://www.ifresi.univ-lille1.fr (select Programmes de Recherche and then select URSPIC).
Many of the insights reported in this paper come from a largenumber of participants in this project. We would like to acknowledgeour debt in writing this contribution to all those who worked with us on this project. Their fieldwork, data collection, interviews, andsurveys provided the foundation and material and many of the insightsfor this project, and their thoughts and writings were used extensivelyin the preparation of this paper. We are very much indebted to:Serena Vicari and Lucia Cavoli (Naples), Pavlos Delladetsimas(Athens), João Cabral (Lisbon), Elodie Salin and Thomas Werquin(Lille), Elena Martinez (Bilbao), Guy Baeten (London and Brussels),Louis Albrechts (Brussels), Hartmut Hauserman and Katja Simons(Berlin), Andreas Novy, Vanessa Redak, and Johachim Becker(Vienna), John Anderson (Copenhagen), Brendan Bartley and KaseyTreadwell Shine (Dublin), Alan Middleton and Patrick Loftman(Birmingham), and Gerard Oude Engberink and Frank Miedema(Rotterdam).
We are also grateful to Neil Brenner and to Nik Theodore for theirsupport, editorial suggestions, and patience, and to the referees fortheir comments and suggestions. Of course, none of them should beheld accountable for the contents of this paper.
Endnotes1 This paper is based on a large number of research reports from the URSPIC project,written by more than twenty-five academics working on each of the thirteen cases. Thepaper presented here digests material that comes from all of these papers, and partswere actually written by one or another of our collaborators. References in the original
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research documents often come from our partners’ national sources (Danish, Greek,Italian, Spanish, German, and so forth). We considered including an exhaustive trans-national literature list, but this would have been unacceptably long and not all thatuseful for many people. Alternatively, we could have opted for inserting just a standardlist of mainly Anglo-Saxon references, but this would not do justice to the wide varietyof national insights on which we drew. Therefore, we chose not to have references at all, but decided instead on the following. The names of the individuals involved inthe project are listed in the acknowledgments. All project reports, individual casestudies, references, images, and other materials are available on the World-Wide Webat http://www.ifresi.univ-lille1.fr; select Programmes de Recherche and then selectURSPIC). In addition, five special journal issues (of which two are in English) and aforthcoming book (to be published in 2002) give detailed information on variousaspects of the research for many of the case studies (see Acknowledgments section for details). In fact, all of the case studies are covered in one way or another in thesepublications. People interested in particular details of and further information on anyof the case study projects and cities can consult either the Web site or these publications.
Erik Swyngedouw is University Reader in Economic Geography in the School of Geography and the Environment, Oxford University,and Fellow of St Peter’s College. He is also an Associate Fellow of the Environmental Change Institute. His research has focused on thepolitical-economy of the capitalist space-economy, on urban changeand globalization, and on the political-ecological of water. He iscoeditor of a forthcoming book on Urbanising Globalisation (OxfordUniversity Press, 2002) and another on Participatory Governance in theEuropean Union (Leske & Budrich, forthcoming). He has coedited(with Andy Merrifield) The Urbanisation of Injustice (London,Lawrence and Wishart; New York, New York University Press, 1996).
Frank Moulaert is a Professor of Economics at the University of LilleI, France. He is head of the European PhD program in Industrial andLabour Economics and Regional Development and coordinates tworesearch projects under the EU’s Framework V program. His latestbook (together with A Rodriguez and others) is Globalization andIntegrated Area Development in European Cities (Oxford UniversityPress, 2000). His current research focuses mainly on local develop-ment and social innovation.
Arantxa Rodriguez, Associate Professor at the Faculty of Economicsof the University of the Basque Country (Bilbao-Spain), focuses herresearch on the dynamics of socioeconomic restructuring and spatialdevelopment planning in the Basque Country. Since the mid-1980s,she has been directly involved in the production of several urban plansin that area. She has also carried out research on the articulationbetween physical, functional, and economic planning and local eco-nomic development strategies. She is coauthor, with Frank Moulaert,of Globalization and Integrated Area Development in European Cities
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(Oxford University Press, 2000). Her other publications include“Nuevas políticas y nuevos instrumentos para la revitalización metro-politana,” in Encuentros de Desarrollo Local y Empleo (Coruña, 1998),and “Planning the Revitalisation of an Old Industrial City: UrbanPolicy Innovations in Metropolitan Bilbao,” in Local EconomicDevelopment in Europe and the Americas (edited by C Demazière andP Wilson, Mansell, 1996).
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