DREAM NO SMALL DREAMS:

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DREAM NO SMALL DREAMS Governance-based strategic
planning for housing in London
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Judith Allen Department of Urban Development and
Regeneration University of Westminster,
London j.a.allen_at_wmin.ac.uk
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• Overview
• Housing in London
• Cascade and integrate planning system
• Key themes in the London Housing Strategy
• Conclusions

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OVERVIEW
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Globalisation fuels a polarising labour market,
which in turn fuels rapidly rising housing prices.
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Londons income structure is strongly polarised
compared to the national income structure.
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But, high house prices have an effect on the
income of all groups in London.
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• National political effect London is different
• Pressure to download the problem
• London is the only region which has a directly
  elected regional government.

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HOUSING IN LONDON
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Housing tenure in London and England, 2006
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Spatial distribution of tenures, 2001 Owner
occupation is concentrated around the edges,
social renting in the central and eastern areas,
and private renting in central and western areas
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Spatial distribution of social groups, 2001 The
rich live in a wedge to the southwest. Middle
groups live around the edges, especially in the
south and east. Poorer groups mainly live in the
east
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The socio-spatial pattern also creates national
political problems Middle income groups include
most key public sector workers. Wages pressure vs
national economic policy.
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Poverty is concentrated in an L-shape, starting
in the centre and expanding north and east
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Three different measures of affordability all
show that west London is expensive and east
London is more accessible
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Median house prices per borough range from
464,000 to 1,536,000.
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The amount of housing in the social rented sector
is decreasing.
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Access to social renting has also decreased.
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Approximately 60 of all new private sector
development is for private renting, using
Buy-to-Let mortgages.
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CASCADE AND INTEGRATE THE NATIONAL PLANNING
SYSTEM FOR SPATIAL DEVELOPMENT AND HOUSING
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The national spatial planning framework for
housing
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• The London Plan The spatial development
  framework for London
• supports globalisation
• high density, with early provision of social,
  educational, infrastructural and transport
  elements
• supply side facilitating development (site
  assembly, labour market)
• east not west

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Sub-regional and supra-regional planning
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THE LONDON HOUSING STRATEGY
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The Mayor has no direct powers of implementation.
In planning, these rest with the London
Boroughs, whose local development frameworks must
fit within the London Plan.

• The London Housing Strategy can be seen as both
• A part of the cascade-and-integrate system of
  planning, technicist and concerned with targets,
  or
• A part of governance, a way of achieving local
  government objectives without direct powers, by
  mobilising a range of other actors, including the
  London Boroughs and private developers, political
  and about mobilisation, and aligning their actions

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• The Mayors powers
• to determine the strategic spatial development
  framework
• to advise on the allocation of public sector
  capital funding to housing associations for
  social housing
• to determine the targets for the proportion of
  affordable housing within any private sector
  development
• to support major development projects through
  the London Development Agency
• to use investment in public transport
  infrastructure to promote a specific pattern for
  future land development

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Key themes in the London Housing Strategy
Globalisation Governance Going for it
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Globalisation . . .
Good housing is a means to a broader social end,
an important component of well designed places
for living, integrated with other land uses,
public services and public transport. Derives
from an analysis of how globalisation both powers
processes of social polarisation and provides the
resources for redistribution to improve the
position of the poor. The housing strategy is not
a stand-alone strategy. Responding to
globalisation implies integrating strategies for
economic development, spatial development
strategy and housing.
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Governance . . . actors
All new housing provision will be by private
developers or by housing associations. The issue
is how to support and shape their actions. The
shift from west to east, the Thames Gateway and
the Olympics development, are key parts of a
strategy to make cheap land and large sites
available while insisting on integrated
development.
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Governance . . . actors
Implementation at London-wide level can draw on
the actions of the entire GLA Group The Greater
London Authority, Transport for London,
Metropolitan Police Authority, London Development
Agency, London Fire and Emergency Planning
Authority. The London Housing Board (within the
Mayors Office) reaches out to private developers
and housing associations. GLA responsibilities
also include Culture, environment and health
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Governance . . . actors

• Implementation at London Borough level is more
  complex
• 32 London Boroughs are directly elected (plus
  City of London)
• Responsible for direct delivery of most
  services
• Community Plans (cascade-and-integrate),
  strategic competence and localised governance
  networks (Local Area Agreements and Local Public
  Service Boards)
• Plethora of networks puts a premium on
  political leadership

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Go for it Cascade-and-integrate?
Housing Corporation sub-regions
London Plan sub-regions
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Go for it Cascade-and-integrate?
Borough strategic plans for housing? Competence
to deliver housing management? Conflict between
operational responsibility and strategic planning
capability?
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Go for it . . . Key London-wide actions
Align public sector services and infrastructure
provision with private sector development. Shift
to the east means that large brown and green
field sites are available. 50 affordable housing
target in the London Plan. Inventing a new form
of tenure (intermediate tenures) and new forms of
localised (neighbourhood/community) management of
space.
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CONCLUSIONS 1 THE LONDON HOUSING STRATEGY
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• The London Housing Strategy
• A dramatic vision
• Large strategic actions
• Creates the governance structure to achieve the
  vision
• Very long run and very flexible implementation
• Small number of key targets to support an
  agreed strategy

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• Globalisation both produces polarisation and
  creates the resources to do something about it
• The current tenure structure supports
  polarisation
• Governance is about building solid but fluid
  networks which can respond to change
• Technicist planning is about fixing the
  details, chasing the dream of comprehensiveness
  and stability

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CONCLUSIONS 2 TERRITORIALISATION,
DE-TERRITORIALISATION, RE-TERRITORIALISATION
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YOU CANT MAKE AN OMELETTE WITHOUT BREAKING EGGS.

• Two planning systems operating side by side
• cascade-and-integrate
• strategic vision planning

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• Cascade-and-integrate
• Political effects centralisation of control,
  citizen-as-consumer
• Technically, requires reasonably stable
  territorialisation to be successful
• Problematises governance relationships
• Undermines strategic vision capabilities

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• Strategic vision planning
• multi-scalar, plans for London only
  comprehensible in relation to other spatial
  scales (national to neighbourhood)
• globalisation a metaphor for multi-scalar?
• folded and fluid joined up in unpredictable
  and changing ways
• process of de- and re-territorialisation
  implies strategic visions for multi-project
  planning?

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