city - potentials and contradictions in the neoliberal city

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Community influence and the contemporary local stateSara González; Geoff Vigar

Online Publication Date: 01 April 2008

To cite this Article González, Sara and Vigar, Geoff(2008)'Community influence and the contemporary local state',City,12:1,64 — 78

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CITY, VOL. 12, NO. 1, APRIL 2008

ISSN 1360-4813 print/ISSN 1470-3629 online/08/010064-15 © 2008 Taylor & FrancisDOI: 10.1080/13604810801933545

Community influence and the contemporary local statePotentials and contradictions in the neo-liberal city

Sara González and Geoff VigarTaylor and Francis Ltd

This paper assesses contemporary power relations between the local state, capital andcommunity interests in managing urban area development. It draws on work conductedunder a Framework V EU project called SINGOCOM, focusing on one case among ninestudied.1 The case of the Ouseburn Valley in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, is mobilisedto show how, despite comparatively well-organised community interests, the local state andits approach to urban development are still the determining key factors in understandingbuilt environment outcomes. Yet the local state is heavily constrained in its actions by: itscultures and practices; its financial and intellectual resources; a highly centralisedgovernance context; and a pervasive discourse of neo-liberalism. The case also highlightsthe contradictions inherent in state commitments to public participation and the role ofcommunities in shaping development outcomes, especially given these constraints.

1. Planning the just city under neo-liberalism

his paper focuses on a question thatruns through many recent contri-butions in CITY: what authority

does community have in an increasinglyneo-liberal urban governance? Can it actautonomously, is it relegated just to ‘resist’or does it necessarily need to enter in part-nership with the state, and indeed capital,to make a contribution? For example, theApril 2005 special issue of CITY exploredneo-liberalism in the North American city,pointing to the increasing ‘Walmartisa-tion’ of urban spaces through surveillance,unfair working conditions, control of terri-torial boundaries and unfair transportpolicies (see also de Souza, 2006). Our paperfollows Reardon’s account in that issue

which tells the story of a coalition ofcommunity and university leaders regener-ating a poor neighbourhood in EastSt Louis, Illinois, through incorporatingvalues of participatory planning andcommunity empowerment. Our account isnot as positive as Reardon’s and, as we willshow, some of the keys to success in Illinois(such as the broad coalition and its abilityto effect political pressure) are absent inour case. More positively and perhapscomplementing Porter and Barber’saccount (2006) in CITY about the gentrifi-cation of Birmingham’s Eastside, our paperalso shows that a sense of place, memoryand heritage can be crucial ingredients inmobilising citizens to engage in gover-nance processes and that this can enable achallenge to be mounted to a dominanturban regime.

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GONZÁLEZ AND VIGAR: COMMUNITY INFLUENCE AND THE CONTEMPORARY LOCAL STATE 65

Neo-liberal urbanism highlights thatwithin broader neo-liberal tendencies, thecity-scale has become a site of particularintensity for the reconfiguration of gover-nance arrangements (Brenner and Theodore,2002). Cities and city-regions are increasinglyseen as sites for competition and less as crucialsites for social redistributional national policyand political frameworks. So, while the domi-nation of business and political elites in localdecision-making we present is not a newstory, it is argued that a creeping neo-liberal-ism has led to the systematic subjugation ofcommunity and class interests to capital ingreater degrees than previously; and of thesocial to the economic (Groth and Corijn,2005). Paradoxically, at the same time suchtrends are accompanied by increasing expec-tations for citizens to have a say in publicdecisions and a corresponding decline in trustin the institutions of government themselves(O’Neill, 2002). Our case study in Newcastlereflects such tensions and highlights the fuzzyboundaries between state, market and civilsociety, formal and informal actors and normsas our protagonists perform an array ofpractices ranging from resistance, alliance,confrontation and partnership in trying tomake a significant impact.

This complexity of practices leads manyanalysts to point out the dangers of ‘readingoff’ broad neo-liberal tendencies as they playout in specific places. Local contingencies,and agency, will determine how neo-liberalprocesses play out in specific circumstances(e.g. Ong, 2006). This paper focuses on fillingin this empirical element. In doing so we areparticularly interested in the constraints onstate action given changes in its abilities, ordesire, to intervene directly.

The main protagonists of our story are agroup of activists in Newcastle, North-EastEngland, who have since the 1990s tried toprotect an inner city area from gentrificationand a particular form of property-led regen-eration. They have instead promoted localresources, such as heritage, and values ofsocial justice. They have much in common,therefore, with efforts to create the just city

(Fainstein, 2005), which whilst being under-pinned by a degree of relativism and realism,aims for a minimum level of democracy,equity, diversity, growth and ecologicalsustainability, and a transfer in who exercisespower and who benefits substantively fromgovernance processes. Our analysis thusfocuses on the transformative potential ofgovernance activity in terms of: direct partic-ipation; the outcomes of such action; and alsowith transformations in wider governanceprocesses either through an increased socio-political capability on the part of participantsor through changes to governance structuresor ways of thinking among political elites.

In this paper, we examine how the strugglefor an alternative development towards amore just city is played out within gover-nance arenas. We focus in particular on theformal arenas of governance, and those of theland-use planning system especially, as theseare revealed to be central to mediationbetween the state, the private sector andvoices from civil society (de Souza, 2006).Such arenas provide places for discussion andconstitute regulatory passage points wherepublic participation in some form is required.In this paper, therefore, we take these arenasas our prime focus as ‘at once a foundation, anarena and a mechanism for the mobilizationof neoliberal political strategies’ (Brenner andTheodore, 2005, p. 106).

2. Newcastle’s Ouseburn Valley: gentrification and resistance

Our case study,2 the Ouseburn Valley, lies 1mile east of Newcastle city centre. It is, partlyfor topographical reasons, rather discon-nected from the city and is crossed by severalroad and rail bridges (see Figure 1). Althoughthe Valley was central to the industrial revo-lution on Tyneside in the late 18th century,by the 1970s it reflected many parts of thewider North-East region in becoming some-thing of a ‘redundant space’ as mining andmanufacturing employment was in steadydecline (Hudson, 1989; Robinson, 2002).

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66 CITY VOL. 12, NO. 1

Figure 1 Bridges over the Ouseburn Valley. Source: Photograph by the authors.The Valley barely featured on the mentalmaps of most citizens, developers or thelocal state in the 1970s and 1980s. Somesmall-scale light engineering units were builtusing government subsidy but the propertydevelopment boom that Britain experiencedin the 1980s which attracted investment backto inner cities and riversides, includingNewcastle (Healey, 1994), bypassed theOuseburn Valley. At the end of the 1980sthe Ouseburn was thus a left over space,marginalised from the capital accumulationstrategy of rebuilding a post-Fordist spatialinfrastructure.

The disinterest of both capital and state inthis relatively central area of Newcastleturned it into an alternative space where allsorts of activities developed. Typically thesewere light industrial, of the ‘metal-bashing’sort. But through the 1990s other uses beganto creep in at first centred on the Valley’s

pubs which had continued to trade. Manybegan to diversify, often providing a homefor live music. They attracted a mixed crowdin terms of age and class but some werehome to groups of left-leaning activists. Alsoduring the 1990s, a large warehouse becamehome to about 100 artists and a recordingstudio. The opening of a café-bar in thisbuilding in 1999 provided a medium-sizedlive music venue and improved the leisure‘offer’ in the area. A Centre for Children’sBooks opened in August 2005 next door anda theatre space is proposed. The Valley alsohosts an urban farm and an indoor stablewhich is particularly addressed at ‘youngpeople with personal, social or educationalneeds’ (Stepney Bank Stables, n.d., p. 1). As aresult, by 2002 over 300 businesses were inoperation employing 1700 people rangingfrom car repairers, to martial art trainers,artists and pub staff (Newcastle City

Figure 1 Bridges over the Ouseburn Valley (photograph by the authors)



Council, 2003). An important industrial heri-tage remains, although some of the buildingsare at risk, and the Valley has been granted‘conservation area’ status, with nine listedbuildings. A community Summer Festivalhas been in place since the late 1990s and agroup of volunteers run a heritageprogramme with educational purposes.Despite poor transport connections, theseactivities draw people from a wider area, asvery few people live in the Ouseburn Valleyitself.

2.1. Governing the Valley

Community activism in the Ouseburnstarted as a reaction to the Thatcheriteproject of property-led regeneration thatswept British cities in the 1980s and whichkick started much of the urban renaissanceof the 1990s. In the late 1980s, UK centralgovernment introduced Urban DevelopmentCorporations (UDCs) to overcome ‘landand property market failure, especially inthe inner cities’ (House of Commons, 2003,p. 7) and in 1987, the Tyne and WearDevelopment Corporation (TWDC) wasestablished to undertake the regeneration of26 miles of riverside along the rivers ofTyne and Wear.

One of the areas in which the TWDCfocused their attention was the ‘East Quay-side’, an area including the southern end ofthe Ouseburn Valley. This area was to bethe ‘jewel in the crown’ of the regenerationeffort. However, a group of local commu-nity leaders and church representativesrealised that the development TWDCproposed would endanger the built andnatural heritage of certain parts of the localarea, the Ouseburn Valley included, withfew positive effects for the community. Ata strategic moment where other UDCsacross the country were being criticised fortheir social myopia and with the TWDCwanting to gain legitimacy, the activistsgroup was important in fostering commu-nity consultation.

This group organised itself as the ‘EastQuayside Group’ in 19883 to contest theTWDC vision but progressively developedits own view, connecting issues of develop-ment, heritage and community participation.They also focused their attention on theOuseburn, where they saw the possibility forunfolding a community-led vision whichwould respect the heritage and sense of place.The group felt that if left to market forces thehistory and heritage of the area, as well as itsparticular physical and environmentalfeatures, would be lost. In an increasinglyprofessionalised voluntary sector environ-ment, the group felt the need to formalisetheir voice to gain legitimacy and in 1995constituted itself into a Development Trust,the Ouseburn Trust.

The Trust led the formation of the‘Ouseburn Partnership’ to apply for centralgovernment Single Regeneration Budget(SRB) funding in the mid-1990s. In tune withthe Trust’s convictions, this proposal gath-ered all the interested parties in the Valley:from artists, to housing corporations, localpolice, sport associations, businesses and theCity Council. The proposal obtained £2.5million to spend over 5 years (1997–2002) ina project akin to an ‘integrated area develop-ment project’. The focus was on contributingto: the employment prospects, skills andeducation of local people; developing thelocal economy; and promoting an inclusive,mixed and well-designed environment. TheOuseburn Partnership also worked as a realdevolved power, the only voluntary-sector-led SRB programme in the region. One of thecrucial consequences of the project was that,through environmental improvements inparticular, the Valley was ‘scaled up’: frombeing a blind spot for the state and particu-larly investors and big capital, it became aspace where these different actors could seepotential.

Following the SRB programme the Part-nership was scaled back with the two keypartners of the Ouseburn Trust and the CityCouncil forming the ‘Ouseburn AdvisoryCommittee’ (OAC), a formal City Council



committee that advised on regeneration inthe Valley. Membership comprised of halfcouncillors and half local community repre-sentatives to directly advise the CityCabinet.4 The Cabinet does not have tofollow the OAC’s advice but a tradition hasbeen established where negotiations help toachieve a consensus. With the establishmentof the OAC, the role of the Ouseburn Trustsignificantly changed. From running anExecutive Board and leading local regenera-tion efforts, the Trust had to engage morewith formal structures in local government,becoming an advisor over decisions, ratherthan leading from the front. It is on events inthis latter period, from 2002 to 2007, wherewe concentrate our analysis.

3. In between the state, capital and civil society

We now turn to analyse relations betweenthe various sites of the local state, capitalinterests and civil society, and explore therelative power of these three dimensions asalternative visions for the Valley emerged.

3.1. The creative contradictions of neo-liberal urbanism: community engagement while market rules

Brenner and Theodore (2005) note thatcontemporary urban governance processesare a fast-moving series of, often contradic-tory, strategies and policies. This complexityis confirmed in the story below. A keyelement is the contradictions within differentcomponents of the state itself. Coalitionsbetween elements of the state, business andthe third sector were often more coherentthan views within any of these given elements.

In securing urban development, the relativeauthority of the tools of the state inevitablychange over time. Under neo-liberalism thereis argued to be less public sector capacity todevelop places directly and a ‘rolling forwardof new networked forms of local governance

based upon public–private partnership’(Brenner and Theodore, 2002, p. 22). Thus, thestate is more reliant on private sector capital.At the same time, the state has tried to developa participatory urban policy centred on adialogue with communities. These tensionswere explicit in the difference between thepeople that now claim the Ouseburn (Figure2(a)), and those who the Council and develop-ers have in mind (Figure 2(b))Figure 2 Urban cool meets boho chic? Contrasting views of the Ouseburn. Source: (a) Lime Sq. development brochure; (b) courtesy of the Ouseburn Trust.The City Council awoke to the possibili-ties of the Ouseburn as part of a city-wideregeneration process in the late 1990s.Newcastle underwent something of an‘urban renaissance’ in the 1990s, along thelines of other UK cities, with a new emphasison cultural industries and associated tourism,and a repopulation of the central core by newresidents, notably young professionals(Cameron, 2003). The possibilities of theOuseburn as a unique resource to satisfy a

Figure 2 Urban cool meets boho chic? Contrasting views of the Ouseburn. Source: (a) Lime Sq. development brochure; (b) courtesy of the Ouseburn Trust.



demand for such housing and creative indus-tries rapidly became apparent. In doing so,the area also fulfilled the requirements to beturned into an ‘urban village’, a powerfulconcept in the UK planning discourse ofcreating ‘sustainable communities’ (ODPM,2003). Interestingly, in the Ouseburn the‘urban village’ concept was co-opted bydifferent coalitions both to justify large-scaledevelopment and to promote a more subtlefine-grained approach to area development.The Council itself owned four big sites in theOuseburn and elements within it saw thearea as an opportunity to provide housing toretain wealthy residents who might leave thecity and its tax base. In doing so, the siteswould also capture revenue through landsales to developers.

A process of re-positioning the Valley inthe mental maps of citizens began to marketthe area to potential residents and investors.In the early 2000s, the Ouseburn Valley’spostcode was symbolically changed to NE1(see Figure 3) to try and re-position the areaas part of the central city. This was part of awider process of using public funds tomarket the Valley to up-scale citizens livingin certain postcodes.Figure 3 Symbolic re-imagination of the Ouseburn as the city centre. Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/andyproctor/101282043/The Valley thus became a key site forhousing developers offering as it did a uniquecombination of being close to the city centreand the Quayside, with a characterful envi-ronment with green areas, a spectacular builtheritage and river. The first scheme to bebuilt was sold as ‘just minutes away from thevibrant life of Newcastle’s Quayside’ yet ahistorically rich area with ‘fascinating oldbuildings’ and a ‘unique mix of historic river-side […] where urban cool meets boho chic’(Metier, 2004).5 The combination of an areawith a rich heritage, a quirky sense of placeand a vibrant music scene is akin to thatdescribed by Porter and Barber (2006) inBirmingham. Here, the Eastside area was also‘discovered’ by the Council as a location forcreative industries on the fringe of the citycentre. Like the Ouseburn, Eastside appearedto be a good example ‘of the kind of heritage,creativity and local diversity’ (ibid., p. 221)

that the Council was seeking, the result beingthat they were both in danger of being regen-erated and sanitised through attempts tomake ‘a vibrant, sustainable, authentic cityneighbourhood’ (ibid.) amenable to middle-class values.

The Ouseburn Trust and some councillorspushed for affordable, socially mixed(including family units with gardens forexample, rather than just two-bedroom flats)forms of housing, and also for the provisionof cheap work space for cultural industries.But in 2001, a competition among developersto work with the City Council on the fourCouncil-owned sites resulted in a consor-tium being established where the proposalswere very much in line with government andprofessional thinking for high-density devel-opment on ‘brownfield’ sites. The pricingand type of housing proposed by the large

Figure 3 Symbolic re-imagination of the Ouseburn as the city centre. Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/andyproctor/101282043/



house-builders selected would have mostlyreinforced exclusionary dynamics throughthe construction of ‘yuppie flats’, rather thansocial housing for families from nearby areasfor example. Attempts to ameliorate exclu-sionary tendencies in such developmentthrough cross-subsidisation of housingdevelopment from valuable riverside sites toothers proved difficult due to local govern-ment accounting legislation but were some-what overcome, albeit through ‘ghettoising’the 10 per cent of the total stock given overto social housing on to one site. As it was, acooling of the market for flats, in part due toover-supply in the city, stalled the develop-ment of the four sites. Subsequently, thesesites were earmarked, along with others, fordevelopment on a smaller scale but care willbe needed in the implementation of thesesites if the area is not to cumulatively bedamaged by over-development.

Similar debates concerned development ofthe ‘Ouseburn Gateway’ site at a key loca-tion on the junction of the Ouseburn and theQuayside. The first proposal of a 26-storeyresidential tower would have provided a clearend point to the Quayside development butwould also have cast a literal and metaphori-cal shadow over the Ouseburn Valleybehind. It would also block the view of thehistoric riverscape, including the seven Tynebridges, from the Free Trade pub and its beergarden—a key arena for resistance to devel-opment such as this over the past decade (seeFigure 4 where graffiti was written on thetoilet wall around the time of the discussionsrenaming the pub ‘Repressed Trade Inn’)!This development was seen as the developer‘appropriating’ the new valuable views overthe river and re-selling this view to wealthypeople without any of this benefit beingbrought back into the local community. TheTower was defeated due to a change in thepolitical administration of the City Council,although development of some kind on thesite remains likely with a mixed-use scheme,42 metres in height, proposed in 2007.Figure 4 ‘Resistance’ graffiti in the Free Trade pub. Source: Own picture.Thus, the local state was pulled in twodirections in the Valley. On one hand, it

supported community visions for the area;on the other it wanted to realise developmentfor economic gains for itself and the widercity. This contradiction is further exploredbelow.

3.2. Governance and disciplining

All coalitions with an interest in theOuseburn accepted the need for some devel-opment without critically debating the scale,form and type of development that mightpromote and enhance the area. The arenas ofthe planning system were thus much to thefore in debating the Valley’s future. Planningdecisions were considered at Ouseburn Advi-sory Committee (OAC) meetings, a specificCity Council structure set up to discuss thearea’s development made up of representa-tives from the Ouseburn Trust and the Coun-cil. Observations made at these meetingsrevealed that debate often revolved arounddiscussions of how to capture some of thepotential profits that may be realised bydevelopers on land assets.6 In these discus-sions the Committee typically divided intotwo groups with differing views, frames ofknowledge and rules of performance. On theone hand, some members of the OuseburnTrust, community representatives and coun-cillors adopted a defensive attitude, maintain-ing a generally critical view of all planning

Figure 4 ‘Resistance’ graffiti in the Free Trade pub (photograph by the authors)



applications in the first instance. This sub-group within the OAC looked for signs ofdevelopment that went against their vision forthe Valley, aiming to stop it before it estab-lished a precedent. In that sense, the grouplooked especially for how development mightimpact on traffic levels and the externalitiesthat might bring, at the density of population,the heights of buildings, respect for the heri-tage, design, the price of residential units andthe mix of uses. On the other hand, in theOAC meetings, the planning and economicdevelopment officers adopted a more ‘profes-sional’ attitude, making the members of theCommittee aware of regulations and policiesthat framed how the applications must beconsidered. The OAC meetings could, insome sense, be viewed as a process of transla-tion between the more utopian and sociallyinnovative language of the Ouseburn Trustand some councillors, to the more official andformal language of local government profes-sionals. It could also be seen as a process ofco-optation or disciplining where thecommunity was forced to conform to therules and formal mechanisms of the state,through their representatives (Raco andImrie, 2000; Tooke, 2003).

Through such debates, the OuseburnTrust had to simultaneously refine its visionfor the valley to fit with the formal languageof planning, while also having to adapt tofast-changing market circumstances. Whenthe first developers became interested in thevalley, few documents existed to guide devel-opers about the projects they could under-take. These, however, were vague about thespecific rules that might apply. A developerrecalls that when they first bought a site inthe Ouseburn, the Council had various docu-ments, mainly written by the Trust, but noneof them had clear specifications. Some devel-opers who had pursued projects in areassimilar to the Ouseburn were not interesteddue to this absence of a clear vision for theplace. Other developers who did latterlydevelop sites felt that the vision that theTrust had developed ‘meant nothing’ interms of planning regulations and disre-

garded it and the Trust, knowing that thequasi-legal world of planning would bewhere their developments would ultimatelybe judged.

The Ouseburn Trust, aware of the need todiscipline their vision, subsequently made aneffort to write a ‘development template’which could act as a ‘useful tool for assessingproposed developments, providing a frame-work of questions for all aspects of suchdevelopment and the impact it may have on alocal area’ (OAC, 2004). This template wasan interesting innovation as it tried to assessthe impact of proposed developments interms of their contribution to the local areaand the benefit for the community whileeffectively ‘de-professionalising’ the knowl-edge that resides in the planning officers.When presented in the OAC, this report waswelcomed by planning officers ‘as a usefultool for officers in their dealings with devel-opers’ but they ‘urged caution that the Advi-sory Committee should not prejudge orpredetermine City Council policy (whichwas effectively a matter for DevelopmentControl Committee)’ (OAC, 2004).

The Ouseburn Trust together withcommunity representatives and councillors inthe OAC also made use of other more formalplanning tools and documents to reinforcetheir vision and help structure discussionswith developers over individual projects.They lobbied successfully to make a large partof the Ouseburn a Conservation Area in 2000which gives the area a degree of extra protec-tion against inappropriate development.Latterly, the City Council approved an UrbanDesign Framework for the Lower OuseburnValley which signalled something of a changeof mood in the Council, suggesting a smallerscale, more sensitive vision for the area.

The situation remained, however, para-doxical. The OAC was a formal structurewithin the Council, set up to give continua-tion to a successful collaboration between itand the community. The OAC could thus beseen as a move to enhance community partic-ipation. This inclusion process, however, wasinevitably embedded in the market logic that



the Council defended at the same time. Acommunity representative in the OAC wasperplexed at the behaviour of the City Coun-cil officers in OAC meetings: ‘The officersyou have the feeling that they are somehowspeaking on behalf of the developers and howquite that happened I don’t understand …they clearly are defending something, almostat every meeting they are defending’(Interviewee 4). This is, in part, a naturalcaution on the part of professionals operatingwithin the quasi-legal world of UK land-useplanning, especially when the communityvision did not fit with past city-wide regener-ation experiences and with the dominantplanning discourses, of high-density devel-opment for example, present at the time. Thisalso reflected the long-standing tension at theheart of planning in local governmentbetween local economic promotion andcommunity representation. Arguably thistension is heightened in a period of neo-liberal urbanism as entrepreneurial localgovernment competes more fiercely formobile capital and higher rate taxpayers:

‘The council is a big player in the discussions with the developers and although the Advisory Committee is the forum where the development is going to be controlled, I remain to be convinced that the Council is not going to have its own way. We are only an Advisory Committee, the cabinet takes decisions. And if we are in a very contentious problem I am in no doubt in which direction this is going to go.’ (Interviewee 4)

Thus, the community representativesattempted to adapt their vision and behav-iour to the languages and practices of theprofessionals. This led many in the Valley tosee them as becoming institutionalised, afeature we consider below.

3.3. Community participation: finding space for innovative practices

In the Ouseburn, the involvement of thirdsector actors in the decision-making arenas

of local government reflected a change ingovernance practices and a move from apaternalistic form of state practice to a some-what more collaborative one. The power thatthe Trust had in shaping the future form ofthe Valley stemmed from the capacity of thissmall coterie of individuals to link acrossestablished groupings. This illustrates howthird sector actors can get leverage in placegovernance. Established communities likeCity Council planning officers or voluntarygroups share different norms of behaviourand circulate in different flows of informa-tion. The gap between these groups Burt(2002) calls ‘structural holes’. Althoughpeople in these groups might know eachother, they are focused on their regular activ-ities and might not engage in exchange. Theability to link across structural holes createsan exchange of information. It also createschallenges as people used to relatively fixedways of doing things have to adapt to newsituations.

This capacity to link across structuralholes was best represented in the Ouseburnby an officer at the Council and an activistfrom the Church of England. Both theseactors skilfully played with their insider/outsider roles, translating norms and ways ofdoing things between established communi-ties of practice. The City Council officeracted as a ‘guerrilla in the bureaucracy’(Needleman and Needleman, 1974). Hemaintained a long-standing professional andpersonal interest in the Ouseburn and ‘is theguy that for several years would manage towing small amounts of money from budgetsthat had not been spent’ (Interviewee 4). Hedescribed his work, very much in Burt’sterminology, as liaising with groups andbusinesses in the area and basically ‘fill[ing]the gaps that other people have left’(Interviewee 12). Throughout the years hemaintained a network of contacts with inter-ests in the Valley from the Ouseburn Trust,business community and arts and culturecommunity, which he skilfully and with adegree of altruism and commitment, linkedtogether and plugged into the City Council’s



formal and informal flows of money andinfluence, even at times when the politics ofthe Council meant that the area wasneglected.

Similarly, another key figure in the devel-opment of the Valley demonstrated anextraordinary capacity to link differentarenas and work across cultures. A vicar ofthe Anglican Church of England, he increas-ingly gained trust and respect among policy-makers and community groups in Newcastle.He did this through talking the language oflocal government and as such gave the Trusta respected image in the Council. His role asan ‘honest broker’ was in part derived fromhis being in the church. This also enabled himto actively participate over a long period andovercome the participation fatigue that oftenaccompanies such involvement. His role wasa difficult one, however, as he had toconstantly negotiate a degree of distance andproximity from different sites of state power(Jones and Evans, 2006).

Thus, in the case of the Ouseburn, infor-mal networks across different governancecultures and settings were sustained throughtheir commitment to an idea (significantly aplace, in our case). However, as the realitiesof physical development approached, the lowlevel of this power compared with thatascribed through the formal settings ofgovernance, and the planning system inparticular, became clear. Therefore, thepotential to innovate and penetrate thedeeper levels of political and economic struc-tures was hampered.

This problem also reflected the Trust’s lackof engagement with other struggles and activ-ist groups in the city (cf. Reardon, 2005). TheTrust had difficulties engaging people andexpanding their constituency. Between itsfoundation in 1995 and 2005 it grew to havebetween 80 and 100 members but out of theseonly around a dozen were ever active Boardmembers and almost all activity was initiatedby four or five people. This is partly explainedby the very few residents in the Valley itselfand so the issues around which people mightfeel committed to the area are different.

Another problem concerned the character ofpeople involved in the Trust itself. The corepeople were engaged with the Trust for a longtime and developed their own particularculture, mode of communication and philos-ophy that proved difficult to penetrate. More-over, some Trust members used the relativelyprivileged political space they had to pursue‘single-issue’ interests. A City Council officercommented: ‘A lot of people who come tomeetings are overwhelmed by the combina-tion of the characters involved, the lack ofattitude to change, arguments, the shorthandso they don’t know what is going on.’Another broadly concurred:

‘there is a potential conflict because it is a little bit incestuous down there, it is a small area and a relatively small number involved which is probably one of the weaknesses. […] people sit on lots of different bodies and they have their own subgroups, and it is always the same people and I am not quite sure … that’s the flaw, everyone knows everyone else, always the same faces’. (Interviewee 7)

To conclude this section we note that,although some key actors and individualshave linked arenas and cultures, the Trust asan organisation was seen by other key actorsas itself rather institutionalised, qualities thatmake the carrying of transformative powerand social innovation difficult. However, thisstability was also a strength, imbuing it withthe trust necessary to communicate withtraditional power bases in local government.The Trust in this sense was caught betweenusing its limited resources to engage with thecommunity, or with the local state and riskbeing institutionalised further into thegovernance fabric, a dilemma for all suchorganisations (Milligan and Fyfe, 2005).

4. Where is the space for community action?

As we have seen, the Ouseburn Trust is notan autonomous activist group but a group ofconcerned citizens engaging with formalgovernance structures and trying to influence



them. Their role has been that of resistingconventional practices of urban regenerationthat have limited respect for heritage andsocial justice. It could be argued, in the lightof our research, that they have been co-opted. But a more subtle analysis reveals thattheir activism has been positive and hascontributed significantly towards an alterna-tive model for local development throughboth resisting development proposals anddeveloping alternative policies, and workingwith others in partnership.

The Trust made a marginal area moreattractive to a rich diversity of users and chal-lenged, to a limited degree, established normsand values entrenched in policy communi-ties. Community activists have introducedvalues of the ‘just city’ into planning anddevelopment discussions. Indeed, had theOuseburn Trust not existed, the Ouseburncould now be part of a seamless continuationof the impersonal and standardised Quay-side. Instead, and due also to a slowing downof the housing market, the future Ouseburnwill evolve more organically and with agreater respect for social justice and the exist-ing built form. However, despite a lot ofauthority and some finance granted to theTrust by state agencies at local and centralgovernment levels, it had only limited successin shaping the future of the area. Why mightthis be?

First, pressures for physical developmentin the Ouseburn meant that the regulatorypassage points of the formal land-use plan-ning system were critical. Planning inEngland is quasi-legal and highly centralised.A national rhetoric focused on creating‘sustainable communities’ through ‘mixed-use development’ on ‘brownfield land’ todeliver an ‘urban renaissance’ led to thedomination of a national discourse whichshaped local state responses. Thus, rigid andtechnified sets of governance practices andprotocols, deeply rooted in planners andofficers’ habitus, were powerful counter-veiling forces to the transformative power ofan alternative social movement. The nationalpolicy network that linked built environment

professionals promoted a discourse that hadlittle nuance in terms of what was actuallyneeded in a specific neighbourhood, city andregion. And yet activists found themselvesfacing a very different vision, but one whichshared the same rhetoric as their own—ofmixed-use development, of the urban village,of renaissance and of housing affordability(see also Franklin and Tait, 2002).

Second, the local state remains verypowerful in urban development processes.But this power is circumscribed by widersystems, such as property developmentrights, increasingly framed by a market-centred approach to development. The localstate has diminished power compared withprevious eras to develop land itself and isreliant on its ability to negotiate partnershipswith others, notably capital. This issuecoalesced with the local state pursuingeconomic gains for itself in developing itsland for high-density, high-value housing,rather than more limited but socially justdevelopment for example. This may not somuch be a consequence of neo-liberalism assuch, but more a slow dissolution of thepowers of the state to intervene directly anduniversally in urban development, combinedin the UK with a lack of financial autonomylocally. So, despite engaging in the languageof partnership and demonstrating somecommitment to devolving the management ofareas to communities themselves, the localstate’s activities are dominated by neo-liberalargumentation in its interactions withcommercial interests (see also Brenner andTheodore, 2005).

Some of this may be peculiar to theEnglish context where the local state operatesin a highly centralised polity, which has avery significant framing effect on what localgovernment does (as much as what it actuallyhas the discretion to do legally). This central-isation applies not just to planning rules butalso with regard to the levels of finance avail-able for the local state to pursue its goals andalso the freedom to spend what limited fundsit has. This exacerbates a tendency for thelocal state to want to realise its asset base7—



both in attracting and retaining local taxpay-ers and in the land assets it owns. So in partthere is a covert neo-liberalism moving in onthe discursive terrain of local governance but,more than this, changed capacities to actamong local states that coerce them to act inways that can be perceived as ‘neo-liberal’.

This leads to our third conclusion, thatthere are tensions to be constantly negotiatedbetween these market pressures and a centraland local state rhetorical emphasis onengagement with communities. This alsoreflects the conflicts that arise when newforms of deliberative democracy come upagainst more established forms of representa-tive democracy. It is the latter that, throughtheir control of long-standing passagepoints—such as the granting of planningpermission—tend to retain the power to act.

Finally, the above factors combined with ageneral belief in markets and developmentamong professionalised policy communities.In this way, neo-liberal discourse influencesactors’ perceptions of their capacity to act, asmuch as the realities of what is possible. Thusneo-liberalism shapes the urban landscape insubtle ways and can often subvert the politi-cal leanings of the local state itself. This posi-tive sense of markets contributed to the statefailing to see that an alternative developmentcould be realised. This may be somewhat casespecific, dependent on the capacities of thisparticular administration, or it could be anEnglish manifestation. One or two examplesof cases in our wider project indicated thatlocal states could engage more ‘justly’, and inless market-driven ways than outlined abovebut this was not the norm. In particular, insome of the Italian cases, the local state wasnot as strong or entrepreneurial and theprivate initiative not as coordinated, so asocially innovative project managed tosurvive despite the development opportuni-ties of the site. We found that there were nopure neo-liberal local states but ‘a patchworkof projects competing to become hegemonic’(Moulaert et al., 2007, p. 202) however theproject overall observed ‘a very rapidprogression of neo-liberal discourse and

practice in contemporary urban governance’(ibid., p. 207).

To conclude, we believe that althoughcommunity participation has been positive, ithas not achieved substantial leverage. A trulyalternative model of development wouldhave regenerated the area in a different wayto that actually pursued. Our researchsuggests a missed opportunity, not leastgiven issues of increasing homogenisation ofcities as they implement a familiar mix ofwaterfront regeneration and iconic culturalarchitectural projects (e.g. Harvey, 2001;Smith, 2002; Groth and Corijn, 2005). Insome places (see Shaw, 2005) cities have cometo recognise that certain marginal spaces areimportant to retain as marginal, or at leastretaining some degree of difference. Thismaintains a city’s interest to investors,current and future professional workers, andtourists. Radical change in such places candivest them of this power of place, especiallyas big capital is conservative and likely toremake areas in the image of others of a simi-lar type. Newcastle, however, has limitedexperience of tackling these issues and thecity has been warned of the dangers of nothanging on to its most ‘soulful’ assets toavoid the identikit, bland developments thatcharacterised the urban renaissance of the1990s (Minton, 2003). The activities of theOuseburn Trust also represent a missedopportunity by not linking up to other strug-gles and groups fighting privatisation andgentrification in the city (Hodkinson andChatterton, 2006).

What then are the prospects for commu-nity interests in the face of these pressures?From our research we suggest that there maybe a particular challenge for resistance groupsin places lower down the global urban hierar-chy where intellectual resources may be lesswell developed within governance networks.Getting a foothold in political debates maydepend a great deal on the capacity of citypoliticians and bureaucrats to recognise theneed to maintain and promote the diversityof such places, but this may be difficult in‘aspiring cities’. Northern English cities often



remain characterised by a paternalism thatdenies, or at least squeezes, such voices ingovernance despite rhetoric of communityengagement in public policy.

If pathways are to be found between capi-tal and community then the local state willinevitably play a key role in doing so. Itspractices are crucial. The state is, as Sander-cock (2003) posits, not just a site of repres-sion or transformation. We must rememberthat it is a set of multiple sites. In our case thepower of those in the local authority incontrol of the land assets and their practiceswas considerable relative to the wishes ofmany in the local authority, including thoseostensibly charged with the area’s future—the planners. In an age of neo-liberalismthen, the continuities with previous eras arelegion: money talks and the control of landassets is vital. This creates, or reinforces, ashort termism in local government. The abil-ity to deploy the tools available to localauthorities has shifted in recent decades to anera where the state is more dependent onothers, as it has lost much of the ability topursue its goals directly. Maintainingcommunity engagement in the face of thesepressures demands reflexivity and situatedethical judgement from key state actors tounpick the taken for granted elements of apervasive neo-liberal discourse.

So, is resistance to a capitalist logic futile inthe contemporary city? Our answer wouldbe no, but successful resistance depends on:

● the capacity to link across ‘structuralholes’: a ‘guerilla in the bureaucracy’ helps(Needleman and Needleman, 1974); asdoes an activist who can be seen as an‘honest broker’ by other actors;

● an ability to have a positive plan and toposition the argued-over space within itswider context (‘what function does thisplace serve to the wider city?’);

● owning some of the factors of production(the Trust in our case did buy sites andused them to develop its vision);

● and most importantly, an open politicalopportunity structure in the form of a local

state that understands the values of socialjustice and can recognise the value ofmarginal spaces and groups, not only ofthemselves, but also as contributors towhat will increasingly make a just, diverseand moreover successful, 21st-century city.

Notes

1 1 SINGOCOM (Social Innovation, Governance and Community building) is a Framework V, EU funded project funded from 2001 to 2004. It is based on research conducted on nine case studies in six cities: Milan, Naples, Vienna, Lille, Newcastle and Cardiff. Reports from all of the nine case studies can be viewed on the SINGOCOM website: http://users.skynet.be/bk368453/singocom/index2.html. Additionally, see a special issue of Urban Studies, Vol. 42, No. 11, 2005, where the theoretical underpinnings of the research project are presented. See also a special issue of European Urban and Regional Studies, Vol. 14, No. 3, 2007, where overall conclusions from the project as well as another four case studies from the project are discussed.

2 2 Thirteen stakeholders were interviewed during 2003 and 2004. Various community consultation and council meetings were attended by one or both of the authors throughout this period. Informal observation and links with the stakeholders has been maintained after the end of the research funding which has kept information up to date.

3 3 For a more detailed analysis of the governance mechanism and cultures in the Ouseburn see Gonzalez and Healey (2005).

4 4 The Cabinet structure concentrates power on the Leader of the Council plus a number of selected councillors.

5 5 In 2005 one-bedroom flats were being sold for £135,000 (€203,000) while two- or three-bedroom city houses went for £370,000 (€556,000), prices approximately 3 and 6 times, respectively, what similar properties were sold for in neighbouring Byker.

6 6 It should be noted that the Ouseburn Trust has tried, in some cases successfully, to buy sites to develop themselves to realise their inclusive vision for the area. However, they have often been priced out of the market due to the hope value on development extant in the area.

7 7 Central government rules also frame local authorities’ actions in this, directing them to maximise return on their land assets where possible. This also has the effect of distancing land-use planners and planning in general from officers working on estate management.



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Other sources

Attendance at various Ouseburn Advisory Committee meetings.Attendance at the 2004 Ouseburn Trust’s Annual General Meeting.Attendance at the 2004 Ouseburn Forum.Attendance at the launch of a real estate development scheme.Organisation of a seminar with members of the Ouseburn Trust, policy officers and develop-ers, March 2004.

List of interviewees

Interviewee 1 Ouseburn Trust activist 7 March 2003Interviewee 2 City Council officer 11 March 2003Interviewee 3 City Council officer 19 January 2004Interviewee 4 Ouseburn Trust activist 21 August 2003Interviewee 5 Ouseburn Trust activist 13 June 2003Interviewee 6 Local politician 16 September 2003Interviewee 7 Local politician 28 October 2003Interviewee 8 Resident and local activist 5 June 2003Interviewee 9 Artist 3 February 2004Interviewee 10 Developer 4 June 2004Interviewee 11 Developer 17 February 2004Interviewee 12 City Council officer 13 January 2004Interviewee 13 Heritage consultant 29 June 2004

Sara González is Lecturer in Critical Human Geography at the University of Leeds. GeoffVigar is Senior Lecturer in Planning and Director of Global Urban Research Unit at theUniversity of Newcastle. E-mails: [email protected] and [email protected]


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