Abstract

Through a consideration of certain high-profile ongoing transformations in the property strategies of English local authorities (municipalities), I argue that we need to put urban financialisation – in this case, state-led variants thereof – in its financial context: it needs to be understood as a response, at least in part, to specific financial conjunctures. After several decades of effective withdrawal, many local authorities have assumed a resurgent role in urban property ownership and development in recent years, and especially since the global financial crisis. This resurgence is apparent, albeit selectively, in regard to both commercial and residential property. On the one hand, local authorities have been rebuilding portfolios of investment (i.e. non-operational) commercial property; on the other hand, they have been building new homes, typically not for social rent, through arms-length housing companies. I suggest that understanding these trends requires appreciation of local authorities’ particular financial circumstances in the ‘post-crisis’ era – their operation at the intersection of devolved austerity, reformed housing finance, and unconventional monetary policy – and of the constraints and opportunities that these circumstances shape.

Brett Christophers is professor of human geography at Uppsala University, Sweden. He is the author or coauthor of six books, including, most recently, The Great Leveler: Capitalism and Competition in the Court of Law (Harvard, 2016); Economic Geography: A Critical Introduction (Wiley, 2017; with Trevor Barnes); and The New Enclosure: The Appropriation of Public Land in Neoliberal Britain (Verso, 2018).