Allan Cochrane The Open University

Presentation to CEEDR, University of Middlesex, October 23rd, 2013

The State, the Market and Regional Inequality:

Critical Reflections on the South East

South East as the norm, against which others are judged

Capital city – seat of government Home Counties Englishness (maybe even

Britishness) The rest is peripheral – defined as

‘provinces’…. ‘distressed areas’…. ‘the regions’

South East as core

So…not a ‘real’ region – more of an accidental region in administrative terms

BUT needs to be regionalised – to be understood as part of set of socio-spatial relations

Within and beyond England and the UK

And in the end also mobilised as part of explicit and implicit national regional policy

Regionalising the South East

‘Rethinking the Region’ Defined as ‘growth region’ and

specifically region of neo-liberal growth

But a particular version of neo-liberalism which involved a continual process of state privileging for the South East

What’s in and what’s out, not just an academic debate – feeds into policy debates

Defining the South East

Activity space stretches across a huge area of England (Gordon)

Over half the population of England included in some versions (Dorling)

Polycentric city region (Hall and Pain)

Edge city (Garreau) Worrying about city regions –

mega region, super-region – but…beyond the metropolis (8m)

London city region

South East as national champion – England’s ‘world region’ - England’s (and so the UK’s) economic success relies on the success of the South east

The SE as (more than a) suburban heartland

SEEDA says it’s ‘England’s World Class region’

Diamonds and clusters London as ‘world city’ The South East as (explicitly

regionalised) economic driver under new Labour

Making up a region

Subject of explicit and active state strategy in first decade of 21st century focused on housing growth to underpin economic growth (housing as driver)

‘Sustainable communities’ Squaring the circle Economic growth Social sustainability Environmental sustainability

Growth regions identified (our research focused on one of these)

Inventing a regional policy

Carefully targeted nudges to the housing market, working with developers and house builders

A neo liberal belief in the power of the market (and house builders in particular)

Combined with active state support through planning and infrastructural development

Paid for through rising property values

Market utopianism

Strategy seems predicated on inequality and its reinforcement

Sustainable communities in the SE; Pathfinders in the North

Maybe making different claims – spreading out over the rest of England (Hall)

BUT based on ‘growth’: what happens when growth stops and the ‘growth region’ stops growing?

Sustaining growth

Still at the imaginative core of public policy – housing growth on the edge of the South East

Centre for Cities – focuses on growth in growth areas (and still housing)

City Deals – the case of Milton Keynes

From sustainability to viability (removing perceived constraints of the planning system)

No escape…