Metropolitics

Unleashing Finance Capitalism in the City: An Interview with Isaac Rose, Author of The Rentier City

Jonathan Silver & Isaac Rose — 2025-06-24T05:00:00Z

Jonathan Silver interviews author and tenant organizer Isaac Rose about his book on housing financialization in Manchester, The Rentier City. They discuss the motivations for writing the book, how theory informs practice, and the influences that guided Rose as he wrote.
Isaac Rose, a tenant-union organizer in Manchester, recently launched a new book with Repeater, The Rentier City: Manchester and the Making of the Neoliberal Metropolis. In it, Rose unravels the causes of today's intensifying

- Interviews / housing, financialization, tenants, Manchester, United Kingdom, community organizing, gentrification, England, housing justice

Sheffield Music Factory: The Legacy of Red Tape Studios

Sam Holden — 2025-01-07T12:00:24Z

Opening in 1986, in defiance of government cuts, Red Tape Studios was the first municipal recording studio in the UK. Sam Holden demonstrates how the studio brought together the city council, third sector, and community in a time of ideological individualism, drawing lessons for the renewed, contemporary interest of municipal socialism in the UK.
Opening in 1986, Red Tape Studios was the first municipal recording studio in the UK (Wichelow 2023). Named in a council paper as the Sheffield

- Essays / music, arts, arts district, arts-centered development, municipal socialism, deindustrialization, Sheffield, England, United Kingdom

Culture and the Nighttime Economy: A Conversation with London's Night Czar and Culture-at-Risk Officer

Amin Ghaziani — 2019-11-12T06:00:00Z

Amin Ghaziani describes the high closure rate of LGBTQ nighttime venues in London, and the city's recognition of these venues' intertwined economic and cultural significance.
From 2006 to 2016, the number of LGBTQ bars, pubs, and nightclubs in London declined by 58%, falling from 125 venues to 53. Figure 1 shows the spatial distribution of these closures. The impact was most acute in central London.
An audit by the Greater London Authority (GLA) found that 44% of all nightclubs, 35% of all

- From the Field / LGBTQ+, homosexuality, night, London, United Kingdom, England, culture, nighttime economy, nightlife

Inclusive Place-Based Leadership: Lesson-Drawing from Urban Governance Innovations in Bristol, UK

Robin Hambleton — 2018-10-09T05:00:00Z

Across the world, progressive city leaders are working to limit the damaging impact of decisions made by “placeless” leaders, meaning powerful interests that are unconcerned about the consequences of their decisions for particular places and communities. Robin Hambleton outlines a new way of thinking about place-based leadership and reports on the steps being taken by Mayor Marvin Rees and other civic leaders in Bristol, UK, to test this model in practice.
---- Series: Progressive Mayors and

- From the Field / local government, governance, local governance, United Kingdom, progressive urban politics, civic innovation, progressive mayors, city leadership, power of place, collaborative governance, inclusion, Bristol, England

The Localism Act in London: institutionalising urban divisions

Justinien Tribillon — 2014-04-16T05:00:00Z

By decentralising planning powers to local communities, the British Conservative government claims that they are strengthening local democracy and protecting it from the mistakes of big government. In a map-based analysis of the effects of the Localism Act in London, Justinien Tribillon disputes this claim and underlines the reinforcement of urban economic divisions through a new parochialism.
“Good fences make good neighbours,” goes an English proverb.
Introduced by the coalition

- Debates / participation, local government, governance, local authorities, London, United Kingdom, local democracy, neighborhood, localism, England

The effects of Thatcherism in the urban North of England

Mark Bailoni & translated by Oliver Waine — 2014-04-02T04:50:00Z

The economic policies of Margaret Thatcher's governments polarised not just opinion but also whole swathes of the UK. In particular, the cities of northern England – Labour heartlands in an economically divided country – represented a counterweight during the Thatcher years. Weakened by relative decline and the continued application of Thatcherite policies post-1990, these cities now appear to have converted to a form of governance tailored to territorial competitiveness.
Reactions following

- Essays / decentralization, inequalities, liberalism, deindustrialization, United Kingdom, territorial development, Thatcher, centralism, England

Ethnic discrimination in social housing

François Bonnet & translated by Oliver Waine — 2014-03-12T05:50:00Z

Valérie Sala Pala has investigated the extent to which ethnic criteria come into play in the allocation of social housing in Marseille in France and in Birmingham in England. In her recent book, she presents a detailed analysis of discriminatory processes that questions the usefulness of the notion of racism.
Valérie Sala Pala's book considers the way in which ethnic criteria are employed in the allocation of social housing in Marseille (in France, the nation of republican universalism) and

- Reviews / France, housing, racism, Marseille, social housing, United Kingdom, discrimination, minorities, Birmingham (UK), race, England

Post-industrial cities: towards a new approach

Max Rousseau & translated by Oliver Waine — 2013-09-25T04:55:00Z

While anglophone urban studies have sought to critique the way capitalism has developed, the French social sciences have instead chosen to produce detailed monographs of urban spaces. However, both traditions can be combined to good advantage, as Max Rousseau shows here through a historical analysis of urban policies in (post-)industrial cities.
Translated with the support of the Institut Français Series: Urban Studies in France The Louvre-Lens, Pompidou-Metz, The Cité du Design in

- From the Field / France, governance, urban policy, deindustrialization, United Kingdom, territorial development, Marxism, crisis, Roubaix, Sheffield, monograph, postindustrialism, Nord–Pas-de-Calais, England, Lille, Northern France, Hauts-de-France

Will local-government reform in London involve or abandon its citizens?

Martine Drozdz & translated by Oliver Waine — 2013-07-03T12:23:55Z

While the current financial crisis has compromised local authorities' ability to deliver municipal services, the Localism Act adopted in England in 2011 seeks to relieve the problem by encouraging greater involvement from civil society. However, when combined with drastic public spending cuts, this reform above all threatens to sideline citizens in favour of the private sector.
One of the first acts of the Conservative–Lib Dem coalition that came to power in the UK in 2010 was to bring in

- Debates / participation, local government, governance, local authorities, London, United Kingdom, local democracy, urban public service, neighborhood, localism, England, urban services

Skyline policy: the Shard and London's high-rise debate

Manuel Appert & translated by Oliver Waine — 2011-12-14T11:51:33Z

At a time when major cities are racing to build higher than ever, and when the construction of skyscrapers in France is proving contentious, particularly in ecological and social terms, new problems are emerging in the “old” European metropolises concerning the impact of towers on the landscape. As a result, cities such as London have had to revise their policies regarding the regulation of the skyline in an attempt to respond to these controversies.
---- Series: The Resurgence of Towers in

- Debates / architecture, governance, skyline, skyscrapers, London, United Kingdom, towers, high-rise, England