Ownership diversity and fragmentation: A barrier to urban centre resilience

Abstract

Fragmentation of ownership has long been a recognised constraint to UK city centre development, a complexity that is growing in significance as centres try to manage the decline in physical retailing and transform obsolete retail units. Yet, our understanding of the structure of ownership and how that might be facilitating or inhibiting urban change remains weak. In this paper, the objective is to address this gap by examining the structure and diversity of land ownership in five retailing centres - Edinburgh, Glasgow, Hull, Liverpool, and Nottingham – between 2000–2017 using original databases created by linking administrative and commercial property data sets. Overall, the analysis finds property ownership to be spatially complex with ownership richness and diversity generally rising over the study period. The study also reveals that ownership structure has been shifting away from financial institutions towards overseas investors, private individuals and unlisted property companies, implying greater fragmentation of ownership. While the greater diversity in ownership should stimulate competition and innovation in property market practices, the shift in balance from equity-rich larger investors towards smaller and sometimes unknown investors makes urban centre management harder to manage. This suggests policymakers need to rethink the urban governance model to find a better way to galvanise the actions of this increasing disparate group of stakeholders if their visions of more resilient, mixed use city centres are to be realised.

Shifting prime retailing pitches. A GIS analysis of the spatial adaptations in city centre retail markets

“…The spread of food and drink outlets amongst retailing, similar to the change identified by Greenhalgh et al (2020) in York, suggests that centres are diversifying, but there is the potential for reduced shop localisation economies to increase the complexity of managing and improving urban retail centres. This is likely to compound the difficulties presented by the increased heterogeneity and fragmentation of ownership in city centres revealed by Orr et al (2022b), that similarly present challenges for management and overarching stewardship. Subsequently, city centre retail areas may benefit from masterplans to create a shared vision for reimagining and integrating retailing streets, and to coordinate private-and public-sector stakeholders to work in partnership to create vibrant, unique places that improve the overall quality of city centres.…”

“…The databases also contain data on ownership but is not used to determine the property use which is the focus of this paper. A breakdown of the ownership of the data is presented in Orr et al (2022b). 9.…”

“…Glasgow City Centre Retail Association is another business-led association which works in partnership with publicsector bodies to market, promote and support local retailers. Yet, more can be done to engage the growing number of smaller landowners in urban centres (Orr et al, 2022b). 16.…”

Exploring CBD Retail Performance, Recovery and Resilience of a Smart City Following COVID-19

“…Long-term downward trends in urban shopping areas have been encouraged by ownership fragmentation of CBD real estate [34]. In many cases, the built environments of inner cities have not kept pace with the facilities available in suburban centers, where ownership and asset management are coupled in the hands of a professional asset manager [35].…”