Planning, value(s) and the market: An analytic for “what comes next?”

Abstract

For 30 years planning has been attacked both rhetorically and materially in England as governments have sought to promote economic deregulation over landuse planning. Our paper examines two new moments of planning deregulation. These are the loosening of regulation around short-term letting (STL) in London and the new permitted development rights (PDR), which allow for office to residential conversion without the need for planning permission. Whilst these may be viewed as rather innocuous reforms on the surface, they directly and profoundly illustrate how planners are often trapped between their legal duty to promote public values as dictated by national planning policy and the government's desire to deregulate. We argue that viewing these changes through a value-based approach to economy and regulation illuminates how multiple and complex local values and understandings of value shape planners' strategies and actions and thus vary national policies in practice. In so doing, the paper demonstrates how planners have, at least, the opportunity to develop a critical voice and to advocate for policy interpretations that can help to create better outcomes for local communities.

Platform economies and urban planning: Airbnb and regulated deregulation in London

“…Rather than the rolling out of a coherent and all-encompassing urban paradigm, however, urban neoliberalism is better thought of as developing in geographically and temporally uneven and variegated ways (Brenner et al, 2010) and as a heterogeneous and non-linear process of neoliberalisation (Peck, 2010), challenging and adapting to but also being resisted through different locally specific socio-economic and political relations (Holman et al, 2017). In this context, it is important to qualify that neoliberal 'deregulation' does not equate to the withdrawal or absence of regulation, but should rather be understood in terms of practices of reregulation or 'regulated deregulation' (Aalbers, 2016).…”

“…Landlords found renting their properties illegally have been issued with warnings and fines. While this system has been far from perfect, it has helped to construct a semblance of control over unsanctioned short-term letting within the council boundaries (Holman et al, 2017). In less-resourced councils, the ability to enforce the law with regards to short-term lets has been even more limited, as will be discussed in greater detail below.…”

“…In the Deregulation Act passed in March 2015, the government proposed and implemented the removal of 'red tape' by enabling short-term letting without change of use if under 90 cumulative days in a calendar year. In doing so, it disregarded objections raised by local councils and MPs to relaxing the safeguards that had thus far been put in place (Holman et al, 2017). The rationale for remaking regulations on the question of short-term letting is evident in the Department for Communities and Local Government's report 'Promoting the sharing economy in London' (February 2015).…”

Displacement by disruption: short-term rentals and the political economy of “belonging anywhere” in Toronto

“…While housing anxieties are particularly acute in Toronto, with a rental vacancy rate of 1.2% in 2018 (Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation [CMHC], 2017), the exponential expansion of short-term rental listings has prompted critical work across the world by a range of actors, including: academics (Barron, Kung, & Proserpio, 2018;Davidson & Infranca, 2016;Ferreri & Sanyal, 2018;Finck & Ranchordás, 2016;Gant, 2016;Germann Molz, 2018;Gurran & Phibbs, 2017;Gutierrez, García-Palomares, Romanillos, & Salas-Olmedo, 2017;Holman, Mossa, & Pani, 2018;Keren & Merante, 2017;Lambea Llop, 2017;Lee, 2016;Mermet, 2017;Schäfer & Braun, 2016;Wachsmuth et al, 2017;Wachsmuth & Weisler, 2018), activists (Cox and SLee, 2016;Slee, 2015;Wieditz, 2017), think tanks (Crommelin, Troy, Martin, & Parkinson, 2018;Jamasi & Hennessy, 2016) and city staff (City of Toronto, 2017;San Francisco Planning Department, 2015). Amidst a heated political climate coloured by a range of perspectives, a critical geographical approach has much to offer in interpreting the impacts of short-term rentals.…”

The role of Airbnb creating a “new”-old city centre: facts, problems and controversies in Porto

“…renting the house only for a determined number of days per year) have proved innocuous or difficult to implement. This is, in particular, because most strategies rely on "sharing economy" assumptions that do not actually exist -as also demonstrated by Cócola-Gant and Gago (2019) for Lisbon-ignoring the context of professionalization and a number of "creative" strategies to escape surveillance, as demonstrated in Westminster, London (Holman et al, 2018). The example we bring here from Porto, suggests that at least a very representative segment of this activity is a hospitality business, that is, it is an economic activity, and that should be assumed within the regulatory strategies for the sector, not for residence.…”