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Focusing on the construction of London's West India Docks in 1802, I argue that this project established a feedback loop with conditions of production in the Caribbean. Through an analysis of committee minutes, letters, parliamentary papers and visual art, I move beyond economic accounts of slavery's impact to demonstrate how geographies of security and surveillance—first developed on the sugar plantation—were imported into the design and function of London's port. As such, I argue that London's docks produced a geography of segregation which offers a unique insight into the workings of racial capitalism and its exploitation of group‐differentiated vulnerabilities. Positioning my discussion alongside London's contemporary landscape, I excavate Britain's repressed memories of slavery to illustrate how they still scar the urban environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of VAD: Veredes, Arquitectura y Divulgación is the property of Alberto Alonso Oro and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Urban Studies (Sage Publications, Ltd.) is the property of Sage Publications, Ltd. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Zadie Smith's first novel White Teeth has been interpreted as a metaphor for national unity in a multicultural society, suggesting that the layers of racial and cultural differences hold commonalities, like the “white teeth” that symbolize unity within the notion of diversity. Defined as a contemporary epic, the novel’s expansive and dynamic narrative reflects on Britain's postcolonial, Multicultural identity, examining the transformed reality of contemporary England. Critics address the novel’s postmodern variety of styles and genres that mirror the plurality that is characteristic for a multicultural society. Zadie Smith’s story and its narrative approach convey the complexity of a multicultural nation, pointing to the fact that old categorizations of race do not capture the true diversity of contemporary English society. Despite the multicultural perspectives, the novel also reflects on the powerful influence of historical and cultural legacies. Namely, the remnants of the past, be it the ancestral roots of individuals or the colonial past of England, hinder the emergence of a cosmopolitan multicultural identity. This paper aims to explore the notions of multiculturalism and national identity within the novel, through the family dynamics of the Jones’, the Iqbals, and the Chalfens. Through the interconnected stories of their relationships, the novel unveils a rich world in which conflict and cohabitation are textured through cross-cultural fusion. London, the epitome for cosmopolitanism, is the setting that offers a space for critical exploration. The paper further aims at focusing on the family conflicts, that serve as an example of the struggle to balance the influence of the cultural and historical influences. It also suggests that fixed beliefs about race and culture problematize the ideal of cultural pluralism in postcolonial England White Teeth, does not simply depict a mosaic of cultures existing in their separate realms, it reflects on the dynamic space where integration, assimilation, privilege, and racism interact in complex ways. In addition, the paper provides two views to London’s multicultural reality: practical, as presented through the actions and interactions of the characters, and a theoretical, one that defines multiculturalism through an ideological framework. The novels depiction of the city integrates postmodernist elements to point out the challenges of a multicultural society that is evolving toward cohesion against the forces of disunity. The paper acknowledges a dual depiction of London which shows that the city is not a simple mosaic of cultures that live in harmony, yet it is a rather dynamic environment where privilege and oppression, racism and integration are interrelated. Smith’s London is not a mere passive environment, it is a potent source for new forms of cultural and political action. In this regard, the paper argues that such diverse settings offer opportunities to question and reshape social norms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since austerity policies in the UK began in 2010, homelessness has risen rapidly. Drawing from feminist geographical theories and methodologies, this paper examines experiences of homelessness under austerity in Haringey, London through photo‐elicitation research with one participant, Tessa. This paper argues that home(un)making—the constantly shifting balance of homemaking and unmaking—is central to everyday experiences of, and resistance to, austerity. The paper first demonstrates how Tessa resists austerity through practices of homemaking that enable her to cope with the difficulties of homelessness at a time of austerity. Next, it explores how Tessa's relationships with other actors in the homeless shelter—other residents and government officials—contributed to processes of home‐unmaking, exacerbating the hardships she experiences. By developing the concept of home(un)making, therefore, this paper aims to show the dynamism of home for homeless people under austerity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impacts of Brexit as an external shock to European financial centre relations. In particular, it studies the changing nature of Paris-London financial relations post Brexit. Early on in the Brexit process, Paris was not understood as the most likely European centre to benefit from Brexit given its tax regime and high office costs. However, our analysis shows that through policy and corporate network change, it has been one of the major beneficiaries. In making this argument, the paper develops a sympathetic critique of work on global cities that has tended to emphasise corporate networks without fully situating them within their political landscapes. We argue that bringing work in economic geography into closer dialogue with work in international political economy offers one fruitful way of addressing this oversight and, in turn, better understanding how inter-city relations respond to external shocks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Urban Studies (Sage Publications, Ltd.) is the property of Sage Publications, Ltd. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper is concerned with the situated production of opinions in human geography research. Drawing on an online focus group project in which university students were asked to discuss smartphone use in urban greenspace, I'm interested in how our methods can make opinions as much as collect those that are already assumed to exist. Why were these students inclined to speak of having and sharing opinions? How important should opinions be to us if they are not actively influencing the everyday lives of those who we hope to understand in our studies? And what does this all say about staging effective group discussion in the discipline? This paper considers how opinions feature in human geography research and how focus groups are organised most effectively. It does this by drawing on a study in which university students were asked to discuss smartphone use in urban greenspace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A mature developed urban area like London has various policy tools to trigger economic development and leverage poverty. The scale of economic inequality in London has called for more effective policy tools to leverage poverty and close the gaps of economic inequality. Opportunity Areas is one of the tools in urban regeneration to alleviate poverty and develop communities. After over a decade of the policy rollout we have little knowledge how effective this type of policy tool is. The project investigates how effective opportunity areas for economic growth and societal development in London. The key economic indicators including unemployment rate and house price were assessed at MSOA/ward levels in London to understand their spatial variation through GIS mapping. Subsequently, socio-economic factors of commercial land use, culture infrastructure and public transport accessibility were discussed and selected to explore whether they have impacts on the difference of economic performance within opportunity areas. The spatial impacts of these factors among wards/MSOA were evaluated by Geographically Weighted Regression. The research discussed these factors' variations in Lee Valley, Park Royal and Croydon. Finally, this paper argued that local geographical context has limitations for small area growth corresponding to general policy and strategic management plan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses methodological approaches to comparative urban geography and the consequences of such approaches. It demonstrates three ways by which an imaginative comparison can be constructed and employed: letting the sites speak to one another, repeated instance analysis, and tracing. Successfully employing these methods requires adopting comparison as both an implicit ethos and explicit approach during data collection and analysis, answering "why is it different here?" Reflecting on the impact of utilising comparative approaches, I argue that comparative urbanism helps balance the unique and ubiquitous conclusions from research, and forces researchers to question the norms or assumptions they hold from doing singular case study research, which in turn foregrounds the situational nature of urban governance in analysis. In the specifics of this paper, it also helps uncover assumptions around the power of state and reveals (some) global elite urban networks. This paper addresses methodological approaches to comparative urban geography and the consequences of such approaches. It demonstrates three ways by which an imaginative comparison can be constructed and employed: letting the sites speak to one another, repeated instance analysis, and tracing. Successfully employing these methods requires adopting comparison as both an implicit ethos and explicit approach during data collection and analysis, answering "why is it different here?" [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In March 2020, a Suburban Taskforce was established by Members of Parliament (MPs) in the UK. This Taskforce argued that the experiences of suburbs in England were poorly understood by policy-makers and developers, practitioners, and the general public. Over the two years of research and engagement that followed, a key consideration to emerge was the management of change and particularly in the context of growth pressures evident in Outer London. This has synergies with recent trends in suburban research that turn away from negative framings of places in extended metropolitan areas, such as 'edgeness' (not in the city) and 'in-between-ness' (neither urban nor rural activity). Instead, there is increasing focus on suburban cultural dynamics and political ecology. Drawing on these ideas, this paper looks at suburbs as landscapes with natural and built elements, as well as diverse activities, and focuses on the processes of blending. The evidence and views presented to the Taskforce are used to investigate the blended landscapes of Outer London. The paper explores the elements and development rationalities in two London Boroughs, Sutt on and Waltham Forest, and the context that shapes choices. The findings suggest that, while not discounting the significance of growth pressures and limits to local control, suburban landscapes are heavily influenced by responses to local socio-economic concerns, historic urban form, and the politics of local development. The paper concludes by reflecting on the directions of change in the study areas, and the significance of dynamics of ongoing blending of the landscapes across outer parts of major cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores some of the institutional and theoretical silences within debates on infrastructural violence with reference to migrant women survivors of gendered violence. Drawing from feminist thinking around structural and symbolic oppression, it develops the notion of gendered infrastructural violence to help understand how migrant women survivors navigate statutory and non-statutory institutions when seeking support. Empirically, the paper elucidates how diverse Brazilian migrant women in London negotiate multiple forms of passive and active infrastructural violence played out in terms of xenophobia, discrimination and a hostile immigration environment. Such experiences can dissuade them from reporting due to actual and perceived fear of further violence being perpetrated against them. While infrastructural violence perpetrated by an oppressive racial state can exacerbate Brazilian migrant women's suffering of direct gendered abuse, migrant and/or feminist organisations provide invaluable support and an essential protective bulwark. Yet these experiences are mediated differently depending on women's social locations in terms of intersecting race, class, occupational and immigration status and language competencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An emerging theme within the mega-events literature is the ways they affect the provision, regulation and design of urban public spaces. Parks, streets and squares host competition venues, and are also used for supplementary occasions and facilities associated with hosting mega-events. Using examples from the London 2012 Olympic Games and Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games, this paper examines the long-term significance of mega-events for urban public spaces. The paper contends that these events can be used as 'Trojan Horses', allowing new systems to be introduced under the cover of an event. It also emphasizes how temporary mega-events transform public spaces into venues for subsequent commercial events. Finally, the paper acknowledges more positive legacies, showing how mega-events can change how public space is imagined by users and by those responsible for managing it. Both cases highlight how events influence the ways spaces are used, designed and managed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to gain a deeper understanding on if and how hotel senior managers (HSMs) in four-star chain hotels in London and Stockholm implemented crisis management techniques (CMTs) as a response to the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Design/methodology/approach: Qualitative questionnaires were sent to 30 HSMs in London and Stockholm. From the feedback, this paper assesses, using thematic analysis, differences in CMTs used, past and present, alluding to COVID-19's economic impacts on hotels. Findings: Results determined that crises broadly economically impacted destinations similarly through loss of travellers and thus revenue. However, with a more intricate and specific assessment, destinations are impacted differently; thus, CMTs must alter. Findings show many CMTs can be implemented to reduce crises' economic impacts. The literature review and empirical results allude to many previous and current CMTs, although these must be relevant and specific to the crisis, hotel and/or destination. Practical implications: This paper has theoretical implications for academics on, among other things, theory building. Practically, it supports hotels in developing and determining CMTs to reduce the economic impacts of crises, to be better prepared when another pandemic emerges and contributes to the tourism and hospitality industry's knowledge of management strategy within crises. Originality/value: To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first Swedish study focusing on post-COVID-19 crisis management in hotels in London and Stockholm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The disruptive effects of the COVID-19 pandemic has rapidly shifted how individuals navigate in cities. Governments are concerned that travel behavior will shift toward a car-driven and homeworking future, shifting demand away from public transport use. These concerns place the recovery of public transport in a possible crisis. A resilience perspective may aid the discussion around recovery – particularly one that deviates from pre-pandemic behavior. This paper presents an empirical study of London's public transport demand and introduces a perspective of spatial resilience to the existing body of research on post-pandemic public transport demand. This study defines spatial resilience as the rate of recovery in public transport demand within census boundaries over a period after lockdown restrictions were lifted. The relationship between spatial resilience and urban socioeconomic factors was investigated by a global spatial regression model and a localized perspective through Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR) model. In this case study of London, the analysis focuses on the period after the first COVID-19 lockdown restrictions were lifted (June 2020) and before the new restrictions in mid-September 2020. The analysis shows that outer London generally recovered faster than inner London. Factors of income, car ownership and density of public transport infrastructure were found to have the greatest influence on spatial patterns in resilience. Furthermore, influential relationships vary locally, inviting future research to examine the drivers of this spatial heterogeneity. Thus, this research recommends transport policymakers capture the influences of homeworking, ensure funding for a minimum level of service, and advocate for a polycentric recovery post-pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a new politics of knowledge and skills, which is being used effectively by campaigning groups over planning, housing, and land, challenging the very basis of conventional property development. The new politics, articulated by Hilary Wainwright in a recent book, is grass roots local action which challenges top–down conventional knowledge and expertise. Using examples from campaigns for social and affordable housing in London, in which the author has been involved, this practitioner paper highlights how grass roots knowledge and organisation can challenge conventional power in land and property markets, and the language and expertise on which they rest. In these campaigns, the knowledge of local residents about their communities is combined with the skills of committed professionals in planning and land economics. Conventional property market expertise is extraordinarily powerful in UK social, economic, and environmental policy, yet it can and must be challenged at a fundamental level if alternative community‐led models of urban development are to be taken seriously. Examples of "People's Plans" and successful community challenges to the abuse of financial viability analysis by developers demonstrate that new knowledge and skills combined with grass roots organisation can create a new politics of opposition to conventional urban development. This practitioner paper highlights how grass roots knowledge and organisation can challenge conventional power in land and property markets, and the language and expertise on which they rest. Examples of "People's Plans" and successful community challenges to the abuse of financial viability analysis by developers demonstrate that new knowledge and skills combined with grass roots organisation can create a new politics of opposition to conventional urban development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While recent debates have widely acknowledged gentrification's varied manifestations, success in enumerating and disentangling the process and its defining features from other forms of neighbourhood change at‐scale and across entire cities, has remained largely elusive. This paper addresses this gap and employs a novel, open and reproducible urban analytics approach to systematically examine the past and future trajectories of neighbourhood change using London, England, as a case‐study example. Using suites of datasets relating to population, house prices, and built environment development, the nature of gentrification's mutations and its spatial patterns are extracted through a multi‐stage data dimensionality reduction and classification methodology. Machine learning is subsequently adopted to model gentrification's observed trends and predict its future frontiers with interactive visualisation methods offering new insights into gentrification's projected dynamics and geographies. This paper employs a novel, open, and reproducible urban analytics approach to systematically examine the past and future trajectories of neighbourhood change using London, England, as a case‐study example. Using suites of datasets relating to population, house prices, and built environment development, the nature of gentrification's mutations and its spatial patterns are extracted through a multi‐stage data dimensionality reduction and classification methodology. Machine learning is subsequently adopted to model gentrification's observed trends and predict its future frontiers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Charles Montagu (c. 1662–1722), Earl (later Duke) of Manchester, played an important role in furthering the establishment of Italian-style opera in London. He gained knowledge of opera and continental singers and musicians on his Grand Tour and three diplomatic missions abroad. This article prints relevant portions (some for the first time) from his correspondence and other printed and manuscript sources to expand our knowledge of his involvement with opera in London, Vienna, France and Italy. The correspondence suggests why his advice and assistance were sought by John Vanbrugh and later by the Royal Academy of Music and adds to our knowledge of the history of opera in London in its so-called 'critical decade'. Most important was his mission to Venice in 1707–8. Although no evidence has emerged that Manchester met Handel in Venice or extended to him an invitation, he was responsible for the recruitment of Nicola Grimaldi (called 'Nicolini'), painters and other singers to London. Even at this early stage, opera in London was part of an operatic system that extended across Europe, involving not only musicians and impresarios but also ministers of state and foreign diplomats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most housing forms and living arrangements in contemporary cities are designed for settled populations, and housing markets poorly address the needs of mobile population groups. This paper explores the housing forms and living arrangements which emerge from the conditions of temporality and mobility and are practised by the middle-income group of high-skilled transnational professionals. The study is based on 65 semi-structured interviews with migrants from Western countries in Moscow and London. Three inter-related factors of highly mobile living are found to shape the particular housing demands of this migrant group. Firstly, the need for economic flexibility determines the preference for sharing options rather than for individual renting. Secondly, the travelling pattern of their jobs imposes time-related housing limitations, and their life-course stage may require flexibility. Thirdly, this migrant group expresses requirements for physical and functional comfort of housing, as well as access to amenities and a sense of community, despite their detached lifestyles. However, although most of these housing needs are known in the literature, they have not yet been examined in relation to the mobile living of transnational professionals, and this paper illuminates this research gap. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Urban Studies (Sage Publications, Ltd.) is the property of Sage Publications, Ltd. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The longstanding housing crisis in the UK, and London in particular, has been exacerbated in recent years by an increased understanding of the flammability of buildings and the arrival of what activists term 'The Cladding Scandal'. In this paper, I show how in response to the health and financial risks of The Cladding Scandal, disparate groups come together to challenge the dominant politics of expertise through the enrolment of traditionally 'expert' forms of knowledge within community groups. I analyse community building practices, especially the lines of communication, to show a means by which the social reproduction of the city is sustained, to argue that such practices constitute an important but under-recognised form of expertise. Drawing together geographies of emotion and social reproduction theory, I demonstrate the productive possibilities of thinking through the social reproduction of the city and its politics of expertise by questioning the role, types and circulation of particular emotions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I argue that squatting provides a concrete and theoretical location for dismantling binaries between successful and failed resistance. Focusing on the development of a political and affective consciousness and the inherent antagonism within squatting above the temporality of an individual squat or occupation helps to recentre the 'urban political' and understand the value and power of the urban commons. I combine radical democracy and affect theory to argue for the centrality of squatting in challenging urban capitalist hegemony. Not only does squatting transform consciousness, but the physically and emotionally supportive practices that it engenders helps to return the emotive as well as the political to the urban environment. I support this claim with reference to the successful 2015 Aylesbury occupation in London, which the occupiers approached with affective solidarity and a desire to reclaim space through antagonistic urban insurrection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to empirically review the process of housing financialisation in London, exploring a time series causal relationship between house prices and financial instruments, using the Granger method and a VAR test. In order to carry out this analysis, we use a vector autoregressive model with a monthly data series that seeks to contribute to exploring this relationship. The results are relevant to the important role that the theory of housing financialisation plays in explaining the crisis of access to secure tenure that can be seen in developed nations. The results also provide an empirical background to pursue this theory more specifically in the context of the vectors that are effectively causal to the financialisation processes that impact everyday life through housing prices. The study is original, given that this type of modelling has not previously been carried out for a major world city such as London, and adds to the findings of similar explorations that have applied other methodologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The UK economy is one of the most geographically unequal among OECD countries, with London's lead having increased since the mid-1980s. The UK is also one of the most centralised, in terms of the overwhelming concentration of economic, financial, political and institutional power in the capital, London. A key question, therefore, is whether the latter feature is a cause of the former. This paper focuses on one aspect of this question, namely London's dominating role in the UK's financialised, neoliberal-globalised growth model that has held sway for the past forty years. It is often argued that London's pre-eminence in finance acts as an engine of national growth, delivering benefits to all regions through 'trickle down' effects. We argue that these claims are exaggerated and that much more need to be known about London's negative impacts on other regions and cities, about the geographical dimensions of what some have labelled the 'finance curse'. We argue that such negative effects are integral to the growth of regional inequality in the UK. The Government's new 'Levelling Up' policy, though innovative in some respects, remains subordinate to the promotion of London and finance, and is unlikely to decentre and spatially rebalance the economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Brexit brought an end to the free‐movement rights of EU citizens in the United Kingdom, but the rights of the poorest Europeans were being actively curtailed even before that. From 2010, street homeless EU citizens were deported through a series of pilot schemes operating in London. In 2016, their 'administrative removal' was instituted as national policy. Using process‐tracing methodology, we have analysed publicly available documents and others obtained through Freedom of Information requests to assemble an account of how and why a range of 'stakeholders' worked together to deport rough‐sleeping EU citizens. Our paper addresses two research questions: (i) what actors contributed to these deportations and (ii) through the use of which analytic framework(s) can we begin to understand the deportation of street homeless foreigners? As we find, London's deportation apparatus involved national and local‐level state actors, homelessness NGOs and local businesses. The deportation of rough‐sleeping EU citizens was a racist biopolitical practice that reflected a concern for 'hygiene' at local and national scales, as well as the prevention of 'harm' to individual and social bodies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is based upon the searches carried out in London by the Wardens of the Goldsmiths’ Company during the seventeenth century. Rings that were thought to be below the Gold Standard of 22 carats were taken to Goldsmiths’ Hall to be assayed. A description of the rings and the subsequent result of the assay were entered into the Court Books by the Clerk. Some of these descriptions include a note and sometimes a drawing of the maker’s mark. Other entries in the Court Books give the names and details of the careers of certain ringmakers which are entered in the Mitchell Merry Database at Goldsmiths’ Hall. By comparing these records with the marks given for particular rings, it is possible to suggest which ringmaker used the mark. Short biographies are given of possible or probable owners of these marks. An illustrated glossary of seventeenth century terms for the various ring types is provided. These records give an indication of the lives of seventeenth century ringmakers and how they coped with the calamities of the century: war, plague and fire. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The "escalator region" concept became a key element of migration literature after Fielding's work on South East England and fuelled a welcome growth of interest in the links between spatial and social mobility. More recent research has shown that London has continued to perform an escalator function since the 1970s, but little attention has been given to how its strength has altered both over time and compared with other parts of the UK. Against the background of the declining rates of internal migration observed in the United States and several other countries, this paper seeks to identify whether London's escalator role was waxing or waning over the four intercensal decades between 1971 and 2011. The primary emphasis is on the chances of people shifting up from noncore to core white‐collar work during each decade for London's nonmigrant and in‐migrant populations, in both absolute terms and relative to England's second‐order cities. It is found that over the three decades since the 1970s London's escalator was still performing in the way originally conceived, but although its net gain of young adults from the rest of England and Wales steadily increased over this period, it was not operating as strongly in 2001–2011 as during the 1990s in terms of both the career‐progression premium gained by its in‐migrants and the extent of its advantage over England's second‐order cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

London's water sector professionals seek to secure public funds for blue and green infrastructure projects while also engaging with local advocates for river improvement. This paper argues that current project appraisal practice forms a barrier to aligning public investment with local demand because justifying investment requires the enactment of a utilitarian public good that is at odds with the non-instrumental values motivating local advocacy. Drawing on qualitative evidence and performativity theory, we show how the appraisal practices of water sector professionals and the environmental advocacy of London residents both enact publics in different arenas of water management: appraisal enacts a general public to secure funding, while advocacy enacts a particular public that serves to articulate local demand for environmental improvement. Whereas the performativity of a general public works through demonstrating nature's economic value to people, the performativity of local publics is animated by people's responsibility towards nature. We find that the general public that is enacted through cost-benefit analysis legitimizes public expenditure on readily demonstrable economic benefits, such as flood risk mitigation, while withholding funds from the water quality improvement valued by local publics. Comparing the performativities of general and local publics, we discuss the conditions under which appraisal and advocacy practices enact their respective underlying values. We conclude that the current appraisal practice frustrates the delivery of blue and green infrastructure projects that would respond to local demand for improving rivers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The UK's purpose-built student accommodation (PBSA) sector has seen significant institutional investment in recent decades. This paper unpacks contemporary trends and perspectives on the sector. It questions whether PBSA has moved from being an "alternative" to "mainstream" residential asset class, framing the analysis through the lens of market maturity. Design/methodology/approach: The methods triangulate perspectives drawn from literature on the evolution of PBSA as an asset class with illustrations of investment trends across the UK between 2005 and 2020 using data from Real Capital Analytics (RCA), combined with findings from 40 semi-structured interviews with investors and stakeholders in PBSA in the UK London is the focus of the work, whilst other regional cities are integrated for comparison. Findings: The results demonstrate that London's PBSA market is ahead of trends currently being replicated in regional cities. However, the regions currently offer greater return potential and opportunities for risk taking compared to London, where yields are compressed, and the market is considered lower risk. The concept of maturity remains useful as a framework for evaluating markets, however a more granular analysis of sectors is necessary to further understand asset classes within sectors. PBSA continues to trade at a premium across the UK; it is considered the most mature residential asset class. Practical implications: The emergence of PBSA as an asset class continues to play a developing role within the residential sector and UK investment market. Risk, value and local context remain key when integrating PBSA into institutional portfolios, and as the first to consider the UK market from a qualitative research approach, this research provides a snapshot of these influences in 2021. Originality/value: Our approach offers original insight into investment trends across the UK and is the first to focus reflections on the London market specifically. The research highlights the role of PBSA as a vanguard asset class for investors into residential, situating its growth within the framework of market maturity and drawing out market nuances from interviews. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The covenant strength of flexible workspace (FW) providers as tenants is debatable. There is the argument that providers are risky mainly due to the very nature of their business which consists of volatile revenue streams obtained from subletting the space in membership format, paying little attention to covenants. On the other hand, there is also the argument that the presence of a provider can add vibrancy and diversity to a building whilst also offering an additional amenity to existing tenants through overflow space, making FW providers desirable. This paper aims to explore this ambiguity by comparing rents paid by FW providers and other tenants within the same building in London over the period 2011 to 2021. Design/methodology/approach: Using a dataset of 1,042 leases in London over the period of 2011–2021 which was extracted from CoStar, the rent conditions of FW providers and their peers within the same building were analysed employing a hedonic pricing model. Findings: The results of the analysis suggest that FW providers have a negative and statistically significant effect on the effective rent in comparison to other tenants within the same building over the analysed period. Practical implications: This analysis has the potential to identify how FW providers are perceived in the market and offers both academics and practitioners valuable insights. Originality/value: The relationship between landlords and FW providers as tenants does not have a major coverage in the literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The club-like nature of the real estate industry shapes planning permission success. • Global actors must find a way to embed themselves in local real estate networks. • Local politics dictates institutional settings within which real estate actors function. In highly internationalised cities, real estate developers must learn to negotiate global-local tensions to territoralise their work and secure planning permission. This paper examines how they do this and positions itself at the meeting point of research on policy mobility and real estate. Developers have been shown to be co-coordinators of development processes, and one of many agents who facilitate the global flow and production of urban spaces and ideas. In these endeavours local knowledge is important, yet developers remain interested in sites beyond their home city. This paper questions what strategies developers utilise to become co-ordinating forces in new cities, a pertinent issue because increasingly urban actors position themselves as 'global' or beyond a geographically circumscribed space. Based on 60 interviews across London's Royal Docks and Johannesburg's Modderfontein, this paper argues that to work in a new location, developers and their consultants must utilise local knowledge, highlighting three specific strategies: (1) on-boarding local political actors; (2) hiring individuals who primarily work in the city and (3) becoming part of 'the club'. These illustrate the ways developers localise themselves, 'learning to play the game', and evidence the consequences for where and how urban politics happens. Ultimately, this paper argues that at the heart of internationalised urban environments there are transnational networks which are becoming sites of urban politics where assemblages of actors are formed that make the global movement of urban ideas possible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rise of global finance in the latter twentieth century was an epochal transformation in the history of capitalism and new socio-technical devices emerged to value these innovations, among the most significant being the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR). Today, LIBOR values over $200 trillion in global financial markets despite the repeated attempts by international regulators to repeal the benchmark since its infamous scandal in 2012. How did LIBOR ever rise to its apotheosis in global finance? In this paper, I provide a historical analysis of the rise of LIBOR in global finance, tracing its emergence as an unstandardized rate for eurodollar syndicated loans in the 1960s to its evolution as a standardized benchmark for the growing derivative market in London by the 1980s. In tracing the rise of LIBOR, I argue that global financial markets were shaped by practices and norms particular to the financial centre of London. I conclude by offering the concept of 'positionality' to help theorize the construction of global finance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the generative capacity of activist movements defending their community assets from commodification or closure to produce new forms of social infrastructure. We explore this through the case study of activism along the Westway, a motorway in West London. The area has a strong tradition of community activism, particularly in the 1960s and the 2010s. Through a Participatory Action Research approach, we elaborate a historical account of the formation of social infrastructure under the Westway and surrounding spaces. In doing so, we develop a framework—processes, alliances, and capacities—to understand how communities and activist groups contesting the loss of community spaces can generate new forms of social infrastructure—both physical spaces such as play spaces or cultural venues, and social and caring relationships such as friendships or support networks. These informal spaces and alliances can shed light on how to build alternative, bottom‐up forms of social infrastructure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The replanning of London following the Second World War is, in many ways, a familiar story. However it has often been told in fragments, usually prioritizing the best-known plans and the involvement of Professor Patrick Abercrombie. This paper positions the replanning more widely, considering a hierarchy from region to specific locales, and the problems of fragmented planning within such a structure. It explores issues of agents, agency and authority. The sanitized and orderly vision of a new London is set against a more complex and disordered reality of reconstruction-plan production. The urgency, scale and complexity of the task, and questions of why should 'author' plans, are significant issues. The realities of postwar London have been shaped by a messy and misunderstood process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes features of secular buildings, mostly houses, shops, and warehouses, standing in the City of London in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; buildings in some cases constructed after the Great Fire of September 1666, and in other cases buildings from before the fire which stood in the zone outside it until the nineteenth century. Some prevalent types of smaller house in the rebuilt city are described; and, to compare with them, some houses in the area outside the fire which are known from historic plans and antiquarian drawings. Briefly some archaeological aspects are outlined: prospects for reconstructing the interiors of houses, London's incipient involvement in slavery, and the houses of some prominent seventeenth-century citizens who financed slavery. Other matters raised are criticism of scholars who have habitually described the city after the fire as totally rebuilt in brick, which it was not; and the statement, also often made, that after the fire London became a modern city. This is questioned. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The title of this paper refers to both the personality and work of the Spaniards who, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, had to abandon their homeland fleeing from the absolutism of King Ferdinand VII (1784–1833), and the inhabitants of the Spanish colonies in the New World, the forerunners of the struggles for independence in their respective countries. Both ended up settling in London, a city that served not only as a refuge but also as a place from which to disseminate their slogans in favour of freedom. Three areas are discussed: the publications of liberal Spanish exiles in London in the early nineteenth century, the interaction between Spanish and (Latin) American exiles and the role of women in this endeavour and in the cause of liberalism in general. The London press shaped this exile journalism and the subsequent liberal journalism in Spain when the extreme censorship from which these exiled journalists had fled was finally lifted. We believe that this global approach offers an original perspective from which to highlight the role of women, with a view to filling the traditional historiographical lacuna in this regard. To this end, we have employed recent relevant literature and primary sources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Safety from crime is a fundamental human need. In Maslow's hierarchy, safety is one of the foundational needs of well-being. The built environment should be safe to use at all times of the day and for all groups of people. After dark, the appearance of the outdoor environment changes dramatically, and this could impact the opportunities for crime. This study investigated the impact of daylight on the rates of different types of crime by comparing the crime rates during selected periods of daylight and darkness. The study used records of crime data from the Metropolitan Police Service. By studying crimes in the week on either side of the twice-yearly clock change, it is possible to compare periods that are dark in one week and light in the other at the same clock time. Where the time at which the crime took place was known, and using the GPS coordinates of the specific crime, the solar altitude was calculated and used to determine if it was light or dark at the time of the crime. A similar calculation was used to see if the crime would have been in the dark or light in the week on the other side of the clock change. The headline result is that there was 4.8% (OR 1.07) more crime in the dark periods than the light ones. However, this increase was not uniform across all crime types, and there were some further complications in some results due to potential changes in the behavior of some victims after dark. For the crimes of theft from a person and robbery of personal property, there was a significant increase during the dark period. The availability of light had an impact on the rate of certain crimes. Whilst this does not provide any information about the impact of street lighting on crime, it does provide some idea of by how much crime could be reduced if better lighting was provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, reductions in the price of photovoltaic panels and batteries have made them profitable. However, the achievement of grid parity, i.e. whether these systems are cheaper than the national grid for residential users, is still being debated. This paper quantifies the proportion of demand that could be covered assuming that solar-battery adoption is decided based on the maximum profit, the maximum autarky with no extra cost or the maximum autarky with limited extra-cost. A simulation model is developed which performs a half-hourly analysis for one year, considering the solar radiation, the consumption pattern and characteristics of equipment. London is examined using a database gathering consumption from 5567 households. In particular, the techno-economic performance of the systems is studied according to different reward schemes (from a non-subsidized to a high compensation one). Results are discussed according to the optimisation strategy: maximising profit, for users seeking economic performance; and maximum autarky, for users willing independence from the grid. Complementarily, the correlation between characteristics of consumption profiles and autarky is analysed. Results show that installations are profitable for a reward of 0.03 £/kWh, under profit maximisation, and can attain 90% autarky. The injection reward is still essential to make batteries profitable. • Quantification of residential users for whom solar panels are economically viable. • Development of a simulation model to perform an hourly analysis of a typical year. • Examination of a public database with date from 5567 households in London. • 0.03 £/kWh reward makes facilities profitable and 90% autarky can be reached. • Injection reward for fed electricity is essential to make batteries profitable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The bills of mortality, published by London's Company of Parish Clerks during the seventeenth century, provided Londoners with epidemiological data to track the plague's weekly and yearly development throughout London's neighborhoods. Past scholars have argued that, while the printed bills of mortality were regarded as official and reliable documents, the elderly women parish searchers responsible for compiling the bills' data were deemed untrustworthy. By contrast, the present essay proposes that this claim is only half true, arguing instead that Londoners maligned the elderly women searchers as a means of discrediting the printed bills of mortality. As with many printed documents in early modern England, the bills were not universally trusted and, moreover, were often co-opted by political dissenters to oppose London's ruling authorities and their public health measures. This essay ultimately argues that the Company of Parish Clerks published their official compilation of bills known as London's Remembrancer during a time of political strife in an effort to quell social disorder and assert the credibility of their printed bills of mortality against dissenting writers and pirated copies. Drawing from Adrian Johns' previous work covering the Royal Society's methods for establishing the credibility and authority printed works, this essay demonstrates how the London's Remembrancer employs similar strategies previously outlined by Johns in order to assert the reliability and authority of the Company of Parish Clerks' bills of mortality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The incremental housing development is rarely discussed in the context of the North. While perceived as a niche modality, its analysis provides a valid opportunity to question the perceptions of local housing markets as fully formal and document the spatial and morphological outcomes of more inconspicuous, long term and decentralised housing processes. This paper fills this gap by analysing obscure yet prevalent processes of backyard extensions in London, United Kingdom. The morphological analysis presented documents this phenomenon's scale and main characteristics through tracing changes in built form using remote sensing imagery between 2003 and 2021. It focuses on changes in the backyards of four residential blocks in four case study areas with varying income levels across the London metropolis. By discussing these transformations in the context of legal ambiguities, densification, and deregulation, we point to the informal/formal hybridity of the local housing market. This nascent study documents that incremental development happens at a rapid pace and scale and occurs across all income levels. In theoretical terms, the paper questions the dichotomic categorisation of informality and formality in a context of a Northern city and points out the benefits of engaging with experiences of incremental development across geographic boundaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we draw on the findings of a mixed methods research project that has examined the production, regulation, and delivery of housing in London. Our aim is to develop fresh insights into the growing mobilisation of numbers and targets in contemporary planning systems. More specifically, we bring two fields of literature into conversation. First, drawing on recent contributions from Pike et al. (2019) we develop their notion of 'city statecraft or the art of city government and management of state affairs and relations (p.79). We discuss how and why their framing of contemporary urban governance captures current trends in contemporary cities, including: the financialisation of housing and infrastructure; the rolling-out of delivery-focused public private partnerships; and the broader political projects that underpin planning priorities. The paper combines these insights with wider writings in urban studies on virtualism or the analysis of theories and governmental practices that seek to make the world conform to pre-existing ideas, rather than describing and explaining its formation. We argue that target-based forms of governance represent the implementation of a virtual statecraft in which the material realities of actual places become simulated worlds, ripe for calculation and re-making. We show, through in-depth research on housing regulation and investment/development trends in London, the ways in which virtual forms of statecraft are developed and implemented and with what effects on the material outcomes of urban development processes. The findings are of comparative significance as planning systems across Europe and beyond are becoming increasingly focused on market-oriented oriented forms of planning in an effort to boost the production of housing and to deliver social policy outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neighbourhoods are fundamental spatial units to present social phenomena in urban studies. Many studies use administrative boundaries such as census tracts as representations of neighbourhoods, but such boundaries may poorly represent the underlying social structures and physical attributes which might help define more vernacular conceptions and dialectical evolution of these zones. In this paper, using the goal of creating a new set of 'Strategic Neighbourhoods' for Transport for London (TfL) as vehicle for analysis, we evaluate two contrasting spatially and socially focused methodologies of neighbourhood generation. In comparing the outputs of a tertiary-communities (T-Communities) method and a combined Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Minimum Spanning Tree (MST) cluster analysis method with an earlier iteration of Strategic Neighbourhoods defined by TfL, indices including neighbourhood size, intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC), and the number of community centres are calculated to evaluate their relative performance which demonstrate that both methods create neighbourhood boundaries that can better capture intra-group social homogeneity and are more suitable for analysis than the original SNA boundaries. These results are discussed in the context of the dialectic relationship between neighbourhood outcomes, spatial structures, and social characteristics, leading to more widely relevant conclusions that neighbourhood boundary delineation should combine spatial structure, social attributes, and experimental knowledge to effectively sub-divide urban activity. • We apply two methods to derive new neighbourhood systems of London from the spatial and social perspectives. • We find that the new spatial neighbourhood system has increased internal social homogeneity and external heterogeneity. • We find that the new social neighbourhood system is more homogenous in size and better spatially contiguous. • We discuss the dialectic relationship between space, society, and neighbourhood formation. • We prove that the social variation of the neighbourhood can be deduced through its spatial structure, and vice versa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Mother went in to work tonight, how I hate her on Sunday work!," wrote fourteen years old Kathleen Biddlecombe in her diary, on Sunday, January 13, 1918. Kathleen and her family lived on 6 Cobbett Road, London, in Well Hall Garden Suburb—mostly known today as Progress Estate. Built between January and December 1915, in the first year of the First World War, the estate provided some 1,086 houses and 212 flats for the munition workers of the nearby Royal Arsenal factory in Woolwich. This article examines the First World War history of this housing project, by focusing on the diary of young Kathleen. Using the works of Henri Lefebvre and Michel de Certueau, the article probes the tensions between the ways this space was planned and built—in accordance with the agenda of the Garden City Movement—and the ways it was produced and used by its inhabitants during the war. It uncovers the production of space by the people whose houses were built along the Well Hall Road, where Route 44 of the Tram stopped to take them to and from the munition factory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on quantitative and qualitative research in England, and more specifically in London, this article sheds light on trends in platform work during the COVID-19 crisis. While the number of platform workers grew, the proportion of their income it contributed to fell, making up less than a quarter of total earnings. Interviews with driving and delivery platform workers in London (Europe's largest platform market) shed light on these puzzling trends. New recruitment by the platforms and adjustment of their algorithms during the lockdown led to downward pressure on earnings, poorer working conditions, extended waiting times, longer working hours and negative impacts on work–life balance, health and well-being. The article concludes that the pandemic provided platforms with an opportunity to consolidate their market position, but this was achieved at the cost of growing power asymmetry in the platform labour market, with workers' attempts to organise and improve conditions undermined by over-recruitment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on conceptual research exploring how evolving geographies of finance inform urban and regional change, we examine the size and functional scope of the presence of leading global banks across functional urban areas in Europe. Based on data for 100 major global banks, we find that their overall presence is proportional to (the square root of) the national gross domestic product. London and Luxembourg host far more banks than can be explained by their national gross domestic product, which can be traced back to their export of banking services. We also analyze the geographies of specialized banking services per city. Corporate and investment banking are mainly explained by national gross domestic product, with London emerging as the most prominent center. Private banking and securities services, in turn, are largely independent of national gross domestic product and rely on the importance of small and specialized economies such as Luxembourg and St Helier (Jersey). The stability of Europe's banking centers is underpinned by their role as the national banking center and/or their specialization in international banking services, as well as manifested in specialized subnetworks of financial centers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]