Work

The political economy of land value capture in the UK: Rent and viability in Salford’s new municipalist turn

Year: 2022

Type: article

Abstract: This paper contextualises the political economy of land value capture (LVC) within the shift to an increasingly financialised, rentier-dominated capitalism. Contributing to an emerging dialogue between social constructivist planning literature on performativity in LVC and the critical political economy literature on rents and rentiership, we overview Salford's planning policy trajectory in recent decades in order to highlight how the UK planning system has increasingly been reconfigured as a mechanism to increase land values. In doing so, we explore both Salford's shift to neoliberal planning and its municipal socialist counter-turn in recent years, reflecting on how the centrality of LVC to the latter still leaves it dependent on rentier logics. In doing so, we locate these policy conjunctures within the governance dynamics of Britain's transformation into a rentier economy; wherein the stimulation, disbursement and capture of land values have become central objects of spatio-economic policy.

Source: Environment and Planning A Economy and Space

DOI: 10.1177/0308518x221131322

Authors: Thomas F. Purcell, Callum Ward

Institutions: King's College London, London School of Economics and Political Science

Language: English

Topic: Urban Planning and Governance

Subfield: Urban Studies

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Sustainable cities and communities

Open Access status: hybrid

Estimated APC paid: $3,500