9 - Planning without growth: what next for the London model?

Summary

The book started with a simple question – who is governing London and how? While much of the writing on megacities limits itself to formal policymaking structures, we have argued that a closer examination of these wider governance questions should be at the heart of any analysis (Le Gales & Vitale 2013). The chapters have charted structural shifts in the organization and management of the state. What were formally state- run activities are now conducted, managed and delivered by a panoply of private sector companies, professional organizations and parastate actors. Private law codes, mobilized at multiple scales, shape the business of megacity governance in unprecedented and underanalysed ways. Elite lobbyists and interests battle for attention and influence. The result is that there is both a crisis emerging in the delivery capacities of policy systems and their accountability and manageability.

It is increasingly unclear who is governing and what is governed in the common- sense understandings of the terms. And while for decades critical writers have focused on the growing role of the private sector in the delivery of urban projects, and in forming regimes and alliances with public sector elites, the context we describe is one of a more structural set of changes in which some of the separations between the public and private sectors have become more porous.

In this final chapter we highlight some of the inbuilt vulnerabilities of the London model and the structural risks that it now faces. First, we highlight the growing significance of the climate emergency and the capacity of the city's governance arrangements to develop the strategies and interventions necessary for building resilient urban environments. As with all aspects of the model, much of the longer- term planning and investment is being left to the private sector and parastate organizations to deliver and coordinate. No issue better reflects the structural problems of governability brought about by decades of reform.

Second, we highlight some of the impacts of Brexit on London's planning and development and the risks it poses to the growth models and certainties embedded in London Plans since the turn of the millennium.