The Social Foundations of Planning and the Power of Capital: Teesside in Historical Context

Abstract

A key distinguishing feature of British society in the 1980s was a redrawing of the legitimate extent and nature of state intervention in the workings of a market economy. Deregulation, intended to enhance the power of capital, depended centrally not just upon creating and sustaining new labour-market conditions, but also on developing an environment in which capital had freedom to invest and manoeuvre (inter)nationally and locally. One mechanism for the latter was a redefinition of planning, epitomised in the creation of Urban Development Corporations (UDCs). This paper uses the area of the largest UDC, Teesside in northeast England, as a vehicle through which to investigate these recent policies in a broad historical context. It proceeds in three stages, at each of which Teesside was at the forefront of key national changes. From 1945 to the mid-1970s an increasing array of national and local government policies sought to plan the development of the area. This contrasted markedly with the context of deregulation which was created from the late 1970s onwards, partly in response to the apparent failure of state planning. An enhanced role for the private sector was encouraged by parallels drawn with the past, in particular with Victorian city-founding entrepreneurs, Although such analogies were questionable, they were revealing, for the legacy of this period on Teesside in social and environmental terms was devastating. The paper concludes by pointing to the significance of these lessons of history; of the new context for planning in Britain in the 1980s; and of political–institutional arrangements as a means of solidifying capital's command over space.