The principal stated rationale for bringing the 2012 Olympic Games to London was that it represented a once in a generation opportunity to regenerate the city’s East End. And yet, its arrival opens up questions over how problem places within cities are characterised and how selective and power-infused visualisations shape the form and character of urban policy interventions. This paper draws on research conducted on a community of over 200 small businesses that existed on the proposed Olympic Village site in east London before they were evicted in the summer of 2007. It documents the effects of the regeneration on their competitiveness and explores the highly circumscribed politics of contestation that emerged. Collectively, it argues that there should be a greater policy and academic concern with the less visible and ‘spectacular’ elements of cities and communities who cannot easily be seen, but are vital to urban vibrancy, diversity and sustainability.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Amin, A. and Thrift, N. ( 2002) Cities: Re-imagining the Urban. Cambridge : Polity Press.
2.
Baeten, G. ( 2009) Regenerating the South Bank: reworking community and the emergence of the post-political regeneration, in: R. Imrie, L. Lees and M. Raco (Eds) Regenerating London: Governance, Sustainability, and Community in a Global City, pp. 237-253. London : Routledge .
3.
Becker, J. ( 2008) City of Heavenly Tranquility: Beijing in the History of China. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
4.
Berry, B., Parsons, S. and Platt, R. ( 1968) The Impact of Urban Renewal on Small Businesses: The Hyde Park-Kenwood Case. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
5.
Blackburn, R. and Ram, M. ( 2006) Fix or fixation? The contributions and limitations of entrepreneurship and small firms to combating social exclusion, Entrepreneurship and Regional Development, 34, pp. 73-89.
6.
Blears, H. and Hain, P. ( 2007) Foreword, in: Department for Communities and Local Government and Department for Work and Pensions The Working Neighbourhoods Fund, pp. 3-4. London: HMSO.
7.
Brownill, S. ( 1999) Turning the east end into the west end: the lessons and legacies of the London Docklands Development Corporation, in: R. Imrie and H. Thomas (Eds) British Urban Policy and the Urban Development Corporations , pp. 43-63. London: Sage.
8.
Catalan, B., Sauri, D. and Serra, P. ( 2007) Urban sprawl in the Mediterranean? Patterns of growth and change in the Barcelona metropolitan region 1993-2000, Landscape and Urban Planning, 85, pp. 174-184.
9.
Christophers, B. ( 2008) The BBC, the creative class, and neoliberal urbanism in the north of England, Environment and Planning A, 40, pp. 2313-2329.
10.
Clarke, J., Newman, J., Smith, N. et al. (2007) Creating Citizen-consumers: Changing Publics and Changing Public Services. London: Sage.
11.
Cochrane, A. ( 2007) Understanding Urban Policy: A Critical Approach. Oxford : Blackwell.
12.
Cochrane, A., Peck, J. and Tickell, A. ( 1996) Manchester plays games: exploring the local politics of globalisation, Urban Studies, 39, pp. 1319-1336.
13.
Dahl, R. ( 1961) Who Governs? Democracy and Power in an American City . London: Yale University Press .
14.
Dclg (2008) Sustainable Communities Act 2007: A Guide. London: The Stationery Office.
15.
DCLG (Department for Communities and Local Government) ( 2007) Previously Used Land That May be Available for Development, 2007. London: The Stationery Office .
16.
Dines, N. ( 2009) The disputed place of ethnic diversity: an ethnography of the redevelopment of a street market in east London, in: R. Imrie, L. Lees and M. Raco (Eds) Regenerating London: Governance, Sustainability, and Community in a Global City, pp. pp. 254-272. London: Routledge .
17.
Dixon, T., Raco, M., Catney, P. and Lerner, D. (Eds) (2007) Sustainable Brownfield Regeneration: Liveable Places from Problem Spaces. Oxford: Blackwell.
18.
English Heritage ( 2004) A welcome home: a sense of place in the Thames Gateway . English Heritage, London .
19.
Essex, S. and Chalkley, B. ( 1998) Olympic Games: catalyst of urban change, Leisure Studies, 17, pp. 187-206.
20.
Florida, R. ( 2005) Cities and the Creative Class. London : Routledge.
21.
Flyvbjerg, B. and Bruzelius, N. ( 2002) Megaprojects and Risk: An Anatomy of Ambition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press .
22.
Gold, J. and Gold, M. ( 2008) Olympic cities: regeneration, city rebranding and changing urban agendas, Geography Compass, 2(1), pp. 300-318.
23.
Gospodini, A. ( 2009) Post-industrial trajectories of Mediterranean European cities: the case of post-Olympics Athens, Urban Studies, 46, pp. 1157-1186.
24.
Harding, A. ( 2005) Governance and socio-economic change in cities , in: N. Buck, I. Gordon, A. Harding and I. Turok (Eds) Changing Cities: Rethinking Urban Competitiveness, Cohesion and Governance, pp. 62-77. London : Palgrave.
25.
Harvey, D. ( 1989) Transformations in urban governance in late capitalism , Geografiska Annaler, 71B, pp. 3-17.
26.
Healey, P. ( 2002) On creating the ‘city’ as a collective resource , Urban Studies, 39, pp. 1777-1792.
27.
Imrie, R. and Thomas, H. ( 1992) ‘The wrong side of the tracks’: a case study of local economic regeneration in Britain, Policy and Politics , 20(3), pp. 213-226.
28.
Imrie, R. and Thomas, H. (Eds) (1999) British Urban Policy: An Evaluation of the Urban Development Corporations. London: Sage.
29.
Imrie, R., Lees, L. and Raco, M. (Eds) ( 2009) Regenerating London: Governance, Sustainability, and Community in a Global City. London: Routledge .
30.
Imrie, R., Thomas, H. and Marshall, T. ( 1995) Business organisations, local dependence and the politics of urban renewal in Britain, Urban Studies, 32, pp. 31-47.
31.
International Olympic Committee (2001) Observations from past Olympic communities: executive summary. International Olympic Committee, Lausanne .
32.
Jacobs, J. ( 1968) The Death and Life of Great American Cities. London: Penguin.
33.
Jones, P. and Evans, J. ( 2006) Urban regeneration, governance and the state: exploring notions of distance and proximity, Urban Studies, 43, pp. 1491-1509.
34.
Kearns, G. and Philo, C. (Eds) (1993) Selling Places: The City as Cultural Capital, Past and Present. Oxford: Pergamon Press.
35.
LDA (London Development Agency) (2005) Undergrounding of powerlines in the lower Lea Valley compulsory purchase order (http://www.lda.gov.uk/upload/pdf/Powerlines_Statement_of_Reasons.pdf; accessed 18 April 2009).
36.
Lefebvre, H. ( 2000) Everyday Life in the Modern World. London: Athlone Press.
37.
Livingstone, K. ( 2008) My bid was to snare billions of pounds for London (http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard-mayor/article-23480071-details/Livingstone:+My+2012+bid+was+to+snare+billions+of+pounds+for+London/article.do; accessed 20 November 2008).
38.
London 2012 Committee (2004) London 2012: a vision for the Olympic and Paralympic Games. London 2012 Committee, London.
39.
London Assembly ( 2007) London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games: the employment and skills legacy . Greater London Authority, London .
40.
London Development Agency (2005) Undergrounding of powerlines in the lower Lea Valley compulsory purchase order (http://www.lola.gov.uk/upload/pdf/Powerlines_Statement_of_Reasons.pdf ; accessed 18 April 2009).
41.
London Evening Standard (2009) Businesses on Olympic site still waiting to be reimbursed ( http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23637927-details/Businesses+on+Olympic+site+still+waiting+to+be+reimbursed/article.do; accessed 23 March 2009).
42.
Marshall, T. ( 1995) Clearing an industrial area: Collingdon Road and the Cardiff Bay Development Corporation 1988-1994. School of Planning, Oxford Brookes University.
43.
Meyer, M. ( 2008) The Last Days of Old Beijing: Life in the Vanishing Backstreets of a City Transformed. London: Bloomsbury Press.
44.
Newman, J. ( 2005) Remaking Politics: Peoples, Politics, and the Public Sphere . Bristol: Policy Press .
45.
Peck, J. ( 2005) Struggling with the creative class, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 29, pp. 740-770.
46.
Porter, M.E. ( 2000) Location, competition, and economic development: local clusters in a global economy, Economic Development Quarterly , 14(1), pp. 15-34.
47.
Poynter, G. ( 2009) The 2012 Olympics and the re-shaping of east London , in: R. Imrie, L. Lees and M. Raco (Eds) Regenerating London: Governance, Sustainability, and Community in a Global City, pp. 132-150. London: Routledge .
48.
Pratchett, L. ( 1999) New fashions in public participation: towards greater democracy?, Parliamentary Affairs, 52, pp. 616-636.
49.
Pratchett, L. and Leach, S. ( 2007) Local government: towards strong and prosperous communities , in: M. Rush and P. Giddings (Eds) The Palgrave Review of British Politics 2006, pp. 177-190. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
50.
Prior, J. ( 2006) Summary of proof of evidence of Jason Prior, Regional Vice President, EDAW Regeneration and design of Olympic and Legacy Development (http://www.persona.uk.com/olympics/LDA_Proofs/Jason_Prior/Proof.pdf ; accessed 3 September 2007).
51.
Raco, M. ( 1997) Business associations and the politics of urban renewal, the case of the lower Don Valley, Sheffield, Urban Studies , 34, pp. 383-402.
52.
Raco, M. ( 2000) Assessing community participation in local economic development: lessons for the new urban policy, Political Geography , 19, pp. 573-599.
53.
Raco, M. ( 2005) Sustainable development, rolled-out neo-liberalism and sustainable communities, Antipode, 37, pp. 324-346.
54.
Sayer, A. ( 1992) Method in Social Science: A Realist Approach. London: Routledge.
55.
Storey, D. ( 1998) Six steps to heaven: evaluating the impact of public policies to support small businesses in developed economies. Working Paper No. 59, Warwick Business School, University of Warwick.
56.
Storper, M. ( 1997) The Regional World: Territorial Development in a Global Economy. New York: The Guilford Press.
57.
Swyngedouw, E. ( 2007) Impossible ‘sustainability’ and the post-political condition, in: R. Kreuger and D. Gibbs (Eds) The Sustainable Development Paradox, pp. 13-41. New York: Guilford Press.
58.
Swyngedouw, E., Moulaert, F. and Rodriguez, A. ( 2002) Neoliberal urbanisation in Europe: large-scale urban development projects and the new urban policy, Antipode , 34, pp. 542-577.
59.
Taylor, M. ( 2007) Community participation in the real world: opportunities and pitfalls in new governance spaces, Urban Studies, 44, pp. 297-317.
60.
Tewdwr-Jones, M. ( 2009) Governing London: the evolving institutional and planning landscape, in: R. Imrie, L. Lees and M. Raco (Eds) Regenerating London: Governance, Sustainability, and Community in a Global City, pp. 58-74. London: Routledge.
61.
The Economist (2008) China’s dash for freedom, 2 August, p. 11.
62.
The Guardian (2008) London 2012 sponsors will cash in from British Olympic success, says Sorrell, The Guardian online (http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/aug/22/olympicsandthemedia.advertising; accessed 18 May 2009).
63.
The Times (2008) London Olympic Park: businesses fight for compensation (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/olympics/london_2012/article4053975.ece; accessed 18 January 2010).
64.
Thomas, H. ( 1994) The local press and urban renewal: a South Wales case study, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research , 18, pp. 315-333.
65.
Thomas, H. and Imrie, R. ( 1989) Urban redevelopment, compulsory purchase, and the regeneration of local economies: the case of Cardiff Docklands, Planning, Practice and Research, 4(3), pp. 18-27.
66.
United Kingdom (2004) Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act (http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2004/ukpga_20040005_en_1).
67.
Vigor, A., Mean, M. and Tims, C. (Eds) ( 2004) After the Goldrush? A Sustainable Olympics for London . London: IPPR/ Demos.
68.
Wood, A. ( 2004) Domesticating urban theory? US concepts, British cities and the limits of cross-national applications, Urban Studies , 41, pp. 2103-2118.
