Mike Raco
Biographic Data
| ID | 352080 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Mike Raco |
| GIVEN NAMES | Mike |
| FAMILY NAME | Raco |
| SIGNATURE | RACO M |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Reading |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-0371-532X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 73 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 821 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 66 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 7 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1997 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 16 |
Where there’s a will, is there a way? Reflections on the institutional afterlife of the London Docklands Development Corporation
In planning systems across the world, there has been a renewed interest in time-limited agencies as vehicles for delivering urban regeneration. While widely promoted for their effectiveness and efficiency, such organizations also raise important questions about the long-term governance of place. This paper makes a conceptual and empirical contribution to debates about urban development and time-limited planning. It introduces the notion of an ‘in…
Pushing Boundaries: Integrating Real Estate Studies Into Planning Scholarship
INTERFACEestate research span from allegations of being uncritical and pro-market to more technical hurdles involving the integration of various epistemological principles and methodologies.However, it is our firm belief that much of the pioneering work and boundary-pushing in this field is accomplished by early career researchers, driven by their pursuit of fresh insights and novel solutions with an open-minded and experimental approach.There is…
Replacing place with space: The influences and the challenges of the new norm on the Milan-Cortina Winter Games 2026
As part of its ongoing review of the processes surrounding the hosting of the Olympic Games (OGs), the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has set out the Olympic Agenda 2020 and the related New Norm (NN).These reforms, respectively approved in 2014 and 2018 to deal with the growing withdrawal of the bids, are in line with recent management studies highlighting the importance of standardization and replicability in the delivery of physical and …
The rise of polycentric regulation and its impacts on the governance of housing associations in England
Since 2010 the English planning system, like others across Europe, has undergone a series of market- oriented reforms. There has been a concerted attempt to make state organisations, and those in receipt of public funds, more entrepreneurial and financially proactive and independent. This paper focuses on one manifestation of these wider trends - the regulation of English Housing Associations [HAs] as examples of organisations that are under pres…
Beyond entrepreneurialism: Revealing multiple logics of suburban housing development politics in the global city
There is a burgeoning literature in urban studies on the role of suburbs in the development of global cities.For too long, it is argued, suburbs have been marginalised within urban theory and research.At the same time, planning systems are increasingly driven by growth-centred arrangements that seek to boost private investment and convert complex places into development spaces.Such approaches are built on the experiences of urban centres and the …
State capitalism, capitalist statism: Sovereign wealth funds and the geopolitics of London's real estate market
We respond to the special issue's call for a multiscalar, historicised approach to state capitalism through an exploration of Sovereign Wealth Fund investment into London real estate. We point to how the UK's ostensibly market-led recovery since the 2008 financial crisis has relied in part on attracting 'patient' state capitalist investments. In this, we contextualise the relational regulation of real estate markets as the outcome of intersecting…
Towards a virtual statecraft: Housing targets and the governance of urban housing markets
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 sta…
Anticipating demand shocks: Patient capital and the supply of housing
‘Patient capital’ is presented by many policymakers as a panacea to address domestic (and sometimes city-level) gaps in financing urban development, particularly housing, that emerged in the post-2008 credit crunch. In this article, we analyse the complexities of patient investors’ entry into residential markets in London and their response to the first major, and unexpected, crisis of demand: the COVID-19 pandemic and immediate falls in market d…
Sourcing and commodifying knowledge for investment and development in cities
In this paper we analyse the role of knowledge and research teams in urban development, drawing on the case of London’s residential market. We argue that in large real estate advisory firms, the brokers and consultants who mediate the arrival of investment into a particular site or city are reliant on research teams, which are often hidden from public awareness and under-researched in academic discussions. To acquire sufficient data to meet resea…
The work that place does: The London Landed Estates and a curatorial approach to estate management
Writings on urban development and planning in Europe have been dominated by a combination of technical studies of the real estate sector and more structural political economy approaches on land expropriation and financialisation. In this paper we draw on the example of the London Landed Estates, to critically assess how land-owning real estate companies, that we call city-owners, perform their roles and what models and knowledge sources they draw…
Putting the crisis to work: The real estate sector and London's housing crisis
Viability Planning, Value Capture and the Geographies of Market-Led Planning Reform in England
This paper focuses on the contentious transition to viability-driven planning in England, whereby development viability and the potential for land value capture dominate the work of planning. Drawing on interviews and fieldwork in London and the north east of England, the paper reflects on the variable outcomes and challenges in places with different development markets, political cultures, development histories and capacities for action. It find…
Relational regulation and Chinese real estate investment in London: Moving beyond the territorial trap
National governments, urban authorities and supra-national bodies increasingly see the provision of new housing as a core priority. There has been a strong emphasis on reforming the regulatory environments that exist within geographical territories and making them more welcoming to inward investment. However, such outlooks we claim often fall into a territorial trap and give too much prominence to the regulations and policy environments found in …
Towards a pluralistic understanding of Chinese homeowners: The case of ‘ordinary’ buyers
A Tale of Two Cities: Framing urban diversity as content curation in super-diverse London and Toronto
In major cities across the world policy-makers are searching for new ways to represent and govern their increasingly diverse populations. In this paper we analyse the ways in which authorities in two global cities, London and Toronto, have drawn on corporate, public management, strategies as their principal mode of diversity governance. In both we see a shift in policy making as a conscious attempt to reframe and re-imagine cities as corporate-li…
The rise of a new urban technocracy
Planning and Knowledge: How New Forms of Technocracy Are Shaping Contemporary Cities
Governing urban diversity: Multi-scalar representations, local contexts, dissonant narratives
In recent academic and urban policy writings the term urban diversity is usually understood, or discussed within the context of, increasing ‘socio-cultural’ diversity in cities or is explicitly connected to debates over immigration and demographic change. Although policy agendas follow certain common trends ‘to deal with’ the consequences of diversity, there is a lack of evidence-based research on how representations of diversity are mobilised an…
Slow cities, urban politics and the temporalities of planning: Lessons from London
In the wake of the global financial crash of 2007–2008, many governments have sought to streamline their post-war planning systems and encourage faster project delivery. Expedited decision-making is equated with efficiency and the meeting of broader growth objectives, whereas slower and more complex forms of engagement are presented as an impediment and a governmental problem to be solved through reform. For critical authors such as Weber, such a…
The politicisation of diversity planning in a global city: Lessons from London
This paper explores the politics of diversity planning in one of Europe’s most socially and economically divided and globally oriented cities: London. The analysis draws on Latour’s writings on modes of politicisation to examine the processes and practices that shape contemporary urban governance. It uses the example of diversity planning to examine the ‘what’ and ‘how’ of urban politics. It shows that on the one hand diversity is represented in …
Living with diversity: Local social imaginaries and the politics of intersectionality in a super-diverse city
The 2012 Olympic Learning Legacy Agenda – the intentionalities of mobility for a new London model
This paper investigates the emergence of a Learning Legacy Agenda (LLA) in the wake of the London 2012 Olympic Games as a governmental tool for the dissemination of urban development and infrastructure project delivery best practice. Focusing on the inception, coordination and implementation of the LLA we outline the intentionalities of mobility that underpin its formation and appropriation and suggest how this points to the emergence of a new “L…
State-led Privatisation and the Demise of the Democratic State: Welfare Reform and Localism in an Era of Regulatory Capitalism
For decades now we have been told that we are living through a governance revolution. Gone are the days when government agencies and bureaucrats told us what to do and how to do it. We are no longer clients of the state but empowered citizens who are able to take greater control over our own lives and the activities of those who govern in our name. Across the world the prevailing narrative has become one of Good Governance, devolution, liberation…
Critical urban cosmopolitanism and the governance of urban diversity in European cities
This paper draws on the findings of a cross-national European Union project, named DIVERCITIES, that analyses the relationships between narratives and meanings of the term ‘diversity’ and their influence on the governance and planning of European cities. It is widely argued that there is a growing dissonance between the policy narratives and agendas found in metropolitan cities and amongst national governments. The former are characterised as bei…
The New Localism, Anti-Political Development Machines, and the Role of Planning Consultants: Lessons from London's South Bank
This paper draws on a study of the politics of development planning in London's South Bank to examine wider trends in the governance of contemporary cities. It assesses the impacts and outcomes of so-called new localist reforms and argues that we are witnessing two principal trends. First, governance processes are increasingly dominated by anti-democratic development machines, characterized by new assemblages of public- and private-sector experts…
Governmentality, subject‐building, and the discourses and practices of devolution in the UK
This paper uses a Foucauldian governmentality framework to analyse and interrogate the discourses and strategies adopted by the state and sections of the business community in their attempts to shape and influence emerging agendas of governance in post‐devolution Scotland. Much of the work on governmentality has examined the ways in which governments have developed particular techniques, rationales and mechanisms to enable the functioning of gove…
Governmentality and Rights and Responsibilities in Urban Policy
We deploy aspects of Foucault's concept of governmentality to discuss the argument that the recent shift towards a 'rights and responsibilities' agenda in urban policy is part of broader transformations in the rationalities and techniques of government. Following Rose, we characterise the emergent forms of urban policy as part of 'advanced liberalism' or strategies which seek to activate citizens, individually and collectively, to take greater re…
How New is the New Local Governance? Lessons from the United Kingdom
In recent times, a conventional wisdom concerning the governance of cities has emerged. It revolves around the contention that policy and planning frameworks are increasingly closed off from public and democratic accountability, in order to facilitate the pursuit of efficiency over equity objectives. The implication is that ‘old’ styles of governance were more open and accountable, while the ‘new’ seek to close off debate and streamline procedure…
Sustainable Development, Rolled-out Neoliberalism and Sustainable Communities
Recent contributions by geographers on the relationships between states and citizens have documented the rise of rolled-out neoliberalism. Development agendas are, it is argued, increasingly dominated by the principles of market-driven reforms, social inequality, and a drive towards enhancing the economic competitiveness of the supply side of the economy. However, at the same time, a parallel set of discourses has emerged in the development liter…
From expectations to aspirations: State modernisation, urban policy, and the existential politics of welfare in the UK
Assessing community participation in local economic development - lessons for the new urban policy
Remaking Place and Securitising Space: Urban Regeneration and the Strategies, Tactics and Practices of Policing in the UK
Urban regeneration programmes in the UK over the past 20 years have increasingly focused on attracting investors, middle-class shoppers and visitors by transforming places and creating new consumption spaces. Ensuring that places are safe and are seen to be safe has taken on greater salience as these flows of income are easily disrupted by changing perceptions of fear and the threat of crime. At the same time, new technologies and policing strate…
Securing Sustainable Communities: Citizenship, Safety and Sustainability in the New Urban Planning
During the 2000s spatial and urban policy in the UK has become increasingly concerned with the creation of sustainable communities. The urban renaissance's focus on security through design has been replaced by new, more holistic discourses which emphasize `community safety' and the ways in which the planning process can be reformed in order to achieve this. The new emphasis is on the responsibilization of neighbourhood communities with the police…
Assessing the discourses and practices of urban regeneration in a growing region
Delivering Flagship Projects in an Era of Regulatory Capitalism: State-led Privatization and the London Olympics 2012
Much of the urban studies literature on the London Olympics has focused on its social legacies and the top-down nature of policy agendas. This article explores one element that has been less well covered - the contractual dynamics and delivery networks that have shaped infrastructure provision. Drawing on interviews and freedom of information requests, this article explores the mechanisms involved in the project's delivery and their implications …
Visibilities and Invisibilities in Urban Development: Small Business Communities and the London Olympics 2012
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 …
Resilience Planning, Economic Change and The Politics of Post-recession Development in London and Hong Kong
For much of the 1990s and 2000s, the emphasis of urban policy in many global cities was on managing and mitigating the social and environmental effects of rapid economic growth. The credit crunch of 2008 and the subsequent recession have undermined some of the core assumptions on which such policies were based. It is in this context that the concept of resilience planning has taken on a new significance. Drawing on contemporary research in London…
Assessing 'Institutional Thickness' in the Local Context: A Comparison of Cardiff and Sheffield
Urban managers have been faced by growing problems in recent decades. Social and economic inequalities within cities have steadily grown, whereas shifting global economic relations have led to the polarisation of more and less successful local (urban) economies. At the same time many nation-states, such as Britain, have opted for greater deregulation and a resurgence of neoliberal strategies of governance, which have had the effect of disempoweri…
Communities, places and institutional relations: Assessing the Role of Area-Based Community Representation in Local Governance
Changing Times, Changing Places: Urban Development and the Politics of Space-Time
Much of the writing on urban regeneration in the UK has been focused on the types of urban spaces that have been created in city centres. Less has been written about the issue of when the benefits of regeneration could and should be delivered to a range of different interests, and the different time frames that exist in any development area. Different perceptions of time have been reflected in dominant development philosophies in the UK and elsew…
Slow cities, urban politics and the temporalities of planning: Lessons from London
In the wake of the global financial crash of 2007–2008, many governments have sought to streamline their post-war planning systems and encourage faster project delivery. Expedited decision-making is equated with efficiency and the meeting of broader growth objectives, whereas slower and more complex forms of engagement are presented as an impediment and a governmental problem to be solved through reform. For critical authors such as Weber, such a…
The New Localism, Anti-Political Development Machines, and the Role of Planning Consultants: Lessons from London's South Bank
This paper draws on a study of the politics of development planning in London's South Bank to examine wider trends in the governance of contemporary cities. It assesses the impacts and outcomes of so-called new localist reforms and argues that we are witnessing two principal trends. First, governance processes are increasingly dominated by anti-democratic development machines, characterized by new assemblages of public- and private-sector experts…
Negotiating the Contemporary City: Introduction
Urban ecosystems as ‘natural’ homes for biogeographical boundary crossings
Urban ecosystems have long been neglected in ecological theory and urban politics, with their respective tendencies towards anti-urbanism and exclusive humanism. As Hinchliffe et al. argue, ‘not pure enough to be true and not human enough to be political, urban wilds have no constituency’ (2005, 645). Ecologists have tended to focus on ‘pure’ places, free from and defined in relation to the degradation of the urban environment. Meanwhile urban th…
The privatisation of urban development and the London Olympics 2012
‘ On the Olympics she [Tessa Jowell] was telling me it was an enormous opportunity. Think of the impact on our young people, on fitness, on sport, on the country's self-belief. I would say but supp
Geographies of Abstraction, Urban Entrepreneurialism, and the Production of New Cultural Spaces: The West Kowloon Cultural District, Hong Kong
During the 1990s and 2000s understandings of urban politics have become dominated by narratives of neoliberal urban entrepreneurialism. Considerations of, and even interest in, the diversities that exist in the specific politics that shape place developments have often been relegated to a matter of secondary interest when understood in relation to broader structural global forces. This is particularly significant as urban development projects hav…
Key Worker Housing, Welfare Reform and the New Spatial Policy in England
Raco M. Key worker housing, welfare reform and the new spatial policy in England, Regional Studies. Under the Labour government the character of spatial policy in England has been subject to significant change. The emphasis has increasingly been on spatial policy as an active social policy. This paper uses the example of public sector key worker housing programmes in England to exemplify and analyse the character of these changes. It argues that …
Refashioning Local Government and Inner-city Regeneration: The Salford Experience
This paper explores the role of local government in urban regeneration in England. The first part describes local-central government relations during recent decades. It concludes that 'actually occurring' regeneration fuses top-down and bottom-up priorities and preferences, as well as path dependencies created by past decisions and local relations. The second part illustrates this contention by examining the regeneration of inner-city Salford ove…
Competition, Collaboration and the New Industrial Districts: Examining the Institutional Turn in Local Economic Development
Risk, Fear and Control: Deconstructing the Discourses of New Labour's Economic Policy
The form and nature of state intervention in economic and social affairs has changed significantly in recent decades. Nation-states, it is argued, no longer possess the capacities to control the social and economic systems that operate within their territories. Increasingly, they are forced to develop new strategies and techniques of government which use particular discourses and practices to define, mobilise and activate policy communities and o…
Business Associations and the Politics of Urban Renewal: The Case of the Lower Don Valley, Sheffield
Previous research has indicated that indigenous small business communities may be adversely affected by, and not well integrated into, the wider strategic objectives being pursued by regeneration agencies. At the same time, the ability of small business communities to contest damaging programmes of renewal has been characterised as being ineffective, because of the politically weak position of such communities and the cleavages within them. It ha…
Assessing 'Institutional Thickness' in the Local Context: A Comparison of Cardiff and Sheffield
Urban managers have been faced by growing problems in recent decades. Social and economic inequalities within cities have steadily grown, whereas shifting global economic relations have led to the polarisation of more and less successful local (urban) economies. At the same time many nation-states, such as Britain, have opted for greater deregulation and a resurgence of neoliberal strategies of governance, which have had the effect of disempoweri…
Competition, Collaboration and the New Industrial Districts: Examining the Institutional Turn in Local Economic Development
How New is the New Local Governance? Lessons from the United Kingdom
In recent times, a conventional wisdom concerning the governance of cities has emerged. It revolves around the contention that policy and planning frameworks are increasingly closed off from public and democratic accountability, in order to facilitate the pursuit of efficiency over equity objectives. The implication is that ‘old’ styles of governance were more open and accountable, while the ‘new’ seek to close off debate and streamline procedure…
Researching the new urban governance: An examination of closure, access and complexities of institutional research
Changes in the nature of local governance in the UK have raised a number of issues for academic researchers. The shift to quango governance and the denial of community access to decision‐making processes have become increasingly important issues in the conflicts surrounding regeneration programmes. This paper, drawing on a research project undertaken in Cardiff Bay, South Wales, explores the issues surrounding the access and distribution of knowl…
Assessing community participation in local economic development - lessons for the new urban policy
Governmentality and Rights and Responsibilities in Urban Policy
We deploy aspects of Foucault's concept of governmentality to discuss the argument that the recent shift towards a 'rights and responsibilities' agenda in urban policy is part of broader transformations in the rationalities and techniques of government. Following Rose, we characterise the emergent forms of urban policy as part of 'advanced liberalism' or strategies which seek to activate citizens, individually and collectively, to take greater re…
A critique without a focus’: A response to Ward’s re‐interpretation of urban politics
Communities, places and institutional relations: Assessing the Role of Area-Based Community Representation in Local Governance
Risk, Fear and Control: Deconstructing the Discourses of New Labour's Economic Policy
The form and nature of state intervention in economic and social affairs has changed significantly in recent decades. Nation-states, it is argued, no longer possess the capacities to control the social and economic systems that operate within their territories. Increasingly, they are forced to develop new strategies and techniques of government which use particular discourses and practices to define, mobilise and activate policy communities and o…
The Social Relations of Organisational Activity and the New Local Governance in the UK
The nature and form of local governance in the UK became the focus for a wide range of academic and policy debates during the 1980s and 1990s. The growth of non-elected localist agencies working alongside local authorities had a major influence on the effectiveness of, and the local policy-making processes behind, policy areas such as urban regeneration. This paper contributes to these debates by arguing that one often neglected or underemphasise…
Urban renaissance?: New Labour, community and urban policy
This study documents and assesses the core of New Labour's approach to the revitalisation of cities, that is, the revival of citizenship, democratic renewal, and the participation of communities to spearhead urban change.
Urban Renaissance?: New Labour, Community and Urban Policy
Remaking Place and Securitising Space: Urban Regeneration and the Strategies, Tactics and Practices of Policing in the UK
Urban regeneration programmes in the UK over the past 20 years have increasingly focused on attracting investors, middle-class shoppers and visitors by transforming places and creating new consumption spaces. Ensuring that places are safe and are seen to be safe has taken on greater salience as these flows of income are easily disrupted by changing perceptions of fear and the threat of crime. At the same time, new technologies and policing strate…
Negotiating the Contemporary City: Introduction
Governmentality, subject‐building, and the discourses and practices of devolution in the UK
This paper uses a Foucauldian governmentality framework to analyse and interrogate the discourses and strategies adopted by the state and sections of the business community in their attempts to shape and influence emerging agendas of governance in post‐devolution Scotland. Much of the work on governmentality has examined the ways in which governments have developed particular techniques, rationales and mechanisms to enable the functioning of gove…
Assessing the discourses and practices of urban regeneration in a growing region
The Social Relations of Business Representation and Devolved Governance in the United Kingdom
The reform of regional governance in the United Kingdom has been, in part, premised on the notion that regions provide new territories of action in which cooperative networks between business communities and state agencies can be established. Promoting business interests is seen as one mechanism for enhancing the economic competitiveness and performance of 'laggard' regions. Yet, within this context of change, business agendas and capacities are …
Governing from below – urban regions and the global economy
Sustainable Development, Rolled-out Neoliberalism and Sustainable Communities
Recent contributions by geographers on the relationships between states and citizens have documented the rise of rolled-out neoliberalism. Development agendas are, it is argued, increasingly dominated by the principles of market-driven reforms, social inequality, and a drive towards enhancing the economic competitiveness of the supply side of the economy. However, at the same time, a parallel set of discourses has emerged in the development liter…
Moving workers with the work: State selection, key workers and spatial development policy in post-war Britain
Devolution and the political representation of business interests in the UK
Rethinking Urban Competitiveness, Cohesion and Governance
RETHINKING URBAN COMPETITIVENESS, COHESION AND GOVERNANCE Nick Buck, Ian Gordon, Alan Harding and Ivan Turok (eds) Palgrave Macmillan, 2005, 317 pp., £19.99 (pb) ISBN: 1403906807
Sustainable Brownfield Regeneration: Liveable Places from Problem Spaces
Securing Sustainable Communities: Citizenship, Safety and Sustainability in the New Urban Planning
During the 2000s spatial and urban policy in the UK has become increasingly concerned with the creation of sustainable communities. The urban renaissance's focus on security through design has been replaced by new, more holistic discourses which emphasize `community safety' and the ways in which the planning process can be reformed in order to achieve this. The new emphasis is on the responsibilization of neighbourhood communities with the police…
Political science (62 works) · Sociology (55 works) · Law (51 works) · Politics (50 works) · Economics (46 works) · Urban Planning and Governance (41 works) · Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism (33 works) · Public Administration (30 works) · Political economy (29 works) · Corporate governance (28 works)