ORA (Round 5) What is Governed in Cities: Residential Investment Landscapes and the Governance and Regulation of Housing Production

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This proposal draws on a precise comparative, inter-disciplinary methodology to examine the inter-relationships between contemporary investment flows into the housing markets of major cities and the governance arrangements and public policy instruments that are designed to regulate them. Our case studies are three of Europe's leading urban centres: the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area; Greater London; and Grand Paris. The proposal is timely as major cities have been faced with unprecedented development pressures. Their populations and economies have expanded and their envrionments have become highly attractive locations for global and national financial investment. These pressures have been particularly acute in the production and consumption of housing, where the impacts of investments on markets, citizens, and places are generating a widely perceived 'crisis' and set of new challenges for policy-makers and planners. There is a growing urgency to produce affordable housing for a variety of groups in order for cities to maintain their growth and to meet the needs of their citizens. A failure to tackle housing problems will both limit future growth potential and act as a source of social conflict and discontent. The proposal draws on two streams of analysis. First we examine investment landscapes and the effectiveness of regulations and policy instruments that are designed to control them. We do this systematically and comparatively. Second we analyse the types of investment that are shaping housing markets and their impacts on people and places. We explore its sources, objectives, and designed outcomes.The research meets an increasingly urgent need to develop better understandings of the complex relationships between markets, planning controls, and the quality of life of citizens in a context of escalating political tensions between different socio-economic groups and major global economic and social changes.