Manchester, The Centripetal City: The Lessons Of Property-Led Regeneration For Core Cities And Their Proximal Towns In The Northern Powerhouse

曼彻斯特天际线上摩天大楼的景象与附近城镇用木板封住的商店形成了鲜明对比。这引发了人们对曼彻斯特的城市-区域模式是否有能力创造包容、负责、可持续的增长的质疑，以及它是否适合作为北部经济中心地区城市复兴的蓝图。该项目将调查支撑曼彻斯特区域发展模式和北部经济中心的想法是否真的有效。这些想法声称，市中心平房建筑的增长创造了“集聚”效益--即，技术人才、金融和科技日益集中在同一城市，创造了生产率的提高，并蔓延到周围地区。我们将通过深入的金融和空间分析曼彻斯特的“可租可建”(BTR)部门的投资来做到这一点。BTR是曼彻斯特常见的一种专门为租赁而建的特殊房地产类别。我们将考虑曼彻斯特吸引私人投资进入BTR以促进增长的“房地产主导的再生”模式是否真的会产生相反的效果。对土地的竞争可能会推高租金，并为大型跨国公司创造融资机会，从而将资金从当地经济中抽走。它还可能鼓励投机，鼓励企业承担更多债务，在市场低迷时带来新的风险。它还可能增加基础设施开发的成本，造成效率低下。它可能会将周边城镇的投资、技术和技能吸引到中心地区，从而损害这些城镇。我们把这些问题称为“向心城市”问题。这个比喻旨在捕捉一种漩涡般的运动，技能和其他资源被拉到曼彻斯特的中心，其好处被输送给全球投资者。这与支持房地产主导的集聚式重建战略的“离心式”战略形成了鲜明对比--即市中心的生产率增长被抛到了地区手中。在方法方面，我们汇集了会计和经济地理学的专业知识，以调查BTR建设的财务和空间关系和结果，从它的营销方式，到它的建设方式，再到它的财务和空间影响。我们的项目将分为四个主题。我们的第一个主题将考察曼彻斯特如何向全球投资者出售自己作为一个城市及其BTR房地产资产，因为这些交易中提出的愿景和承诺塑造了大曼彻斯特的城市复兴进程。我们还将研究大曼彻斯特联合管理局(GMCA)在这些资产营销中的作用。我们的第二个主题将使用详细的会计分析来研究这些资产是如何构建的，哪些公司参与了这些资产的构建，以及资金通过这些组织的流动方式。这将告诉我们BTR中的提取程度。它还将告诉我们该部门境内和境外公司的平衡情况，从而提供透明度和问责制方面的信息。我们还将检查BTR公司及其住房资产的财务稳定程度，为我们的BTR研究提供一个经济可持续发展的镜头。我们的第三个主题将考察曼彻斯特的再生模式在不同空间尺度上的效果。这将得出大曼彻斯特地区到底是离心力还是向心力(或两者的某种组合)在起作用。我们将使用各种社会经济指标(企业死亡率、商店客流量、外来移民等)来检查向心力的存在或不存在。我们的第四个主题是我们的影响主题。这一专题将利用我们的调查结果制定参与战略，旨在培养民间社会抵制破坏包容性、问责制和可持续发展的采掘式发展。

The sight of skyscrapers on Manchester's skyline contrasts with the boarded-up shops of towns nearby. This raises questions about the ability of Manchester's city-regional model to create inclusive, accountable, sustainable growth and thus its suitability as a blueprint for urban regeneration within the Northern Powerhouse area.This project will investigate whether the ideas which underpin the Manchester model of regional development and the Northern Powerhouse actually work. Those ideas claim that the growth of flat building in city centres creates 'agglomeration' benefits - that is, that a growing concentration of skilled people, finance and technology in the same city creates productivity improvements which spill out into surrounding areas. We will do this through an in-depth financial and spatial analysis of investment in Manchester's 'Build To Rent' (BTR) sector - a special property class common in Manchester that is built specifically for renters.We will consider whether Manchester's 'property-led regeneration' model of attracting private investment into BTR to boost growth might in fact have the opposite effect. Competition for land may push up rents and create opportunities for financial extraction for large global companies, taking money away from local economies. It may also encourage speculation which encourages companies to take on more debt, introducing new risks in a market downturn. It may also add to the costs of infrastructure development, creating inefficiencies. And it may pull in investment, technology and skills from surrounding towns into central areas in ways that harm those towns. We refer to these problems as problems of the 'centripetal city'. This metaphor is designed to capture the vortex-like motion whereby skills and other resources are pulled to the centre of Manchester, the benefits of which are funnelled to global investors. This contrasts with the 'centrifugal' metaphor that underpins property-led, agglomerative regeneration strategies - that productivity gains in the city centre are thrown out into the regions. In terms of methods, we bring together expertise in accounting and economic geography to investigate the financial and spatial relations and outcomes of BTR construction, from the way it is marketed, to the way it is constructed to its financial and spatial effects. Our project will be broken down into four themes. Our first theme will examine how Manchester sells itself as a city and its BTR property assets to global investors, because the visions and commitments set out in those deals shapes the process of urban regeneration in Greater Manchester. We will also examine the role of the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) in the marketing of those assets. Our second theme will use detailed accounting analysis to examine how those assets are constructed, which companies are involved in their construction and the way money flows through those organisations. This will tell us about the extent of extraction in BTR. It will also tell us about the balance of on- and off-shore companies in this sector, thus providing a transparency and accountability aspect. We will also examine how financially stable BTR companies and their housing assets are, providing an economic sustainability lens for our BTR research. Our third theme will examine the effects of Manchester's regeneration model at different spatial scales. This will draw out whether centrifugal or centripetal forces (or some combination of the two) are at work in Greater Manchester. We will use a variety of socio-economic indicators (business mortality rate, shop footfall, inward migration etc) to examine the presence or otherwise of centripetal forces. Our fourth theme is our impact theme. This theme will draw on our findings to develop engagement strategies which aim to build civil society resistance to extractive forms of development which undermine inclusive, accountable and sustainable development.