As pointed out by Greenstein(2004;16), London’s de-industrialization processes are framed by the neoclassic explanation of employers moving to suburbs for cheap land and operation cost, followed by workers, who trying to minimize commuting, left behind neighbourhoods with a legacy of abandoned factories and underutilised land:
WHY IS LAND UNDERUTILIZED?:
10.1_CURRENT LIMITATIONS
WHY AREN’T THESE PROPERTIES REDEVELOPED?:
OPPORTUNITIES?:
PHYSICAL OBSTACLES: Increased site preparation costs: on removal or retrofitting underground/ overground obstacles, and contamination issues.
After mid 1970’s London’s industry was undergoing a rapid change, a shift from manufacturing locations to facilities for services providing was evident. Hence, properties were abandoned and remained sub-used, because they posed technical or physical problems, as when horizontal facilities where favoured over vertical ones (SungunEryilmaz,2005). The interaction between land values, underinvested neighbourhoods and previously designated industrial, yet vacant land, has produced a series of obstacles for redevelopment, still evident in current times. (Hayek,et.al.(2007):
CONSTRUCTION VIABILITY OBSTACLES: Limitations on building growth, and efficiency of development, where profit levels cannot achieving 15-25% rate. LAND OWNERSHIP OBSTACLES Complex and fragmented ownership interests. Landowners unrealistic perceptions of land value, and unknown land-owners. PLANNING OBSTACLES: Long negotiations processes. Local authority reserving land for housing. Planning guidance contradictory, and Wrong Designation of gardens as Vacant land, ‘garden-grabbing’. -Local authority protecting land to maintain industrial uses within the city_SIL’s,
Industrial land in urban areas can be both eyesore and an opportunity. Once a small intervention is well positioned, it can represent a magnet for businesses/civic engaged communities to provide the basis of a new attractor for the surroundings. Improving neighbourhood’s liveability, bringing jobs, tax revenues, repaired infrastructure, and reduction on the health and environmental risks. (Sungun-Eryilmaz, et.al.2005)
Overcoming these obstacles is clearly a matter of initiative, partnership and accurate funding sources strategically organized to bring back life into a disqualified district.
Sources: London industrial Baseline 2012 + Flickr + Google images
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