Wither (social) housing? Connecting local urban development to international financial centres

Wainwright, Thomas and Manville, Graham (2014) Wither (social) housing? Connecting local urban development to international financial centres. RGS-IBG Annual International Conference 2014, London, United Kingdom. 26 - 29 Aug 2014.

Abstract

Recent research in economic geography and the social sciences has begun to unpack the role of international financial centres (IFCs) in deepening the financial relationships between the spaces of investors, households, corporations and increasingly public sector institutions. These studies are consistent in highlighting how market participants are often exposed to higher financial risks through their connections to IFCs, often losing out to powerful financial institutions which seek to extract value through a financialized accumulation regime. Our paper seeks to build on this body of research further by turning to examine a previously neglected sector: social housing. We highlight how reduced state funding has led social housing providers to become more reliant on capital market intermediaries to meet increased demand for social housing. As such, we explore how locally orientated social housing associations have become embedded within wider financial networks, creating new opportunities and risks which need to be effectively balanced. While policy makers have viewed financial markets as a panacea to fund social housing developments in an age of austerity, tensions have emerged requiring localised social housing organisations to become more commercial in their activities, jeopardising their ability to protect vulnerable communities through social value creation. In particular, our study examines how London as an IFC has developed new elite capital market intermediaries to fund the growth of the social housing sector, introducing new financial risks to a charitable sector whose main aim is to generate social value

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