Duncan Bowie on Manchester
The Rentier City by Isaac Rose published by Repeater
There is an increasing academic literature on rentier capitalism and the financialisation of the housing market. This book presents a much more readable analysis, taking Manchester as a case study. Rose is an activist, working for the Manchester Tenants Union rather than an academic, but he has digested the relevant academic literature. Much of which is quite difficult to digest. He has also read his history, and he traces the development of Manchester from the industrial revolution through to the current time. He covers Peterloo and Engels and the 19th century housing reformers and development of late Victorian municipalism in the city as well as the growth of local socialism.
There is a fairly detailed picture of the physical development of Manchester and the politics of the interwar years, including the role of Oswald Mosley and the Communist Party, before considering the postwar Labour administrations. There is an interesting study of the rise and fall of the new left, killed of by Thatcherism with the council leader, Graham Stringer following a trajectory from opponent of the poll tax and rate capping to a pragmatist prepared to work with businesses and the private sector to regenerate the city.
The main focus of the book is however the development of the ’Manchester model’ which drives the city’s development – the dependence on private investment which drives both the replacement of council estates by market housing and the redevelopment of the town centre into high rise office blocks and flats for the better off. Manchester is seen as the archetypal ‘rentier city’. Much has been written on London’s development as a neoliberal world city and it is interesting to see attention being paid to one of our major provincial cities, where the changes have been equally dramatic.
The conclusion not surprisingly is that where the local authority is dependent on private finance, development is generally not in the interest of most of Manchester’s residents and that the structures of government, finance and the role of planning, have combined to generate a more unequal city. Rose is not entirely pessimistic as he sets out the campaigns by community activists, which have in some cases achieved limited success. This is an excellent study, which is certainly preferable to many over-theorised academic works, and is highly recommended.