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Two key forces are likely to impact on the retail profile of London's high streets. First is the increasing expansion of London's retail sector across both affiliated and independent sectors, paralleled with economic volatility associated in part with the global crisis in 2008. The second is the political shift, at both national and city scales, towards the recognition of small independent shops and local high streets, as signalled in The Mayor's Draft Replacement London Plan, 2010. This brings us to a third consideration: the growth of ethnic retail, evidenced particularly in London where national levels of immigration and ethnic diversity are at their highest. The 2010 High Street London report commissioned by the Mayor's Office emphasises 'the local' role of London's high streets for a 'local' populous, reflecting a larger national policy emphasis on Localism as outlined in The Localism Bill in 2010. This paper explores what forms of planning are best suited to recognise a rapidly evolving retail landscape together with the crucial differentiations inherent in the local landscape. The focus is explicitly contextual: it is London centric in its scope, and relies on detailed survey and ethnographic data of a south London high street located within an area with high Indices of Deprivation. The context sits in contrast to the notions of the village high street and the upmarket high street, which encapsulate cultural notations of vitality and viability which frame much of the literature and policy around the value of high streets. By analysing the adaptive practices of the ethnically diverse, independent retailers on the Walworth Road, socioeconomic measures of high street values are explored. Further, the paper conceptualises adaptation as the strategic adjustments made by independent proprietors in recognition of large-scale economic forces, national regulatory frameworks, and local cultural nuances. The paper reframes 'the local' as 'the particular' and emphasises the need for disaggregated, fine-grained research on retail practices in high streets which reflect crucial contextual differentiations. Finally it explores what a planning framework and stewardship mechanism for high streets in London's urban margins might comprise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the battle to curb rising levels of obesity the focus has moved from individual interventions towards addressing factors within the 'obesogenic environment'. Fast-food outlets are argued to be an increasingly important aspect of this environment and recent UK government policy has suggested that local authorities should use their planning powers to restrict the opening of new fast-food outlets in local neighbourhoods. This policy has a particular impact on the growing number of independent fast-food outlets which characterise deprived inner-city areas. Focusing on a case study of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets and its independent fast-food sector, this paper explores the range of local variables, and in particular the crucial mix of socioeconomic and cultural factors, which have influenced its development. The role played by fast-food outlets in providing local employment and a culturally acceptable social space for the local Muslim community, through the provision of halal food in an alcohol-free environment, is particularly highlighted. In uncovering these particular local sensitivities, the paper aims to contribute to debates regarding the nature of 'obesogenic environments' and demonstrate that local level research is essential for enabling better understanding for developing policy interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Individuals working in graduate labour markets are increasingly expected to enhance their employability and career progression by undertaking lifelong education and learning within the workplace. Research has examined how graduates navigate this dynamic educational landscape, but the changing nature of educational providers has been comparatively neglected. In response, in this paper we examine the growth of for-profit business education service firms that have grown to meet the increased demand for lifelong learning and education by focusing on the financial business education sector in London. We develop cultural economy approaches to market making in order to understand how these educational service firms have developed by 'stabilizing' new educational services and products that compete with, and seek to 'destabilise', more established forms of business education, particularly MBA degrees. In so doing, we position educational service firms as an important, yet hitherto neglected set of business services within economic geography. Moreover, by focusing on a relatively mature for-profit educational sector, the research presented in the paper has important implications for the development of educational landscapes beyond the case of financial business education as they become increasingly beholden to the activities of for-profit education service firms and wider discourses of markets in educational services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite a burgeoning literature on mobilities in general and cycling in particular as a transport, leisure, and political practice, there remains a lack of research on cycling in pedestrian public spaces. There is, however, a substantial body of literature in relation to skateboarding in public spaces which with few exceptions theorises it as resistant to preexisting dominant design codes and social norms. Using the example of London's South Bank this paper focuses on the urban cycling practices of bike trials and BMX in order to illustrate that these practices are perhaps not as 'resistant' as previous accounts have argued. Whilst accounts of skateboarding have tended to draw upon a body-architecture dialectics and subcultural theory, using ethnographic methods this paper discusses the practice and reception of display, sociality, and authority inherent in these public performances. In doing so the paper demonstrates that these styles of riding largely perform the social and cultural norms enshrined in the redevelopment of the South Bank. The result is a performed reading of these practices and spaces which sees power as always becoming. In line with this, the paper also questions the logic of current strategies which seek to displace riders and skaters to peripheral 'private' skate parks based on an erroneous reading of such practices as always resistant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper discusses parental choice of secondary schooling, drawing on a recent study of east London. It is argued that the New Labour agenda of promoting choice of secondary school can, in practice, constrain choice as parents 'play safe'. The paper reviews the working of educational choice across seven boroughs in east London, and then focuses on how it is working in one outer London borough. It is argued that when education and housing markets are considered together it is possible to identify several of what Ball et al have termed 'circuits of schooling'. The paper concludes by suggesting that the 'choice agenda' may be creating a perception of failure and a sense of resentment amongst parents who do not succeed in getting their children into all but the most popular schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a well-documented emphasis within transport policy on speed and efficiency, with the benefits of transport schemes frequently assessed in these terms. The focus on reducing journey times is also evident in pedestrian policy, with the 'time-saving' attributes of walking often promoted. However, this emphasis on speed within the transport policy arena reflects linear understandings of time as nothing more than 'clock time' passing. In contrast, this paper explores the multiple forms of temporality and spatiality that emerge out of and shape urban pedestrian movement. The discussion draws upon in-depth interview and diary data from fieldwork undertaken in London, and in so doing provides a 'timely' empirical engagement with theoretical understandings of time and space. Within this examination of the multiple temporalities of urban walking, it is suggested that people become aware of the experiential dimensions of time when they are made to wait. The paper moves on to explore the issues of physical mobility difficulties in the context of highlighting the multiple spatialities of walking, and attention is also drawn to how people use temporal and spatial concerns to frame their identities as to who they are in relation to others. It is suggested that notions of rhythm provide a productive means for engaging with how time, space, and identity interrelate as people walk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper follows the trials and tribulations of a loose alliance of urban conservationists seeking to create and maintain spaces for brownfield wildlife in East London. It focuses, in particular, on the construction of living roofs—an innovative conservation strategy where wildlife habitat is created on top of new and old buildings in the city. The paper identifies three obstacles that have challenged the development of brownfield conservation, which relate to the urban geographies, lively temporalities, and inconspicuous forms of brownfield wildlife and wild-living. These obstacles differ markedly from those of the nonhumans prioritised in mainstream conservation. Brownfield conservationists have developed a novel and fluid model of practice, whose emergence and characteristics can be linked to wider developments in UK nature conservation. This model chimes clearly with new approaches to theorising human-nonhuman interaction that have been developed in nonequilibrium ecology and relational geography. Drawing together these empirical and theoretical innovations, the paper concludes by outlining the parameters of a fluid biogeography of UK wildlife conservation to help understand and guide future conservation practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we examine the relationships between class and gender in the context of current debates about economic change in Greater London. It is a common contention of the global city thesis that new patterns of inequality and class polafisation are apparent as the expansion of high-status employment brings in its wake rising employment in low-status, poorly paid ‘servicing’ occupations. Whereas urban theorists tend to ignore gender divisions, feminist scholars have argued that new class and income inequalities are opening up between women as growing numbers of highly credentialised women enter full-time, permanent employment and others are restricted to casualised, low-paid work. However, it is also argued that working women's interests coincide because of their continued responsibility for domestic obligations and still-evident gender discrimination in the labour market. In this paper we counterpose these debates, assessing the consequences for income inequality, for patterns of childcare and for work-life balance policies of rising rates of labour-market participation among women in Greater London. We conclude by outlining a new research agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we argue that postgraduate education forms an important, but hitherto neglected, element in the distinctive institutional landscape of the City of London. In particular, and drawing on research into early-career financial and legal elites in the City, we show how postgraduate education tailored to the demands of employers within London plays an important role in indoctrinating early-career elites into situated, Cityspecific, working practices and, in so doing, helps to sustain the City's cultures and norms of financial practice. Specifying the role of postgraduate education in reproducing these situated City practices is significant because, although geographical variegation in working practices between international financial centres has been widely reported, less attention has been paid to how such institutionally embedded differences are created and sustained. By identifying education as one mechanism of creation and sustenance, our analysis enhances understanding of how the institutional landscapes that underlie financial centres might be maintained or, when necessary, challenged; challenge being significant in relation to attempts to reform practices and cultures in international financial centres in the wake of the 2007-08 crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discussing an urban walking event, "Moss-eye view", held in the City of London, this paper considers the ways in which cities may be understood from the view of morethan- human processes and incorporations. The walk explores how distinct insights emerge into ways of 'becoming urban' by attending to organisms, environments, and forms of sitework that are not typically foregrounded in the usual economies of the City of London. Moss incorporates the material effects of urban ecologies across time and space, and thus forms a process of bio-indication in the city, capturing pollutants and making resources available for other organisms. Mosses in the city might be studied as sentient, more-than-human exchangers of and participants in urban energies, and as in-between and peripheral organisms that connect up sites by working across material, affective, political, socionatural, and imaginative registers. It is argued that the "Moss-eye view" walking event is a form of research that opens up infra-urban practices for understanding cities through alternative associations and incorporations of urban life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we examine how Colombian migrants participate in formal and informal political and civic activities in London. Drawing on qualitative and quantitative research conducted between 2005 and 2009, we explore how gender regimes change as people move across borders and how this affects political and civic participation. Although the gendered patterns of participation partly reflect research elsewhere, in terms of men's stronger involvement in formal and transnational activities and women's greater participation in informal politics and immigrant politics, some important differences emerged. Not only do formal and informal activities overlap, but class position and life-course stage as well as immigration status affect these processes. Although middle-class women were able to take advantage of opportunities for formal political participation in London and transnationally, working-class women gained the most from changing gender regimes, exercising increased control over their lives through their disproportionate participation with migrant-community organisations. En both cases, however, women's political engagement was easier when demands on their traditional roles, as mothers in particular, were lessened later in the life course. Working-class men emerged as the least active politically and civically, and this was related to working patterns, feelings of disempowerment and a desire to return home. Conceptually, we further challenge an unreconstructed political opportunities structure perspective for explaining migrants' political mobilisation by arguing for the need to include not only a gendered approach but also one that explicitly integrates intersectionality into any analysis. For Colombian migrants in London, although political and civic participation is far from uniform, there is evidence that engagement in such activities is important in the lives of many migrants, and especially for working-class women who appear to have been the most active in challenging hegemonic gender regimes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I will explore London's onshore finance industry and how it facilitates corporate tax avoidance programmes. In doing so, I will discuss how financial elites design transactions and corporate activities so as to minimise their exposure to taxation, and how these structures are shaped by the international geographies of taxation. I will investigate an area of London's financial sector that has previously been neglected by geographers and social scientists. Finally, I turn to illustrate how tax minimisation strategies are implemented, through the example of residential mortgage-backed securitisation, and how tax-minimisation strategies made securitisation a practical tool for financiers. This provides new insights into how taxation elites facilitated the increased financialisation of Britain's economy and the severity of its exposure to the credit crunch. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the results of an analysis of the Audit Commission's local quality-of-life indicators dataset to compare reported outcomes amongst 208 urban-classified and 144 rural-classified English local authority areas. We contextualise the demarcation of the urban and rural by reference to the transformational politics of the previous Labour government and its establishment of the sustainable communities initiative, whose controversial 'place-based' revitalisation essence continues to shape local government policy. According to the collectivist sustainability interpretation of the 73 indicators analysed, our results reveal that not only do urban-classified English local authority areas register a significantly lower quality of life than their rural counterparts but that they are also subject to much greater statistical and spatial variation. En addition, we find that the community- related and economy-related indicators serve to distinguish the reported quality-of-life conditions of rural and urban localities most, whereas the scores for transport are uniquely superior for urban areas, especially London. En considering the policy implications of our results, we draw attention to Labour's much-trumpeted justice-based approach to sustainable development, and con- template the viability of the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government's `Big Society' endeavour [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is ongoing concern as to whether ethnic communities in Great Britain are becoming increasingly spatially concentrated. This paper uses data from the 2001 Census of Population to explore the relationship between population concentration and ethnic net migration in London at ward level. The findings suggest that migration within London is acting as an agent of dispersal of non-White populations from areas of high ethnic concentration to areas of low ethnic concentration, whereas White migrants are leaving areas where they are underrepresented and moving to areas of overrepresentation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author examines the materialization of geographical knowledges in relation to the ongoing neoliberalization of urban space where the latter is based on processes of compulsory land purchase. The specific context for the study is two recently planned commercial redevelopments for the south London borough of Croydon in the United Kingdom, and the arguments mustered in support of these proposals. The author identifies and discusses three principal sets of geographical knowledges, which he examines under the headings symbolic, biopolitical, and scalar. In each case, he shows that the knowledges have strong modernist overtones. The paper seeks both to understand and contextualize these historical connections, and to consider the contemporary political work performed by the knowledges in question. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The issue of social mixing has recently moved to the forefront of gentrification debate. In part, this has been stimulated by neoliberal urban policies promoting 'social mix' research showing the inability of gentrified neighbourhoods to remain socially mixed and attempts to rethink the association between gentrification and displacement. This paper draws upon a mixed-methods study that examined levels of social mixing between gentrifying and incumbent communities in three neighbourhoods undergoing new-build gentrification in London, UK. Little evidence was found for substantial interactions between populations, and there were few shared perceptions of community. The author claims that the particular character of new-build gentrification has played an important role in generating this socially tectonic situation. Husserl's concept of the lifeworld and Bourdieu's thesis on the relative structuring of class identity are drawn upon to provide an explanatory framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The changing modal composition and volume of work travel in London, Birmingham, and Manchester and their resultant energy consumption implications are considered in this research. Essentially, the mechanism is to calculate the passenger km travelled by mode and then to apply mode-specific energy consumption parameters to calculate energy consumption. By classifying work-travel trips according to their travel mode and their location and orientation (within, out of, and into town) it is possible to determine where the major forces for commuting change are and, more important, assess the implications of these forces for energy consumption. Average energy intensities per person trip are not the same everywhere or for every energy-consuming mode; furthermore, the magnitude and direction of change in average energy intensities are not the same either. Many of the trends seem to be moving rapidly away from positions of energy sustainability. The data are derived from the 1981 and 2001 special workplace statistics of the Population Census for small areas, and from fuel consumption technical parameters calibrated by engineers. One important objective of the paper is to understand the relative importance for energy consumption of changing travel modes for work journeys and changing trip orientation caused by urbanisation trends. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we report on a major empirical study of centripetal and centrifugal forces in the City of London financial services agglomeration. The study sheds light on (1) the manner and magnitude of firm interaction in the agglomeration; (2) the characteristics of the agglomeration that aid the competitiveness of incumbent firms; and (3) the problems associated with agglomeration. In addressing these issues, we use the data to (1) test emerging theory that explains the high productivity and innovation of agglomerations in terms of their ability to generate and diffuse knowledge; and (2) evaluate the ‘end of geography’ thesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For some geographers, the world has become imaginatively alive with arrays of new nonhumans. Yet how well these vocabularies actually adhere to personal practice is something which could be better explored. Recent accounts of consumption, meanwhile, are committed to closely observed contextual experience. Yet, physical things can seem somewhat subdued in these accounts. With these ideas in mind, in this paper I align a geographical embrace of material vitality and an in-depth approach to practised consumption. I report on a period of ethnographic work with seven garden centres in London to reconsider the ways in which contemporary urbanites encounter the items on sale there. In the London garden centre there are some different ways of approaching life and some changing cultures of control, as the rumbling agencies that certain products purvey are both openly enjoyed and nervously negated. Exploring the unease associated with this situation and its impact upon personal behaviour and physical format, I reflect, in particular, on the current experience of plants. The conclusion that follows is potentially perverse as, although we can benefit from being with life, it seems that, in certain city spaces at least, we now deal better with that which is more dead. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I argue that gentrification, despite the many arguments over its continuing validity as a concept, retains its key importance in understanding processes of class change. For some it is a process of colonising the city, for others a manifestation of belonging; for some the concept can be used as a radical critique of neoliberalism whilst for others this very critique is an exemplar of the hegemonising tendencies amongst (often radical) North American urban scholars. I argue that the concept has grown somewhat middle-aged and overendowed with its own history. I suggest that it needs to retain a focus on the implications of macro social change for individuals and social groups. In particular, gentrification needs to decouple itself from its original association with the deindustrialisation of metropolitan centres such as London and from its associations with working-class displacement. Recently, gentrification has occurred across the spatial scale—in second-order cities and in hitherto suburban locations as well as in the countryside. Processes such as 'greentrification', 'gated communities', and 'studentification' often coexist in quite close proximity to each other; the influence London exerts over the southern half of England is a good example of this. I argue that the concept of gentrification functions as an important way of understanding the mediations between global processes and flows, on the one hand, and the construction of identities in particular localities, on the other. With the decline of social class as providing an overall explanation of cultural, social, and spatial behaviour, this notion of gentrification as a form of 'elective belonging' has considerable potential for uniting geographical and sociological approaches to agency and structure. I illustrate this by drawing on three recent studies on the relationship between people and places. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is argued that many major Western cities have seen the conversion of centrally located commercial and industrial property to residential uses in recent years. This is seen as part of a wider process of change from industrial to postindustrial land uses and is a physical counterpart of the economic and occupational class transformation of these cities towards the growth of professional and managerial workers working in financial, business, and creative services. The paper focuses on loft conversions in Clerkenwell, adjacent to the City of London which are shown to be initiated by changes in the commercial property market, particularly the rise and fall of the secondary office market and the need to find alternative uses for commercial property. The apartments have been marketed in terms of their architectural distinction, their centrality and the social attributes of city-centre living. Their residents are professional and managerial workers with a strong orientation towards centrality, many of whom see themselves as pioneers of a new form of city-centre living. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]