Land at the Service of the Regional Growth Coalition: Projects of Special Interest in the Region of Castilla–La Mancha (Spain)

Neoliberal urbanism land planning has led to the development of public–private coalitions associating common interest with lucrative private enterprise projects. In Castilla–La Mancha (Spain), this regional growth coalition was backed by a spatial planning instrument, known as Projects of Special Interest (PSI). The aim of this article is to analyse the PSI as a paradigmatic example, to study its key points and examine its current dimensions. This case study employs a review of the literature, desk research, content analysis, interviews and observation. The PSI scheme has permitted private initiatives and developments, and privately used public constructions of many different types, reducing timeframes through possible recourse to expropriation, using basic measures of land reclassification, undervaluing the ecosystems involved and even facilitating construction in areas that had previously been declared protected, or where resources such as water are not guaranteed. Despite the failure of many of these projects and the expected economic growth not being realised, the instrument has been revived, as it is directly linked to multinational enterprises investing in the region.

The Festivalisation of Edinburgh: Manifestations, Impacts and Responses

The Festivalisation of Edinburgh: Constructing its Governance was published in Scottish Affairs 30.1. It showed how the city council, Scottish Government and the events, festivals and tourism industries worked in partnership as a growth coalition. This follow-up article describes some of the results they achieved. It focuses on Edinburgh's August and Winter Festivals, as these are the largest scale festival events. It also analyses the project that sought to re-imagine West Princes Street Gardens. It explores the meaning of ‘festivalisation’ both through its direct impacts on the use of urban space, but also in its relation to the commodification of public space and austerity urbanism. Festivalisation has normalised the flow of value from local public spaces to geographically dispersed asset owners. However, opposition emerged from some local residents and community councils, with the long-established civic amenity charity, the Cockburn Association, playing a catalytic role. The Covid pandemic disrupted this process in 2020, opening up further debates about the role of festivals and tourism in the recovery.

Short-term rentals and the rentier growth coalition in Pollença (Majorca)

Since the beginning of the 2008 economic crisis, Majorca has experienced an increase in tourism, which has been made possible partly by the expansion of short-term renting. Research on short-term rentals is a growing field in critical urban and tourism geographies. This paper contributes to these fields by examining the structure of actors involved in the development of short-term rentals and their power relations. Our case study focuses on the municipality of Pollença (Majorca, Spain). Pollença was chosen due to its status as one of the most noteworthy airbnbificated places in Europe and because of the number of holiday rentals in the municipality's rural areas. While a great deal of research has focused on rent gaps and gentrification caused by short-term rentals in cities, the rentier coalition associated with short-term rentals has been comparatively overlooked. We address who the rentiers of short-term rentals are, the power relations that lie behind short-term rentals, and how these rentiers form part of a locally based coalition that has the ability to adapt planning regulations to suit their own interests. We used mixed methods, including quantitative spatial analysis and qualitative analysis in the form of interviews with those who benefit locally from short-term rentals. Our qualitative approach further included in-depth fieldwork and activist research. We conclude that a powerful rentier growth coalition has corrupted democracy because the regulatory framework has been adjusted to satisfy their interests and the conversion of properties into holiday rentals has been done either illegally or on the verge of legality without strong legal consequences.

Mega-Events and Rapid Transit: Evaluating the Canada Line 10 Years After Vancouver 2010

This article examines the Canada Line rapid rail transit project in Vancouver, British Columbia, a decade after its completion and the 2010 Winter Olympic Games for which it was accelerated. The case resides at the intersection of two project classes with well-documented patterns of underperformance: transit mega-projects and sporting mega-events. Beyond connecting a number of Vancouver 2010 venues, the Canada Line is notable for its use of a public-private partnership procurement (PPP) model, as well as the significant real estate development seen nearby. In particular, the article focuses on outcomes classified under three headings: procurement model, community impact, and land use impact. Prior to providing avenues for future research, this article finds that while the PPP model avoided substantial cost overrun risks, the lucrative operational concession was where the growth coalition pushing the project was able to make it sufficiently attractive for private partners, while externalizing cost on third-parties.

The Festivalisation of Edinburgh: constructing its governance

Edinburgh has forged a global brand as the Festival City. The international cultural festival began in 1947, but was contentious in the city for a long period. In the 1990s a wider array of festivals were promoted by the local council. Then in a third stage, from the mid-1990s the festivals became anchored in the city's tourism offer, and achieved year upon year of growth, to widespread acclaim by the cultural and tourism industries and local politicians. A shared corporate culture was built in which national and local political and cultural bodies planned and delivered change through stakeholder partnerships. Private consultants are found to have played an important role in framing policy and prioritising the economic benefits of the festivals. The paper analyses these governance relationships, as a form of growth coalition. However, it sets the local actions in the context of international economic and political changes, noting also how the 2008 financial and economic crisis impacted on Edinburgh, and the subsequent period of austerity imposed on the local council. The result has been the festivalisation of the city, through intensification and extension of the festivals and associated commercial cultural events, and the commodification of public spaces. Those driving this process paid little attention to concerns about the impacts on the local and wider environment, or the capacity of parts of the city to absorb visitor numbers. The paper is the first part of a double article. The second part, to be published in a later issue, looks at why and how the hegemonic governance structures were challenged by civil society, and how the Covid-19 crisis that began in 2020 impacted on the growth trajectory.

The Characteristics of Locally Led Development in the Pacific

There is a growing recognition of the effectiveness of locally led processes of social change and development. However, most of the case studies that have been discussed in the literature are focused on <em>programs</em> run by international development agencies. This article examines three locally led <em>processes</em> of change in the Pacific. These include the Simbo for Change Initiative in the Solomon Islands, the Voice in Papua New Guinea and a regional process led by the Green Growth Coalition. We explore how local understandings of leadership, preferences for informal ways of working, holistic ways of thinking, the importance placed upon maintaining good relationships and collective deliberation fundamentally shaped each of the cases. We note how these preferences and ways of working are often seen, or felt, to be at odds with western modes of thought and the practice of development agencies. Finally, we conclude by exploring how these initiatives were supported by external agencies, and suggest further research of this type might provide benchmarks by which Pacific citizens can hold their governments and development agencies to account.