Settings of community engagement: beyond the Janus-faced post-political in ‘neoliberalised’ London

Drawing on an in-depth analysis of the politics of a large-scale urban development in London, as part of a wider comparative project, this paper reconsiders the post-political conclusions of an earlier round of research on large scale developments in Europe. Through a critical re-reading of Jacques Rancière’s analysis and attending to insights from wider accounts of urban politics from the majority urban world, including our own comparative research on Johannesburg and Shanghai, the paper considers the potential of political contestation and engagement. Concepts such as ‘insurgent citizens’, the ‘arts of citizenship’, and the multiple roles of the state, provide focus for a nuanced assessment of the achievements and potential of residents’ and wider community engagements in planning in the case of Old Oak, north-west London. First designated as an ‘Opportunity Area’ and then a Mayoral Development Corporation, substantial investment has been made by the Mayor of London in stimulating development around the site of a new High Speed Train station at Old Oak. Community mobilisation took the form of a network of existing organisations and residents across a large area, encompassing a diverse population and including large swathes of railway and industrial land, making connections were hard to forge. The ambition of the Mayoral Development Corporation created a range of different settings for progressing planning and development, from open engagements with communities over planning visions, to informal and restricted discussions of development applications, secretive master planning initiatives, and highly legalistic procedures of formal inspection. Disaggregating the unitary assessment of politics embedded in post-political analysis, the paper identifies the series of ‘settings’ in which different combinations of political openings, closures and opportunities for advancing concerns of community-based movements can be located. The analysis signposts scope for a more targeted political ambition, based on a community-based strategic assessment of the fragmentation of planning practice. Notably, the negotiations to determine planning gain between planners and developers were identified by the community groups as crucial to shaping development outcomes, with the growing demand to open these to public scrutiny.