Orr, A., Stewart, J.L., Jackson, C. orcid.org/0000-0002-8835-8845 et al. (1 more author) (2023) Ownership diversity and fragmentation: a barrier to urban centre resilience. Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science, 50 (3). pp. 660-677. ISSN 2399-8083
Abstract
Fragmentation of ownership has long been a recognised constraint to UK city centre development, a complexity that is growing in significance as centres try to manage the decline in physical retailing and transform obsolete retail units. Yet, our understanding of the structure of ownership and how that might be facilitating or inhibiting urban change remains weak. In this paper, the objective is to address this gap by examining the structure and diversity of land ownership in five retailing centres - Edinburgh, Glasgow, Hull, Liverpool, and Nottingham – between 2000–2017 using original databases created by linking administrative and commercial property data sets. Overall, the analysis finds property ownership to be spatially complex with ownership richness and diversity generally rising over the study period. The study also reveals that ownership structure has been shifting away from financial institutions towards overseas investors, private individuals and unlisted property companies, implying greater fragmentation of ownership. While the greater diversity in ownership should stimulate competition and innovation in property market practices, the shift in balance from equity-rich larger investors towards smaller and sometimes unknown investors makes urban centre management harder to manage. This suggests policymakers need to rethink the urban governance model to find a better way to galvanise the actions of this increasing disparate group of stakeholders if their visions of more resilient, mixed use city centres are to be realised.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s) 2022. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage). |
Keywords: | property ownership structure; urban retailing centre; high street; fragmentation |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Social Sciences (Sheffield) > Department of Urban Studies & Planning (Sheffield) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number ECONOMIC & SOCIAL RESEARCH COUNCIL ES/R005117/1 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 02 Sep 2022 10:20 |
Last Modified: | 17 Jul 2024 09:39 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | SAGE Publications |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1177/23998083221124600 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:190486 |