The Manchester Model

as a key political actor in the intermediation of financialised urban reproduction, centrally and across the wider cityregion, (2) the absorption of both Tameside and Salford into the identity of the City of Manchester, and (3) the articulation of common urban objectives across the central core and the satellites. (Peck and Ward, 2002)

Following the consolidation of core authorities, a “new inward investment body MIDAS” [Manchester Investment and Development Agency Service] (Peck and Ward, 2002:131) was established to achieve the initial goal of synchronising urban regeneration across the newly consolidated City of Manchester. (Peck and Ward, 2002) City Pride, Marketing Manchester and MIDAS’s centralisation achieved a key aspiration of “policy elites in Manchester” (Peck and Ward, 2002:132) by creating a system where “entrepreneurial functions are now leading the institution-building process, rather than being grafted on to existing agencies.” (Peck and Ward, 2002:132 emphasis added) and “their ascendance represents the temporary victory of (often undemocratic) voluntaristic networks over formal structures.” (Peck and Ward, 2002:132) Consolidation to a central authority with creation and implementation of financially mediated urban production is currently used as the framework for regeneration projects across central Manchester and its satellites. (Peck and Ward, 2002) These various task forces developing a singular Manchester were iterations of the ‘Manchester Model’ of development, a public-private partnership which has an:

”Avowedly semi-autonomous arm’s-length relationship with local authority and is serviced by a dedicated team of officers usually seconded from relevant council apartments. The company owns no assets, but draws together key players from the relevant agencies that can deliver elements of the regeneration programme. (Peck and Ward, 2002: 39)

Mobilising the Manchester Model

On the 15th June 1996, “two IRA members planted the UK mainland's biggest bomb since World War Two outside a Manchester shopping centre. The explosion ripped the heart out of the city centre but remarkably no-one was killed. In fact, the blast is now credited by some as kick-starting the city's regeneration.” (Jahangir, 2016:online emphasis added)

The severity inflicted upon the central retail zone of Manchester presented an opportunity for a radical demonstration of the Manchester Model for urban (re)production, which Manchester City Council (MCC hereafter) used “to extend its hegemony over Manchester politics.” (Peck and Ward, 2002:136) Limiting discourse of regeneration strategies to consultations, MCC’s “hegemony of the entrepreneurial mode of development was never really challenged.” (Peck and Ward, 2002:138) In addition to the reconstruction of the wrecked Arndale centre, MCC sought to reconfigure the city centre’s utility beyond retail and toward housing. Prior to 1996, 76 people resided in the city centre, 20 years after this had increased to 24,000. (Smithers, 2016)

“Manchester’s political ‘revolution’ has almost exclusively relied on the hope that a new ‘architecture’ - a new form of governance, a new quality in the built form, and a newly restructured image - will of itself provide the seeds for radical and progressive change.” (Peck and Ward, 2002:153)

The reconstruction of the city centre post-bombing revealed the efficacy of MCC’s approach to urban renewal through ‘partnership’. A centralised political body directed conversations towards design outcomes, excluding questions pertaining to the process, successfully leading to the rollout of regeneration projects across central Manchester. (Peck and Ward, 2002 Silver, 2018) As Silver notes, “This process has been encouraged through specific measures guiding housing and wider urban development.” (Silver, 2018: 4) With the contextualisation of MCC in hand, the subsequent chapter details legislative operations of MCC in the formation of the Manchester Life Development Company.