ABSTRACT
If the pre-1945 history of London, and then again from 1980 to 1997 demonstrated the typical processes of development in the city – namely, let the market (or those with land and money) decide – then this equates directly to the capitalist ‘first way’ in political parlance. Similarly, the post-war period saw an attempt at an alternative, ‘second way’, just as it did in the national politics of the era, with the state taking on a much stronger leadership role, although often constrained in what could be achieved by available resources and already well-established patterns of interests and ownership. This chapter will explore how an intermediate ‘third way’ characterised the development of London in the period from 1997, again, reflecting wider trends in the national political scene (Giddens 2000). In this period, the state tried to direct, once again, a stronger vision for the capital, although implementation would largely be through market mechanisms with all the challenges and compromises, but also resources and innovation, which that implied. Although moving beyond the strict neo-liberal approaches of Thatcherism (see Chapter 2), in essence, the period took the neo-liberal experiment to the next stage.
