ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes the extent to which the practices of development reflect wider changes in modes of regulation and state organization. It argues that what we are seeing is a reconfiguration of state structures and the expansion of governance complexity. Much of the literature on urban planning has been dominated by writings on neoliberalism as a political project, a technology of governance and a class-driven politics of dispossession. The rolling out of regulatory capitalism brings with it a variety of implications for the governance of societies, and yet relatively little “is known about the increase in the degree of formalization and about the proliferation of regulatory technologies”. Land ownership arrangements in the South Bank area are also complex, and much of the land on the banks of the River Thames is owned privately by a combination of corporate and cultural institutions.
