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Submiss ion for RD2

by Jane Clossick

28th May 2014

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Chapter 4

A Discuss ion of Planning and Planning Projects in Tottenham

 

 

 

 

Table of Contents

List of F igures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3  

Introduct ion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5  

Ethica l Urban Order . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6  

Tottenham’s P lanning Pol ic ies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7  

The Plan for Tottenham . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11  

Ward’s Corner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16  

State promoted eth ica l urban order . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27  

Decept ive c iphers for depth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30  

Heritage and h istory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30  

‘P lace-making ’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32  

Conclus ion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37  

Bib l iography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40  

 

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List of Figures

Figure 1 Tottenham Area Action Plans: Reg 18 Consultation (Haringey Council 2014, 11) ‘South Tottenham Key Issues and Challenges Map’. This image captures the dichotomy between the language of economic growth (the coloured lines, which bear no relation to the actuality of the city beneath) are overlaid on an aerial photograph of the city, which has (implicitly) all of the real qualities of a city and hence (by inference) contains the lives of the people of Tottenham. ........................... 10

Figure 2 A Plan for Tottenham (Tottenham Taskforce and Haringey Council 2012, 5–6) Existing map of Tottenham. .................................................................................................................... 12

Figure 3 A Plan for Tottenham (Tottenham Taskforce and Haringey Council 2012, 53–54) Future map of Tottenham. ............................................................................................................. 13

Figure 4 Image of the 2012 Olympic Opening ceremony on July 27th 2012. This section of the 239 minute ceremony was called ‘Pandemonium’ and was a spectacular scene in which a ‘green and pleasant land’ full of cricket-players and sheep was pierced with huge, smoking chimneys which rose from the bowels of the earth. <http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/46/2012_Summer_Olympics_opening_ceremony,_Industrial_Britain_%28cropped%29.jpg> .......................................... 14

Figure 5 Image of the unoccupied corner building of the former Ward’s department store. ..................................................................................................................................................................... 16

Figure 6 Above: Wards corner: section through the main building. Below: Ward’s corner existing plan of the ground floor of Seven Sister’s market. Drawn by Abigail Stevenson and edited by the author.................................................................................................. 18

Figure 7........................................................................................................................................................................... 19

Figure 8 Interior view of the market, showing the ‘depth’ going upwards, above the stalls. ...................................................................................................................................................................... 21

Figure 9 Interior view of the market, looking towards the exit. It is organized around mini streets, with small shop units on both sides. The floor is covered in carpet tiles, and the ceiling still has the decorative coving from the building’s former life of glory as a department store. ................................................................................................................... 22

Figure 10 A Plan for Tottenham (Tottenham Taskforce and Haringey Council 2012, 5). Image shows a future development at Ward’s Corner adjacent to Seven Sisters tube station. In the Tottenham Plan images of Tottenham are shown, snapshots of

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the good life with symbols of ecology (roof gardens) and affluence and local success (chain stores indicated with amusingly altered names). Note particularly ‘Pasta Express’, the chain which shows an area has ‘arrived’ in terms of regeneration (gentrification). .................................................................................................................. 23

Figure 11 Images from the Stickyworld online consultation page (Creative Citizens 2014), where a three dimensional model of the Community Plan proposal (granted planning permission April 2014) was available for people to explore and comment on. This shows the exterior of the Ward’s Corner building......................... 26

Figure 12 In the absence of any real preservation, the Grainger scheme incorporates a ‘Memory box’ in which information about the history of the local area will be on permanent display adjacent to the entrance to Seven Sisters station. According to the Seven Sisters Regeneration website (Haringey Council 2014b), this fulfils the 2004 Planning Brief which asks to 'reflect, and retain, the architectural features of the store, if at all possible' Source: <http://sevensistersregeneration.co.uk/memory-box.php> ........................................................................................................................................................... 31

Figure 13 Diagram showing Tottenham’s proposed ‘character areas’ from ‘Tottenham Area Action Plans: Reg 18 Consultation Document’ (Haringey Council 2014, 5), p.5. The grey line to the left is the high street, apparently the home of a ‘retail’ cluster around Bruce Grove station (presently the site of shops for the more affluent members of Tottenham society), a ‘sports and leisure’ cluster around the new Spurs development at White Hart Lane and a ‘culture and education’ cluster around Tottenham Green, which presumably refers to CHENEL, the Bernie Grant Centre and Tottenham Town Hall (which has been developed into small business units). .................................................................................................................................................................... 33

Figure 14 Plan given to Patricia Pearcy by Councillor Strickland, annotated by the author................................................................................................................................................................... 35

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Introduction

The argument this thesis presents is that different types of urban order support different types of civic life.

These goods (and bads) can be compared and this ultimately involves value judgements. This is a deep

and complex comparison involving judgement between different types of city topography (such as the

hierarchical urban order of the high street as compared to the monothematic order of new

developments discussed in this chapter) and how different topographies empower or disempower

different groups of people by allowing them to commit to different kinds of civic activities and

relationships.

The temptation here is to try and write a work of political philosophy, to make an a priori judgement

about what sort of goods are worth pursuing, and then link this with a set of spatial, political, economic

and policy recommendations for high streets. This is precisely what much of the economically liberal

literature on high streets attempts. The mode of the political philosopher is to ascertain which goods are

desirable through deductive logic or appeal to a moral position, and then to translate the pursuit of these

goods into actions.

Our task instead is to invert the process and examine the ‘actions’ (or praxis) and through understanding

the kinds of civic life different topographies support, interpret what goods are to be found there. The

purpose of this research is not to try to outline a prescriptive ‘theory-of-everything’ with regards to city-

making, or a set of recommendations for ‘how to design an ethical city’ (which is an impossible task),

rather to demonstrate an alternative way of framing and understanding the problem of city.

In the following discussion I explore the relationship between local and national policy documents and

one particular planning project in Tottenham. The purpose of this discussion is to sit in contrast with the

discoveries of the previous chapters, in which the detailed urban order of a case study block adjacent to

Tottenham High Road was examined. In the previous investigation, we found that that high road relies on

a lot of the city, and the whole urban culture, as an underlying structure to its existence. The kind of life

found in this deep, rich topography is empowering for local people (particularly poor people) because it

is a place where they can build a commitment to a particular location - they can run small businesses, gain

skills and maintain fruitful and satisfying social networks.

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I suggest that policy documents and planning projects lack an understanding of the real nature of the

urban order of Tottenham. By glossing over this they appeal to the tacit knowledge of the reader through

symbols that represent the depth of city, such as sketchy hand-drawings and aerial photographs. This

reflects the epistemological confusion that dominates throughout the discipline and practice of

architecture and urban design and is exposed through conceptualisations that seek to capture the

embodied knowledge human beings have of depth. There is a division between what people in general

know to be truly and deeply important to humanity (the ethical order of urban space) and what makes

an appearance in policy documents and planning projects.

 

Ethical Urban Order

The urban order is the hierarchical organisations of places, publics, people, institutions and everything else

of which a city is physically comprised. In the history of philosophy, Descartes ego cogitans does not need

the city to exist (Carl 2014) but Heidegger’s dasein cannot be, without being in the world (Heidegger

1967). The ‘world’ in the following discussion is the whole urban culture of London. This provides the

setting for individual’s understanding of their own modes of being in the world, how they are part of part

of a collective group, how they sit with respect to the cosmos and the qualities and dignity of being

human.

The whole urban culture is deeply embodied in the relationship between the body and the physical city,

how the city gives direction to nature (Heidegger 1967) and it is also highly articulated, through speech

and gesture. This hierarchy of involvement in the whole urban culture is what gives individuals sufficient

consciousness of the ethical conditions to make moral decisions about their actions but they are

articulated more or less by different urban topographies.

Morals are always the best we can do with the resources we have at a particular moment, they are based

in praxis. They are attitudes and beliefs about what is wrong or bad, and what is right or good and are

expressed in the behaviours that people consider to promote fairness, harmony and co-operation.

Inevitably, not all members of any society will be in complete agreement about what is morally right, and

what is not, especially when that society is as vast and plural as London.

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In these terms, we have reached a problematic time in London. Competing global and national scale free-

market forces have a measurable and direct impact on cities, so identifying the ethical order of the urban

environment produced by these forces is an important task. This is not lost on policy makers and

academics, as we shall see in the next sections of this chapter. However, doing it successfully is another

matter entirely, and depends upon first understanding what the existing urban order actually is, and the

kinds of civic life it engenders.

I have addressed this question in terms of the existing high street in Chapters 2 and 3, where an in-depth

case study of a single block of Tottenham high road was undertaken and the depth of the supporting

structures around Tottenham High Road were revealed. This concrete examination of the city is a fruitful

way of understanding and making judgements about the ethical order, yet it is at complete odds with the

way we build and plan our cities. Again focussing on Tottenham as a case study, this chapter explores

how both policy-making and development are taking place on the ground through a detailed examination

of two planning projects in Tottenham: the Seven Sisters regeneration project and the redevelopment

around White Hart Lane as a result of the proposed construction of a new stadium for Tottenham

Hotspurs football club. The purpose of this is to collect material for comparison with the order identified

in the existing high street. Is neo-liberal, development-led ‘regeneration’ the best we can do?

Tottenham’s Planning Pol ic ies

In the majority of the UK, planning policy operates at two levels, national and local. The National Policy

Planning Framework (DCLG 2012) instituted by the Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition

government is a strategic document which guides local policy-making, with targets for things like the

amount of land which should be identified for building new homes, provision of different sorts of

infrastructure and so forth. The vast majority of this document is completely focused on economic

growth as the key outcome for planning policy. Other desirable outcomes are implied, but no concrete

means are proposed of achieving them. For example, Chapter 2 ‘Ensuring the Vitality of Town Centres’

stipulates that local authorities should “recognise town centres as the heart of their communities and

pursue policies to support their viability and vitality…define a network and hierarchy of centres that is

resilient to anticipated future economic changes…retain and enhance existing markets and, where

appropriate, re-introduce or create new ones, ensuring that markets remain attractive and competitive”

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National Policy Planning Framework (DCLG 2012, 7). In order to achieve these aims, the document

stipulates numerical and planning category targets, but the way to understand town centres as the ‘heart

of their communities’ remains illusive.

London is the only region which has its own policy, the London Plan (Mayor of London 2011) which is the

strategic plan for the capital until 2031. The London Plan is an extremely complex document. To

characterise it briefly, like the National Policy Planning Framework, the London Plan is essentially focussed on

economic growth and its accompanying requirements: intensification (in terms of density and mixing of

uses) of existing and proposed town centres; appropriate transport; social and other infrastructures to

support growing populations (both of people and businesses) and the statutory listing and intensification

of Strategic Industrial Land. It predicts a rise in population of 1.25 million people by 2031 and originally

sought provision of 33,400 new homes across the capital per year. In the 2014 update this is increased

42,000. In Tottenham, 10,000 new homes are proposed by 2031 and Tottenham Hale is listed as an ‘area

for intensification’ (Mayor of London 2011, 60).

Since the National Policy Planning Framework and the London Plan are both planning documents, they are

inevitably concerned with control and guidance of development, rather than statutorily dictating exactly

what will be built. Herein lies a problematic contradiction in all planning documents. Although they

purport to shape places, instead they are limits to the kind of shaping which takes place, but which is

ultimately driven by non-governmental organisations, predominantly developers. The London Plan can

propose intensification for town centres as much as it likes, but if developers do not find the potential

developments economically viable, they will not happen.

Borough-level local planning documents in London must adhere to the direction and strategy of the

London Plan, particularly the figures for housing growth. Haringey Council’s Local Plan: Strategic Policies

2013-2026 (2013) outlines the strategies for the borough, rooted in the London Plan, and is again centred

on growth of the economy and housing. In Tottenham, there is also a staggering plethora of planning

publications in addition to the national, regional and local documents - Tottenham Hale Masterplan

(Haringey Council 2006), A Plan For Tottenham (Tottenham Taskforce and Haringey Council 2012), High

Road West: Creating a Plan for Change (Haringey Council 2013) and the Tottenham Strategic Regeneration

Framework (Urban Strategies Inc. 2014). Some of these are already in existence; many are currently out

for consultation.

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The documents which are currently being produced (after initial consultations at the start of 2014) are

first, the Sites Allocation Development Plan Document (DPD) (Haringey Council 2014a), which is a

catalogue of sites for potential development. Second, the Tottenham Area Action Plans (Haringey Council

2014), which are statutory spatial strategy documents for particular parts of Tottenham (ie. they will be a

‘material consideration’ when accepting or rejecting planning applications in these areas, in addition to the

other statutory policy), which are currently under development after an initial round of public

consultation. Finally, the High Road West: Creating a Plan for Change (Haringey Council 2013), which is a

spatial strategy for the area around the new Tottenham Hotspurs Stadium, for which the club gained

planning permission in February 20121. As a result of the consultation process for these documents, now

is a particularly fruitful time to be involved in research in Tottenham because there is a lot of anger and

resistance amongst local people, which serves to highlight many of the issues in Tottenham, and with the

planning-policy making process.

                                                                                                               1 For further details about the new White Hart Lane stadium, see the Haringey Council website Planning Application HGY/2010/1000 (Haringey Council Planning Services 2012)

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 Figure 1 Tottenham Area Action Plans: Reg 18 Consultation (Haringey Council 2014, 11) ‘South Tottenham Key Issues and Challenges Map’. This image captures the dichotomy between the language of economic growth (the coloured lines, which bear no relation to the actuality of the city beneath) are overlaid on an aerial photograph of the city, which has (implicitly) all of the real qualities of a city and hence (by inference) contains the lives of the people of Tottenham.

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Without exception the documents briefly discussed above are steeped in complex planning jargon, and

are very dense. What is most significant for the purposes of this argument is the fact that they speak a

dual language. On one hand, a language of economic growth (of businesses, housing, high street,

industry), characterised by large-scale diagrams, numerical targets and specific terminology such as

‘transport hub’, ‘vitality’ and ‘viability’. On the other hand there is a language that appeals to the reader’s

implicit understanding of human society and the sources of happiness and co-operation, such as ‘social

infrastructure’, ‘community facility’ and ‘health and well-being’.

The themes remaining constant between these planning documents, so it would not be fruitful to

examine each one in its entirety because. I have picked a single example to examine in depth in order to

expose the nature of the problem, that they do not engage with the concrete situation, hierarchical urban

order and depth in Tottenham.

 

The Plan for Tottenham

In 2012, a year after the riots (see X for more details and discussion of the Tottenham riots), A Plan for

Tottenham (Tottenham Taskforce and Haringey Council 2012) was published, ‘setting out a vision’ for

Tottenham to 2025. The ‘plan’ is a document primarily composed of glamorous images and text, and

contains only two actual plans, the existing plan of Tottenham and the 2025 ‘vision’.

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Figure 2 A Plan for Tottenham (Tottenham Taskforce and Haringey Council 2012, 5–6) Existing map of Tottenham.

The existing plan (below) picks out ‘opportunity areas’ (red), ‘key sites’ (purple), ‘cultural assets’ (green),

‘key employment areas’ (grey) and ‘infrastructure and public realm improvements’ (blue), set in the

context of a simplified road map of Tottenham with the routes of railway and tube lines marked. There

are boxes showing the time it takes to reach various London destinations on public transport: Liverpool

Street (20 minutes from Seven Sisters, 23 minutes from Bruce Grove), Stratford and Stansted Airport (10

and 30 minutes respectively from Tottenham Hale) and Kings Cross (10 minutes from Seven Sisters).

The nature of a map is that it claims to be a picture of the whole world, and the structure of this

particular map is deeply political and biased. The elements left out are instructive, as it has been drawn to

make a picture of a world ripe for development, from which the depth of the high street is absent. It

features only as a road coloured yellow, indicating that it is a major route. It does not feature as a ‘key

employment area’, although it is lined with workplaces. It is not listed as a ‘cultural asset’, although it is

one of the oldest things in London, and much of the discussion around cultural assets is centred on

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history. Nor is it the home of any cultural assets with the exception of those at Tottenham Green – the

College of Haringey Council, Enfield and North East London (CHENEL), the Bernie Grant Centre, the

leisure centre/library and Tottenham Town Hall. My research has demonstrated that Ward’s Corner is a

‘cultural asset’, but it features on this map only as an ‘opportunity area’.

Figure 3 A Plan for Tottenham (Tottenham Taskforce and Haringey Council 2012, 53–54) Future map of Tottenham.

The other ‘plan’ is a future ‘image of Tottenham… through to 2025’. In contrast to the first map, this is

hand drawn using different line weights. It is a perspective, rather than and plan view and does not show

every road in Tottenham, rather it vaguely indicates their presence, while particular areas are shown in

three dimensions with rough three dimensional sketches of buildings, grass and water. The image of

future Tottenham, because it is hand drawn, invites the viewer to fill in the roughly sketched details with

their own imagination and their own implicit knowledge of what it is like to occupy this place. As Polyani

argued in the seminal The Tacit Dimension (Polanyi 2009, first published 1965), “we know more than we

can tell”, there is type of knowing which can not be stated in formal terms or categorised in language.

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This type of knowing is appealed to here, as presumably the imagined viewer is already familiar with

Tottenham, and familiar with Stratford Westfield and the Olympic Park and can therefore inhabit these

imagined scenes with an amalgam of all three.

 

Figure 4 Image of the 2012 Olympic Opening ceremony on July 27th 2012. This section of the 239 minute ceremony was called ‘Pandemonium’ and was a spectacular scene in which a ‘green and pleasant land’ full of cricket-players and sheep was pierced with huge, smoking chimneys which rose from the bowels of the earth. <http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/46/2012_Summer_Olympics_opening_ceremony,_Industrial_Britain_%28cropped%29.jpg>

The map is also turned around, instead of the geographical north being located at the top, it is at the

bottom, hence relocating Tottenham as directly linked to central London to the south and the Olympic

Park to the east, rather than being an island. It is centred on the redevelopment centred on the relocated

White Hart Lane station, and its relationship with the rebuilt Tottenham Hotspurs stadium. This is in

contrast with the way that many people experience Tottenham at the moment, arriving at Seven Sisters

tube station adjacent to Ward’s Corner. In this map, Tottenham is a series of islands, connected by two

major links: the high road and Northumberland Park. It shows the high road marked in a darker line, with

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the front block on either side indicatively sketched. Of equal weight is ‘Hale Village’, which appears to be

a bridge between Tottenham and the Olympic Park, O2 Arena (formerly the Millennium Dome), Canary

Wharf and Stratford, all of which appear to be roughly in the same location.

At the time of publication (1st August 2012) the London Olympics were in full swing and ‘Team GB’

were in the process of winning 65 medals (BBC Sport 2014) as the city was gripped with Olympic fever.

So, the Olympic Park features on the map as a symbol of British global success (both in hosting: the

Olympic opening ceremony told the tale of Britain as the leader of industrialisation in the 19th century;

and in the winning of sports events, which are symbolic of global competition). By 2025 it is deeply

unlikely that the Olympic Park will be recognisable in its current form, or relevant to planning policy. This

also demonstrates the deeply politicised nature of these maps.

The 02 complex, Canary Wharf, Stratford Westfield, the Olympic Park, the White Hart Lane

regeneration and ‘Hale Village’ all have something very particular in common. They are all large scale,

monothematic, privatised planning projects, and they all lack the depth and hierarchy of urban order

which characterises the rest of London, explored in Tottenham in Chapter X. In this map the city in

between these projects disappears almost entirely, and like in the first map, it is reduced solely to roads. It

is a hierarchy of two levels: ‘place’ and ‘in-between’.

When you actually exist in a place the times listed on the map are meaningless, they are used by estate

agents to sell properties but the walking distances are not accounted for. And the sights, smells,

experiences, depth of walking are invisible on the map too.

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Figure 5 Image of the unoccupied corner building of the former Ward’s department store.

Ward’s Corner

The place on Tottenham High Road which is most notably absent from the Plan for Tottenham is the one

about which many residents feel most strongly, and has had an extremely contentious history over the

past seven years: Seven Sisters Market on the corner of Tottenham High Road and Seven Sisters Road. In

a former life part of the site was a department store called Ward’s Furnishing Stores, which had existed

since 1901, and closed in 1972. According to the Tottenham Weekly Herald (April 14th 1972)(WCC

2014), there were ‘redevelopment plans’ afoot for the area by Haringey Council, although nothing

materialized until 2007, when the council signed a Development Agreement with the property developer

Grainger (WCC 2014). In the 35 years between a lively market had opened on the ground floor of the

building (named Pueblito Paisa), and all the shops on the site were occupied, predominantly with Latin-

American traders. The site also contains dwellings to the rear of the market. Ownership is varied, some

traders own the freehold on their buildings; the Ward’s Store building with the market on the ground

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floor belongs to TfL because it is directly above the tube station and Haringey Council owns some

houses; and Grainger own some of the buildings and the car park. In response to the appointment of

Grainger, and their development plans, which would destroy the market and historic buildings, Ward’s

Corner Community Coalition (WCC) was formed, and the fight between the developer, Haringey

Council and the WCC has been long and bloody.

2004 – Haringey Council and the Bridge (South Tottenham) New Deal for Communities (a local

quango which ‘led regeneration’2 in Tottenham up to 2010) appoint Grainger as their chosen partner in a

public-private partnership to redevelop Ward’s Corner.

2007 – Haringey Council signed a Development Agreement with Grainger, and in response the WCC

formed of local traders, residents and civic organization in opposition to the demolition of the market and

adjacent homes and businesses

2008 – Grainger granted planning permission in Nov to demolish Ward’s Corner and build 197 flats,

high-end ‘retail space’ (to be marketed to national and international chain stores). Following intervention

by the mayor Boris Johnson, the proposal included a small, re-provided market.3

2009-2010 – WCC took the case to a Judicial Review, and after it initially rejected the claim, WCC

appealed and the High Court quashed Grainger’s planning permission, because Haringey Council had not

followed S71 of the Race Relations Act, which calls for an assessment of the impact on race equality.

2011 – Grainger resubmitted their proposal in July, unchanged, and Haringey Council refused permission

on the grounds of impact on the conservation area and loss of heritage assets. Grainger appealed the

decision and the Planning Inspectorate Inquiry was scheduled for October 2012.

2012 – Grainger submitted a new planning application in May with minor changes from the previous

scheme, 196 new homes, a new market hall and 2,619 square metres of retail space. This was granted

permission by Haringey Council by a very small majority (5 to 4) in July 2012.

                                                                                                               2 http://www.bridgerenewaltrust.org.uk/ These regeneration quangos were dissolved in 2010 when Labour lost power, and the Bridge NDC is now a charity, the Bridge Renewal Trust. 3 "I am appealing to Haringey Council to stop the proposed demolition of the celebrated Pueblito Paisa market in Seven Sisters. This much loved market is vitally important to the Latin American community and home to many local traders. I was impressed by the magnificent range of products and services on offer when I visited the market earlier this year. The proposed re-development would pull down the market and only offer space to a handful of people, which is unacceptable. I want the Council to urgently review this proposal and put the livelihood of the traders and the thousands of locals who rely on this market at the core of their decision." Boris Johnson, quoted in ‘Supporting the locals, Boris butts in on Haringey Council planning row’ (BBC London 2008).

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2012 – WCC submitted a Community Plan in July for an alternative scheme for the site which retained

and refurbished the original department store, keeping Pueblito Paisa and adding a Latin American

community centre in the first floor, which has been empty since 1972. Haringey Council requested

further information so the plan was withdrawn while this was prepared.

2012 – In July WCC also attempted a second legal challenge to Grainger’s new application on the

grounds that the council had shown ‘disregard for their own policy documents’ (WCC 2012) but the

request for judicial review was rejected by the High Court

2012 – Having submitted the second application, Grainger tried to postpone the October appeal against

their first application until after the time allowed for any legal challenge to the second application had

elapsed. The Planning Inspectorate denied this, so Grainger dropped the case and the appeal was

cancelled.

2013 – In October, a re-worked version of the Community Plan was submitted by WCC to Haringey

Council.

2014 – In April, WCC’s new community plan was granted planning permission by Haringey Council.

 

 

Figure 6 Above: Wards corner: section through the main building. Below: Ward’s corner existing plan of the ground floor of Seven Sister’s market. Drawn by Abigail Stevenson and edited by the author.

  19  

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  20  

It is notable here that in the absence of property-price driven redevelopment, human life starts to fill in

the gaps. In the years between the department store vacating the property and the Grainger proposal,

through a combination of individual enterprise and integration of the changing cultural and immigrant

scene in and around Tottenham, a thriving, culturally specific market has emerged, which was not

‘designed’ by any agency. Instead, the scene was set with the right ingredients, and the market emerged

organically in response to a very particular set of needs, situated in a very particular local place.

The Ward’s Corner building, although owned by TfL, was leased for an extended period by a husband

and wife team, who originally set up the lower story of part of the building as a market4. This enterprising

move, in which they fitted out the space with very basic stalls, set the scene for traders to gradually

mould the place around their needs and businesses. Particularly notable is the fact that the double-height

space has been occupied with self-built structures above the stalls, for storage and, in some cases

additional parts of the businesses are operated from the homemade first storey. Where in the traditional

Victorian high street the depth of the shops is horizontal, here the depth is above and although space is

extremely limited the traders have been very enterprising and creative.

In one of the beauty salons at the back of the market where I like to go and have my legs waxed (for just

£8), the ‘treatment room’ is up a timber stair which is less than 50cm wide. The ceiling of the room

presses my head (I am 176cm tall), so I have to duck, but luckily the woman who does the waxing is only

about 150cm tall, so she can work comfortably.

                                                                                                               4 I was informed of this in an in-depth interview with Henry Paz, the manager of the indoor market in an in-depth interview in March 2014.

  21  

Figure 8 Interior view of the market, showing the ‘depth’ going upwards, above the stalls.

The lease lapsed about two years ago, and the owners have not been able to renew due to the ongoing

uncertainty about the future of the site. According to the market manager, Henry Paz, this has resulted in

ongoing, progressive dereliction. The rents paid by the traders are quite low, so the former leaseholders

simple cannot afford to pay large sums of money upfront for renovations (there are constant leaks, the

wiring is elderly and the infrastructure of the stalls is, in places, very rickety) when it is possible that their

business will be destroyed soon and the market will be removed from the building. Similarly, the

stallholders have no incentive to upgrade their stalls when the money may well be wasted. It is planning

blight, and unfortunately fuels the idea that that market is unsightly and run-down, which is the council’s

position on the matter.

“The council has supported Grainger’s plans for Seven Sisters because we are confident they offer the

very best chance of delivering the lasting regeneration that this area so desperately needs." [my

italics] Haringey Council Leader Claire Kober quoted in “Wards Corner regeneration desperately

needed says council leader” (Haringey Independent 2012)

  22  

Figure 9 Interior view of the market, looking towards the exit. It is organized around mini streets, with small shop units on both sides. The floor is covered in carpet tiles, and the ceiling still has the decorative coving from the building’s former life of glory as a department store.

The WCC objections to the redevelopment fall into two major areas, although they are closely linked:

first, the displacement of existing businesses and residents, and second the destruction of the old Ward’s

Corner building, which is locally listed. These are the problems that the community plan hopes to solve,

through phased re-development of the existing building.

None of the existing traders will be able to occupy the retail space in the Grainger proposal. Instead,

there will be several major chain stores. The footprints of the retail re-provided are likely to be of a size

that requires major fit-out, at a cost of £100k or more. As Daniel Martinez of Carniceria Martinez told

me in an interview, he began his business with £1000 in the bank. The market space proposed by

Grainger is less than half what is presently available, and will also likely be over-designed, preventing the

freedom of occupation of the present market. Furthermore, small businesses such as the Carniceria rely

on customers who know their location and a sudden move elsewhere is a very difficult option and may

well destroy a business which operates on very tight financial margins.

  23  

Figure 10 A Plan for Tottenham (Tottenham Taskforce and Haringey Council 2012, 5). Image shows a future development at Ward’s Corner adjacent to Seven Sisters tube station. In the Tottenham Plan images of Tottenham are shown, snapshots of the good life with symbols of ecology (roof gardens) and affluence and local success (chain stores indicated with amusingly altered names). Note particularly ‘Pasta Express’, the chain which shows an area has ‘arrived’ in terms of regeneration (gentrification).

In their studies of Rye Lane, the LSE Ordinary Streets project (Suzanne Hall et al. 2014), have found that

none of the large independent shops were businesses which had started in that way5. Instead, they had

grown from very modest beginnings, either renting a stall or subletting a section of another shop,

sometimes even for only a specific period of time each week.

                                                                                                               5 This piece of information was told to me in person in a discussion with Suzi Hall in March 2014.

  24  

In addition to the displacement of the traders, some of the 40 existing properties on the site are socially

rented and owned by Haringey Council. The Grainger proposal contains 196 dwellings for private sale,

with no affordable or social rented units. They assert that building any affordable housing would render

the scheme unviable: the usual profit target for developers is 21% (Chakrabortty and Robinson-Tillett

2014), so the tenants and owners of these properties will also be displaced. The WCC argue that they

will be replaced by purchasers who only want to be close to Seven Sisters tube station, and have no

commitment to Tottenham. Alternatively, some of the flats will be purchased by overseas or local

investors, for whom buy-to-let property can be very lucrative. In London 61% of all new homes built last

year were sold as investments, many of them from overseas.

According to a recent Guardian article (Chakrabortty and Robinson-Tillett 2014), one of the reasons for

the predominance of East Asian investors in the London housing market is the Singaporean government’s

controls of the domestic housing market. Loans are limited, stamp-duty has risen and there are high taxes

on those who sell too soon after they have bought, and on foreign investors. This results in small-scale

investors unable to speculate in property at home looking to London, where there are no limits of who

can buy and rent out a flat. This impacts on the designs of new developments, because developers

respond to the requirements of investors (who prefer one and two bedroom flats) rather than the needs

of local families (either in the market or socially rented tenures). As Duncan Bowie points out, this leads

to a peculiar double standard, where high rises are seen as desirable for the private market, and

undesirable for social renters.

Apart from the surface issue identified by the WCC of traders and residents losing their homes and

businesses, there is the deeper concern of the loss of a centre for Latin American culture (and to a lesser

extent other immigrant cultures) in London. Many of the traders and customers do not speak much

English, and the market is the centre of their existence, as the quote below demonstrates.

[sic] “There is no other places for the Latin American community to come. It is the only place your

hear people speaking Spanish. Here, people say hello to each other, say good morning to each other

as soon as they come in. I've always thought, if they knock down this place, I might as well go back to

Colombia. I've been here all my life, but when we opened the butcher, this market became like my

home. Here you socialise with other people, you bring your kids, they play around with other people's

kids. This doesn’t happen in Costa! I don’t know any other place like this, E.g. in Wood Green, your

  25  

kids would get lost. Everyone knows my little boy and girl here, its a very good family place. in other

places, I couldn’t let my kids run around - here, you know they will be fine, and they always know

where to find you - even my one year old knows where to find me at the butchers! Lots of kids come

here from school, and they prefer to come here than to go home and play Playstation. Here, there are

more things to do. I spend more time here than at home! On Saturdays, my whole family comes here

- in the week, its harder, because I live in Hertfordshire, but everyone is here all together on Saturday.”

Daniel Martinez, Carniceria Martinez, in-depth interview with myself and Myfanwy Taylor from WCC,

recorded at <https://cc.stickyworld.com/room/presentation?roomid=11#notes/879>6

The nature of the society in the Pueblito Paisa Market is mutually very self-supporting, with some of the

traders being legal experts who have escaped from the strife in Colombia helping others navigate the

complexities of the British tax and education systems. The lack of engagement with this aspect of the

market by Haringey Council and Grainger is stark. Clair Kober, the council leader, has said “the plans

include new homes, jobs, environmental improvements, a broader mix of shops and a revamped market

where existing stallholders will be supported to help their businesses thrive” (Haringey Independent

2012). But the traders already support one another, and what they really require is low rents for business

start-ups, legal/tax advice and documents translated into Spanish.

Some of the non-Spanish speaking traders find the mono-cultural nature of the market exclusive, and

have their suspicions about unfair dealings. It is certainly not a situation of constant harmony. For

example, in a detailed conversation with an Iranian trader, he expressed irritation with the children

running about, with people congregating and putting off his non-Spanish speaking customers.

“Its important to decide if you want this to be a market or a social club. For example if we want to

improve what we have got you have to put some management policies and management control,

who's doing what in here- who's gambling, which shop belongs to which person. I think it's important

to control drinking. Also important to make sure what is available in the market is well balanced. It

should be for things that serve the whole area.” Mohsen Khanjari, trader in-depth interview with

myself and Myfanwy Taylor from WCC, recorded at

<https://cc.stickyworld.com/room/presentation?roomid=11#notes/920>

                                                                                                               6 Stickyworld is a platform for consultation, on which a model of the plan for exploration was set up by the WCC in collaboration with UCL, using an Open University grant to collect responses to the WCC’s Community Plan.

  26  

Figure 11 Images from the Stickyworld online consultation page (Creative Citizens 2014), where a three dimensional model of the Community Plan proposal (granted planning permission April 2014)7 was available for people to explore and comment on. This shows the exterior of the Ward’s Corner building

                                                                                                               7 For more information view planning application no. HGY/2014/0575 (Haringey Council Planning Services 2014)

  27  

The WCC Community Plan uses much the same ‘planning jargon’ visual and written language as the Plan

for Tottenham, with images showing empty shop units, vacuous representations for what they are really

seeking, which is preservation of something much richer. It is interesting that the absence of people and

activities (the image above looks almost derelict) somehow captures the potential for richness (the

depth) better than the shorthand in the image from the developer Grainger, where they use pseudo-

shops as a shorthand for successful regeneration. The viewer’s eyes are drawn to the Pasta Express,

Coste Café and HCBC signs and distracted from the stack of flats above.

The urban order proposed in Grainger’s new development is monothematic, it makes space at ground

floor level only for the type of store which can afford to fit out a large-footprint shop. The new

topography is inimical to certain types of goods, those based in a richer and more hierarchical urban and

social order, as I have briefly discussed above. On the upper floors, it provides dwellings which are likely

to be purchased by investors in the pursuit of profit, who have no personal commitment to the place

where they purchase. In the same way that the trader’s in Wards Corner are prevented from

commitment to the fabric of the market by uncertainty the people to whom they rent will be unlikely to

be committed to Tottenham. They will rent the flats from landlords on shorthold tenancy agreements,

which are subject to termination or rent hikes at very short notice. Without security of tenure, and while

the landlord holds the power, there is little incentive to invest in a place. Similarly, with the flats for sale,

they will be unsuitable for family use, so the properties may be seen as a ‘step up’ onto the ‘property

ladder’, from where buyers will ultimately move on

State promoted ethical urban order

To the groups and individuals I have worked with in Tottenham, the re-framing of Tottenham into a

landscape composed solely of land available for development, and the resulting topographies, feels like a

big conspiracy in which Haringey Council is complicit. In my understanding, this is not the case, as

individuals in Haringey Council are not set to personally profit from development (except perhaps in

terms of promotion and prestige if they do their job well). Instead, it is a result of a structural problem,

which is as follows.

  28  

The two large-scale city-making/shaping forces we have in the UK are developers (both private and in

partnership with the state) and planning policy, which seeks to form and shape the developments. The

objectives of the two forces are aligned in some respects but opposed in others. Both want to make

money, and in addition the state is pursuing some semblance of an ethical urban order (indicated by the

presence of planning policy).

Grainger seeks profit for the success of their business, Haringey Council for the success of Tottenham.

Haringey Council want to bring investment to Tottenham because they are competing with other

councils in London, London is competing with other major world cities, and there is pressure on them to

‘perform’ well in monetary terms. The council does not have the budget for large, expensive building

projects, so it must entice private development companies to make the buildings.

The state (in this case Haringey Council) also desires (to some extent) an ethical urban order, whereas

Grainger does not care. If an ethical urban order makes more money, then they will seek it, but as we

have seen, the two things do not always coexist happily. The private development companies are not

interested in the place itself, and have no commitment to it, they are interested in making the maximum

possible profit from any development. In the current financial climate, where London house prices are

sky-rocketing, the primary way to make money is through building dwellings. The relationship between

the development companies (and other powerful bodies who may carry out development eg. Spurs) and

the council is very problematic. The vested interest of the council in getting development to happen at all

means that their interest is also vested in facilitating the developer to make the maximum profit (high end

retail for rent and housing).

Although the state seeks an ethical urban order, the stated reasons for this are economic, as another,

more subtle incarnation of Heidegger’s (1993) reframing of a place as a gestell or the standing reserve.

Places with this desirable urban order, eg. thriving high streets, and the sort of goods which one finds

there (independent businesses, strong structures for mutual support, thriving social networks etc.) are of

economic value because they push up local house prices. Those are the kind of places people want to

live, and they will pay for the privilege. However, I suspect in addition to these stated reasons which can

be politically defended, there is a philosophical root to this pursuit of the ethical urban order by the state.

On an individual level, policy-makers have a personally embodied understanding of the value of a

sociable, committed, productive life with plenty of fair-minded interaction with other people. This is

  29  

backed up by empirical studies which correlate this sort of life with particular kinds of architecture and

city (usually backed up with an association with economic success) (eg. Watson, Studdert, and Joseph

Rowntree Foundation 2006; Meeks et al. 2014; Holland and Joseph Rowntree Foundation 2007).

According to Sandel (2012) in The Moral Limits of Markets, to marketwise a good fundamentally changes

its character. He argues that this is because human beings are basically civic-minded, and inclined to be

altruistic. There is a whole body of evolutionary psychology which supports this view (eg. Fehr and

Rockenbach 2004; Gintis et al. 2003). When money is introduced, peoples’ relationship with a civic good

changes. The problem here is that in a neo-liberal world where success must be measured and judged,

economic value is the only means we have of measurement. The fundamental value of structured ethical

relationships between members of society is impossible to count in money, because it belongs in a

completely different epistemological framework. This is related to the issue as I have identified in the

policy documents and in the Wards Corner community plan, which is an expression of this very problem.

The measurable parts which can be categorised and counted are articulated clearly. The immeasurable

parts are merely indicated, and rely on the readers’ implicit understanding of what it means to be human

to fill in the gaps.

The roots of state action or inaction on political issues are philosophical in nature and the philosophical

roots of the state pursuit of an ethical urban order are not clear. The pursuit of this good for its own sake

is philosophically and actually confused with the pursuit of it in order to compete economically in a global

market.

This causes all sorts of problems for people trying to understand cities, both in academia and in policy-

making. There is no agreement about what is actually important in cities, or indeed what cities really are

(or ought to be). The state desires an ethical urban order (for whatever reason) and this opens up a

whole range of questions about what an ethical urban order actually looks like. The situation in Wards

Corner, with a private developer partnered with a local authority is one which is repeated all over

London and the UK, so it is extremely important to understand both the reasons for this type of city-

making, and its consequences.

  30  

Deceptive ciphers for depth

Above, I have identified a problematic relationship between the state’s desire to promote an ethical

urban order (or ‘the good life’) and the means and justifications it has of doing so, which effectively stifle

the ability to achieve the depth to accommodate human life. If the price of land and the potential for

development to ‘add value’ governs planning then clearly existing diversity will be replaced with more or

less zoned areas of shopping, leisure and offices, in between a sea of expensive housing. If an ethical

urban order is what we seek, then collective life should not be removed and its hierarchies flattened into

a landscape of consumption and profit-making.

Policy makers, architects and architectural educators use a series of conceptual generalisations, which are

mostly accepted without question into the discourse of city-making, and the discourse of city-

understanding. They appear time and again in policy and academic literature to try and counteract this

process of flattening, but which I argue serve to mask the true nature of the problem. The key issue here

is that they speak widely of freedom (as represented by the crowd, and by organisations such as the

WCC – free in many senses not least that it is not tied down to a geographical location), but they miss

the freedom for commitment to place.

Heritage and history

As a result of this desire to preserve the depth and richness of the existing market, the issue of the loss

of the actual building at Wards Corner, and the heritage and history that it represents is one of the major

focuses of discussions with individuals I have encountered in Tottenham, as well as in comments on the

Stickyworld. The question of heritage is a significant strand of resistance in Tottenham, frequently

apparent at Our Tottenham meetings, and in the campaign of the Tottenham Business Group to save

High Road West (where the Spurs redevelopment is taking place, another public-private partnership in

which the private element seem to be doing very well at the expense of the public). The topic of

heritage also frequently appears in policy literature. To pick just one example, this quote is from the

National Policy Planning Framework:

  31  

“the desirability of sustaining and enhancing the significance of heritage assets and putting them to viable

uses consistent with their conservation; the wider social, cultural, economic and environmental benefits

that conservation of the historic environment can bring; the desirability of new development making a

positive contribution to local character and distinctiveness; and opportunities to draw on the contribution

made by the historic environment to the character of a place.” National Policy Planning Framework (DCLG

2012, 30)

Figure 12 In the absence of any real preservation, the Grainger scheme incorporates a ‘Memory box’ in which information about the history of the local area will be on permanent display adjacent to the entrance to Seven Sisters station. According to the Seven Sisters Regeneration website (Haringey Council 2014b), this fulfils the 2004 Planning Brief which asks to 'reflect, and retain, the architectural features of the store, if at all possible' Source: <http://sevensistersregeneration.co.uk/memory-box.php>

In all of these instances heritage and history serve as a motif which represents the depth which will be

lost in the new development. In this representation, as I have argued above, there is an appeal to the tacit

knowledge of the viewer about places, spaces and what it is like to be embodied in a city. Unfortunately,

much as in the hand drawings or the aerial photographs in the Plan for Tottenham (Tottenham Taskforce

and Haringey Council 2012), the idea of history being preserved physically in a building (by retaining the

façade, for example) is literally a shallow one. The richly differentiated depth of urban culture is what one

expects to find behind a Victorian shop front façade, but preserving the façade will not bring into being all

the intricacies associated with the hierarchical urban order. Heritage is all aspects of urban culture, not

just some scraps of the historic built environment.

  32  

‘P lace-making’

“Our plan is to redefine Tottenham into a series of distinct, yet complementary, places that draw on

their own strengths and competitive advantages. Places like Northumberland Park, Tottenham Green,

Seven Sisters and Tottenham Hale will become destinations in their own right with much more

focused retail and leisure offers.” A Plan For Tottenham (Tottenham Taskforce and Haringey Council

2012, 6).

Like heritage and history, ‘place’ is a concept which flattens the hierarchical structure of depth. The search

for ‘place’ and how it can be ‘made’ is a golden thread which runs throughout planning and regeneration

discourse in the UK. It is particularly sought after in Tottenham, as I discussed above in my analysis of the

maps in the Plan For Tottenham (Tottenham Taskforce and Haringey Council 2012). It also makes an

appearance in the Area Action Plan (Haringey Council 2014) proposals consultation document, as a

colourful diagram, which was also shown to me by a member of the planning team in a casual

conversation when I enquired about what the long term goals were of the Tottenham Regeneration

team.

  33  

Figure 13 Diagram showing Tottenham’s proposed ‘character areas’ from ‘Tottenham Area Action Plans: Reg 18 Consultation Document’ (Haringey Council 2014, 5), p.5. The grey line to the left is the high street, apparently the home of a ‘retail’ cluster around Bruce Grove station (presently the site of shops for the more affluent members of Tottenham society), a ‘sports and leisure’ cluster around the new Spurs development at White Hart Lane and a ‘culture and education’ cluster around Tottenham Green, which presumably refers to CHENEL, the Bernie Grant Centre and Tottenham Town Hall (which has been developed into small business units).

The London Plan states “the physical character of a place can help reinforce a sense of meaning and civility

– through the layout of buildings and streets, the natural and man-made landscape, the density of

development and the mix of land uses. In some cases, the character is well preserved and clear. In others,

it is undefined or compromised by unsympathetic development”. It is proposed that characterization

studies should be undertaken in order to “help ensure the place evolves to meet the economic and

  34  

social needs of the community and enhances its relationship with the natural and built landscape.” (Policy

7.1) (Mayor of London 2011, 214–215)

It is apparent from the literature about high streets (see Chapter 5 for more details) and the policy

documents I have discussed that there is a fear of ‘clone towns’ springing up all over the place (NEF

2004) and this is directly linked to the growth of major chain stores in town centres and high streets

through private developments of the type that Grainger are proposing. Yet the ‘sense of place’ so sought

after is directly opposed to development which offers only large footprint units for occupation by major

retailers or large businesses.

Patricia Pearcy runs the Tottenham Business Group (TBG), who are a campaign organisation set up to try

save the high street shops and businesses due to be demolished during the regeneration of the Spurs

stadium and White Hart Lane station. The story of the High Road West campaign is one, according to

Pearcy, of ‘dirty tricks’.8 TBG requested a meeting with Councillor Alan Strickland, Member for

Regeneration and Housing in Haringey Council, to discuss why the shops were shown as demolished in

all the ‘options’ presented at the public consultation. At the meeting, Cllr. Strickland showed her a plan

which had been rejected, where the shops were retained but said that this was unsuitable because as a

part of the regeneration they were ‘place-making’.

                                                                                                               8 Author’s interview with Patricia Pearcy, April 2014

  35  

Figure 14 Plan given to Patricia Pearcy by Councillor Strickland, annotated by the author.

Leaving aside the merits of retaining the row of shops, the types of knowledge Strickland and Pearcy

brought to this conversation were very different, and so the way they interpreted it was at odd with one

another. For Strickland, the shops are probably identified as an aesthetic and economic quality of the

street. For Pearcy, being a business owner herself, the shops represent both the people who run them

(with whom she has personal relationships) and the people who shop in them. As a result when she was

reporting it to me, Pearcy said that it was obvious that by ‘place-making’, Strickland really means replacing

people and things with new, more desirable ones. Although according to Pearcy Strickland is deeply

opposed to the word ‘gentrification’, this is exactly how she interpreted his use of the word ‘place-

making’

  36  

There is an inherent understanding of this amongst the residents of Tottenham. Many of the comments

on the Stickyworld website (Creative Citizens 2014) talk about this very issue regarding Wards Corner,

although frequently couched in planning language of ‘heritage’.

“Renovation is good – don’t want to be like a clone town. Otherwise we will be like any other place.

We need to invest in our heritage.” Eye Practice Seven Sisters

<https://cc.stickyworld.com/room/presentation?roomid=11#notes/719>

“The community plan is part of the heritage of the area, its a connection with the past, its human

scale, and all this is in contrast to Grainger's off the peg, 1990s, overdevelopment.” Clive Carter

<https://cc.stickyworld.com/room/presentation?roomid=11#notes/965>

“I would like a combination of old architecture and the market. Back in my native home there is a lot

of old colonial spanish architecture with markets combined. I believe that this place has the perfect

opportunity to resemble something quite the same. Yet this time, it would be old english heritage

architecture with latin/african produce market stalls. This destination would be truly multi-cultural and

a great example of the 'real' London.” vicky alvarez

<https://cc.stickyworld.com/room/presentation?roomid=11#notes/753>

Pearcy’s understanding of place as composed of depth or people, spaces and relationships, is the essence

of what most people mean when they talk about ‘place’. Strickland’s is more in accordance with the

understanding on ‘place’ in policy, that is something to do with design. However, as with history and

heritage, the depth of place is contained within the whole urban culture, and is a richly differentiated

urban structure. It is immediately apparent that ‘place’ understood in this way cannot easily co-exist with

neo-liberal gentrifying development, which is a big problem if you need a ‘sense of place’ to attract neo-

liberal gentrifying development.

Place-making is such a hot topic in planning terms that there is even a place-making MA available at the

Bartlett school of architecture at UCL. According to the website, to learn how to place-make, you need a

combination of ‘innate creativity’ and a set of ‘analytical skills’ and to bring these together to propose

‘creative place-making solutions in a complex urban context’ (The Bartlett School of Planning 2014). This

is a fascinating insight into one aspect of the problem at hand: the sort of knowledge which cannot be

gathered ‘analytically’ is all gathered up into something called ‘innate creativity’ and alluded to by the

‘complex urban context’. Creativity seems to be about creating something completely new, plucked from

  37  

nowhere. But architectural and urban ‘creativity’ is not like that. In virtually no cases is the making of

inhabitable space about pure generation of form in a vacuum, instead it is about the access and use of an

architect or designers tacit knowledge about human existence, and how this takes place in the physical

world.

Both the ‘design-led’ approach to place, and the confusion between ethical urban order and economic

competitiveness is neatly summed up in the introduction to the Urban Task Force report:

“…urban neighbourhoods should be vital, safe and beautiful places to live. This is not just a matter of

aesthetics, but of economics. As cities compete with each other to host increasingly footloose

international companies, their credentials as attractive, vibrant homes are major selling points… Well-

designed and maintained public spaces should be at the heart of any community. They are the

foundation for public interaction and social integration, and provide the sense of place essential to

engender civic pride. (Urban Task Force 1999, 5)

Conclusion

In this chapter I have examined the relationship between state planning policies, developers and local

governance, through a case study of the Seven Sisters Regeneration project, Wards Corner. I have also

begun to outline some of the deceptive conceptualisations which flatten city topographies and justify

developer-led regeneration which lacks the depth for ethical reflection and does not engender

commitment-to-place.

There is a depth and richness to Tottenham High Road clearly not reflected in any of the planning policy

documents, or even in the WCC Community Plan (although at least here, space is left for it). There is a

clearly spatially differentiated structure of publics intimately entwined with the participants’ race, socio-

economic position and embedded into particular locations, which have bounded spatial and social

relationships with one another (see Ash Amin and Parkinson 2002; A. Amin and Thrift 2002; S. Hall 2012

and the discussion in Chapter 5 for more details). It is clear that the Grainger plan is not the preferred

option for the majority. Although never explicitly articulated, I suspect the reason for this is the depth and

richness that people tacitly know to exist in ‘local’ shops will be lost in the new proposals (see Chapter 2

for examples of vernacular Victorian buildings which have breathing room at the back – depth). The

  38  

symptoms of the existence depth, people hanging around on the street having conversations with each

other, are shown in Grainger’s images, so it is difficult to argue that one of the ‘futures’ is better than the

other.

The physical (and ontological) depth I am talking about will never be explicitly apparent on a photograph

or digital image of the high road, because by its very nature depth is behind the facades. The individuals

who make up the place, and the rich lives they live and the myriad of tiny, overlapping spaces they

occupy are invisible in these documents and collectively labelled as ‘community’. The complex urban

order which sustains the metabolism of the high road is hidden in the simplified language of the top-

down plan. What is clearly absent from these plans of Tottenham, is Tottenham itself.

Because of this lack of understanding of the urban order there is a gap between the institutions

responsible for the physical form of the city and the non-state organisations who make (large swathes of)

cities - such as Grainger – who are coherent and have vested interests. Thus, ‘civic culture’ emerges as a

result of the (mostly, except for small restrictions of planning policy) free competition between different

organisations.

Concepts which claim to mediate between the ‘global’ and the ‘local’ such as brands (eg. Coste Café etc,

voting power, consumer power, used to justify Grainger-type developments) hide the real relationship

between the multiple publics of ‘depth’ and the global scale forces.

The conceptual simplifications I have discussed are disempowering because they render this complex, rich

structure (and all the people within it) invisible. They hide the relationship between people and the

physical conditions they occupy and embody – the common-to-all, which is where the real potential for

empowerment lies (in commitment to place).

There is a risk here that one could be accused of naïve nostalgia for the ‘good old days’ of a busy high

street where everyone knew one another and everyone left their front doors open. In Tottenham, as

demonstrated in Chapter 1, there is a rapidly changing situation with waves of immigration. Suzi Hall

(2012) points out that immigrants frequently tend to coalesce in the cheapest places. Given the

increasing plurality, it follows that it is desirable to have cities that accommodate that plurality, and the

inevitable differences between people. The best example of this is the very close proximity of all the

different nationalities and cultures. Hall (2012) picks out some great examples of shops which sell

multiple sorts of goods under one roof, phone cards from Lebara, wigs, Polish food etc. She also identifies

  39  

specific sites which allow different nationalities, race relations etc to be played out which are both spoken

and embodied (and the two different types of action might not necessarily correlate). So how can an

ethical order be facilitated, given that in neo-liberal capitalism, change and development seem inevitable?

In ancient Greek culture, the agon was an institutional setting for conflict or game-playing. Human culture

is so deep, rich and varied that there is inevitable and constant conflict. We deal with this by

institutionalising this conflict into our culture into what Huzinga describes as ‘play’ in Homo Ludens (Man

the Player) (1970) in a hierarchy from embodiment (how we crowd onto a bus) to articulation

(conversations, arguments) (Vesely 2004). Sometimes the institutionalisation of the conflict diverts it, and

sometimes it allows it to occur peacefully (or at least without people getting physically injured).

The urban order represents, reciprocally reproduces and embodies the conditions for moral judgements

of society. Some ways of ordering urban space offer a deep understanding of the ethical conditions and

can contain the more articulate bits of humanity such as speech, gesture and conflict. Some are weaker

and offer less empowerment and it is this variety that this chapter is concerned with. It is a search for

architectural conditions that promote philosophical or ethical reflection, for a successful civic order rich

enough to accommodate the whole urban culture.

The richness of this differentiation of the urban topography accommodates conflict and plurality, and

institutionalises the potential for conflict. This richness is found in the depth-structure of the high street,

which has a hidden but sometimes overt political order. It allows unusual, occasionally illicit activities to

coexist close to official ones. Pursuit of a sufficiently rich or deep topographic order allows a range of

activities and the support of various kinds of association so enables fairness and empowerment.

'Development' should support the diversity both of activities and the economies they support. Depth

acknowledges the importance of what is common-to-all, which ought to be the basis for any ethics.

  40  

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