A recent survey of property experts has confirmed that the days are gone – well more or less – when the redevelopment of city centres was an adversarial soap opera with the hard-pressed local authority defending the beloved but fleabitten fabric of the city from the clutches of the wicked property developer, hell-bent on flinging up concrete to make a quick buck.
Nowadays there is much greater acknowledgement that collaboration has far more to offer than confrontation. For one thing, the "wicked" property developer is quite likely to be the development arm of a pension fund manager or a substantial listed property company keen to create an investment in which it will have a long-term interest.
Also, in a political context, there is a much greater recognition among those who run today's towns and cities that the places in their care are competing for investment, shoppers and residents.
In these times of recession the need for cities to be competitive is in an imperative one.
But of course, each has something the other wants. While the developer – in normal circumstances at least – has access to funds as well as expertise, the local authority probably has control over the land or at least what can be built on it.
According to a survey of the 2,300 European members of the Urban Land Institute (ULI) - which describes itself as "a global research and education institute dedicated to responsible land use" and whose members fall on both sides of the public-private divide - joint ventures between the public and private sectors will be the way forward for the next 10 to 20 years.
Naturally, most of the survey respondents thought that Europe's cities will be "very important" for the future of the European economy as a whole over the next decade or two.
In particular, ULI members believe that investment in infrastructure and public facilities will be the fastest growing areas of investment over the next three years with investment in housing, offices, shops and leisure facilities trailing in their wake.
However, apart from lack of capital and lack of confidence, the main obstacles to investment will be "lack of good partnership between city governments and investors" rather than a lack of good projects to invest in or lack of demand for facilities.
It comes as no surprise then that co-investment with investors and developers, and more flexible planning are felt to be the chief instruments that will enable "good city government" to encourage investment.
More than 60% of respondents said that investors and developers will need to forge joint ventures with the public sector in order to make urban investment work in the next 10 to 20 years.
The ULI announced the results of the survey in Barcelona at the first summit of its urban investment network. The network was founded a year ago to promote investment in urban development and brings together a mix of cities, European institutions and private sector organisations. By the end of 2011 the ULI hopes to have 100 cities and metropolitan areas and 100 investors and developers in the network.
The network already includes Amsterdam, Barcelona, Birmingham, Edinburgh and Istanbul along with Germany-based Allianz Real Estate, Deutsche Bank, ECE Projektmanagement and Eurohypo AG, and Netherlands-headquartered ING Real Estate Development as well as the OECD.
Menno Maas, chief executive of ING Real Estate Development, says that the network brings together key decision makers to share their experiences of collaboration and examine how well it works in each case.
He says the network has already revealed a range of different approaches to public-private partnership for the purpose of urban development.
Perfecting these urban partnerships chimes well with the British experience. Whatever the result of the impending election an array of public-private arrangements seems likely to result as urban administrations battle their way out of the recession.
It is no surprise then to see that the UK's Department for Communities and Local Government has also signed up to the urban investment network.
From Bubb's Blog
From Whitehall Watch
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