By Abi O'Connor (@abioconnor_) The Conservative party takeover of Liverpool City Council represents a perfect storm in which corporate powers are able to trial new forms of urban governance which are vacant of democratic representation and wholly unaccountable to the people of the city. The possibility of these even further mechanisms of privatisation reveals …
By Lily GB (@lilygbrown) “Thrones are crashing everywhere, and the men of property are secretly trembling” (p. 27) The ‘manmade’ environment is a colloquialism so embedded in everyday dialogue that we rarely pause to dissect the meaning behind it. While it often refers to ‘human’ made constructs, it is also reflective of …
By Nick Bano (@nickbano) In 1649 the radical Christian group the Diggers made a public declaration explaining that, in their view, landlords are thieves: “Those that Buy and Sell Land, and are landlords, have got it either by Oppression, or Murther, or Theft; and all landlords lives in the breach of the Seventh …
By Greater Manchester Housing Action (@gmhousingaction) On Thursday the planning committee will consider an application by Renaker for permission to build Trinity Islands: four skyscrapers incorporating 1,950 apartments and with a Gross Development Value of £741 million. The developers have declined to make any significant contribution to support affordable/social housing either on site or …
By Jacob Stringer (@radiagonalist) The Housing Crisis is a Land Crisis, a pamphlet on Community Land Trusts by Lily Gordon Brown, was a welcome intervention in the discussion of the future of housing in the UK. Radical positive solutions to the inaccessibility of decent housing are too seldom discussed among housing activists. While some …
By Nigel de Noronha (@deNoronhaNigel) In the first of series of articles examining the racialised impact of student accommodation in the wards of South Manchester, Nigel de Noronha examines the background to the growth in student population in the area. This work has been gratefully supported by the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung and originally appeared …
By Lily Gordon-Brown (@lilygbrown) There is little doubt that we are in the midst of a housing emergency. However, it is not only housing which has been subjected to commodification and financialization in recent decades, but also the land that sits underneath it. Land has become a site of speculation and regarded as an …
By GM Tenants Union and GM Housing Action A new report raises concerns about the proliferation of Airbnb and other short-term letting platforms (STLs) in the city and its effects on local residents. The report, written by academics, journalists and members of Greater Manchester Tenants Union and Greater Manchester Housing Action, finds …
By Isis Barei-Guyot What is a PSPO? As we approach a time of year that is extremely challenging for those rough-sleeping in the UK, particularly due to harsh weather conditions, it is concerning to see that a banner for a City Centre Public Spaces Protection Order (PSPO) has been erected in Manchester’s Piccadilly …
By Isaac Levin-Schtulberg As the months since July’s ‘freedom day’ roll forward, those residing in the UK have been reacquainted with a lifestyle that they once considered a stable normality. The daily slog of COVID briefings, statistics and superfluous analysis about COVID-19’s radically transformative long term impacts have become resigned to what many want …
