Environment and Planning A 1996, volume 28, pages 835-855

'Strategic' enabling? Cardiff City Council and local economic strategy

D Valler Department of Town and Regional Planning, University of Sheffield, Western Bank, Sheffield S10 2TN, England Received 7 July 1994; in revised form 12 November 1994

Abstract. In this paper I examine the development of Cardiff City Council's local economic strategy. It is argued that the definition of local policy, of what the policy process means in particular instances, derives from the complex of economic, social, and political conditions found within and beyond a given locality. In Cardiff, the interaction of broad processes of restructuring with specific local forms has historically diluted Cardiff City Council's function in local economic policy. In turn the recent experience of strategy making has been predicated upon a more wide-ranging and deeper involvement in associated service provision, and the construction of legitimacy around enhanced City Council activity. In particular ways this questions the inter­relationship of strategy making and service provision promulgated in notions of strategic enabling.

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s local economic strategy making has been an increasingly important aspect of local government economic development activity. In the context of dwindling regional policy support, relatively weakly developed local business representation and changing local political forms, the still substantial resource base and revised statutory powers of local government have defined its primacy in local economic strategy. Indeed, following the 1989 Local Government and Housing Act most local authorities now have some form of local economic strategy, though they remain highly differentiated exercises. In this paper I examine the development of Cardiff City Council's (CCC) first explicit local economic strategy, which was adopted in 1992 (CCC, 1992).

The discussion is organised into three parts. In the next section I examine the context of local state restructuring within which local economic strategies have developed, and trace the changing political and legislative framework for strategy making. A critical theme has been the rise of local authorities as 'strategic enablers', a term which characterises new forms of (dis)engagement with service provision and strategy making, and changing relations with other institutions and actors. Second, I turn my attention to CCC's local economic strategy. Here I examine constraints on CCC's strategy-making capacity, which fundamentally question the notion of a strategic role predicated upon a divorce of service provision and strategy making. Last, in a brief conclusion I summarise an approach to the 'localness' of local economic strategy making.

The local state and local economic strategy Local economic strategies have appeared in the United Kingdom during a period of profound restructuring in the local state (Cochrane, 1991; Duncan and Goodwin, 1988; Goodwin et al, 1993; Stoker, 1989). The changing regulatory environment associated with a shift from Fordist to post-Fordist accumulation situated local government at the centre of political restructuring in the United Kingdom, as Thatcherism challenged collectivist politics and local government autonomy. The enforced sale of council houses, the increasing prevalence of 'contracting-out' proce­dures, and the restructuring of local government finance are indicative changes,

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representing not only the expression of wider processes settling upon local government, but also being actively constituted through the institutional and political forms of the local state (Goodwin et al, 1993, page 68).

In this context the postwar Fordist local state had been an "almost universal feature of British urban society" (Goodwin et al, 1993, page 74), underpinning the welfare state through direct service provision, planning, and regulation, and supporting mass production and consumption through industrial and retail develop­ments and the purchasing power of local state employees (Stoker, 1989, page 151). In turn, local government was characterised first by an increasingly institutionalised professionalism associated with functional politics; second, by the consolidation of central government funding of local services; third, by the hegemony of profes­sional-bureaucratic networks over territorial politics in central-local government relations; and fourth, by the relative isolation of the centre from local elites (Rhodes, 1985, pages 42-46).

Subsequently the local state has been caught up in the Fordist crisis. In combi­nation with the diminishing returns experienced in mechanised capitalist production, the escalating costs of, and demands on, public service provision formed a limit to Fordist accumulation. This was initially expressed in fiscal retrenchment under Labour (see Duncan and Goodwin, 1988, page 99), and subsequently reinforced by an incoming Conservative government ideologically committed to shifting "the pattern of institutions and rules at the state-market boundary" (Stoker, 1989, page 155). Increasingly the role of local government has been envisaged as 'enabling' service provision by a range of other public and private sector agents, rather than operating directly as a dominant supplier of services (Ridley, 1988). Local author­ities then adopt a coordinating function; first, in retaining formal responsibility for certain aspects of provision while, in many instances, not providing the service directly; second, in providing services alongside, or in competition with, other agencies; and third, in performing a residual function in service provision to those 'genuinely' excluded from the new organisational frameworks.

Within this project, central government in the United Kingdom has undertaken a sustained and highly controversial programme of reforms to reduce local government expenditure, and its functions in direct service provision, strategic planning, and regulation. Initially, central government attempts to control local government expen­diture and to restructure local government finance represented a general move to constrain local government activity. Under the veil of monetarist austerity, central government sought enhanced control over grant levels, local expenditure, and taxation (Duncan and Goodwin, 1988, pages 96-125). In addition, local authority organisations have been increasingly fragmented. Compulsory competitive tendering legislation facilitated private provision of services, including refuse collection, leisure management, and catering, and further local authority activities have been relocated outside of the local government structure. Third, the strategic planning function of local government has been challenged by new examples of central government localism, such as Urban Development Corporations and Training and Enterprise Councils (TECs), which reduce the scope for local authority intervention in favour of private enterprise (Stoker, 1989, page 158). And fourth, certain regulatory responsibilities are being redefined, through the removal of contract-compliance procedures, for example.

However, restructuring was not straightforward and local authorities reacted creatively to the changing environment. For example, given the ongoing centrality of public services to mass production and consumption, and the durability of estab­lished institutional forms, local government expenditure levels proved relatively

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resilient (Duncan and Goodwin, 1988, page 99). Also, in important ways, the 'market' forms introduced to local government have been diluted. Ab Cochrane notes (1991, page 282) the majority of privatisation projects have involved the contracting-out of services, rather than direct provision to paying customers, while monitoring procedures remain reliant on inspection and customer complaints (LACSAB, 1990). In addition, despite the relocation of activities outside of formal local government structures, bureaucrats have often successfully retained budgetary control and a degree of insulation from public scrutiny.

Crucially, local economic development activity established new areas of municipal influence and service provision through enterprise boards and local economic strategies. In particular, the development of radical local strategies by large, visible, and vocal metropolitan authorities challenged neoliberal ideologies on a range of economic and distributive issues, promoting new forms of democracy and coopera­tive control over work, public-sector-led investment, and defensive activity in the face of job loss. Local economic policy, both in terms of its direct influence over production issues, and with regard to consumption, was central in broader local socialist programmes to sustain collective provision and 'community socialisation', and to illustrate practical alternative models through restructuring for labour, cheap public transport, and building houses for rent.

Broadly, however, local economic development in the 1980s was characterised by increasing central control over local state institutions. Generally this has been achieved through indirect changes in local government structures and finance. The abolition of the Greater London Council (GLC) and metropolitan county councils in 1986, for example, removed the largest and most radical bases of local economic initiatives, in many ways representing the most extreme Thatcherite attack on local autonomy (Duncan and Goodwin, 1988; Forrester et al, 1985). Also, rate-capping legislation and the more recent instigation of competitive urban policy models have constrained local activity and tied local government more closely into central policy frameworks (Eisenschitz and Gough, 1993, page 10). Last, a critical dimension here derives from the central government project to redefine local public-private sector relations (Barnekov et al, 1989; Harding, 1990; Moore and Richardson, 1986). Broad financial, legislative, and administrative change sought to enhance private sector involvement and influence through the extension of partnerships in policy formation and implementation, central government localism, and changes to the statutory planning system.

Strategic enabling In this restructuring the key project to redefine local authorities as 'strategic enablers' (Carter et al, 1990; Cochrane, 1991, pages 282-285) denotes both the increasing withdrawal of local government from aspects of service delivery, and the development of a coordinating or strategic function, in order to "stimulate and assist other agencies to play their part instead of, or as well as, making provision them­selves" (Ridley, 1988, quoted in Brooke, 1989, page 58). Most commonly, this redefinition derives from the central government ideology of inefficiency in state provision, and the commitment to market-oriented organisation, consumer choice, and competition (Carter et al, 1990, page 25). However, local political forms, such as the 'new suburban right' in Kent (Holliday, 1991) have also been implicated in the rise of the enabling authority. As such it has been understood at one extreme as the 'end of local government' and at the other as a source of wider vision and an increasingly politicised local government (Brooke, 1989, page 61).

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This variety is summarised in Leach et al's (1994, pages 233-251) three-fold classification of the enabling authority. First, the 'residual enabling' authority empha­sises the values, structures, and systems of business, and portrays limited local authority 'safety-net' functions in arranging services the market could not provide. Second, the 'market-oriented enabler' accepts the role of market mechanisms in generating development and providing 'customer' services, but also stresses positive local authority functions in planning and coordinating local economic development activity, and contract negotiation. Third, following Clarke and Stewart (1988; 1989), 'community-oriented' enabling is defined in terms of "strengthening the capacity for self governance within a local community, using whatever resources and channels (internal or external) seem most appropriate" (1988, page 1). Here, an emphasis on local citizenship emphasises the identification of community needs, and the powers of local government in civic leadership, networking, influence, and campaigning to meet those needs (Leach et al, 1994, page 235).

Such a framework offers useful insights into emerging enabling forms, in housing for example (Carter et al, 1990). In the 1987 White Paper, Housing—The Government's Proposals (DoE, 1987), the future rule of local authorities was defined as: "... essen­tially a strategic one—identifying housing needs and demands, encouraging innovative methods of provision by other bodies to meet such needs, maximising the use of private finance and encouraging the new interest in the revival of the independent rented sector" (page 14).

In London docklands this was interpreted through the provision of development land (via compulsory purchase orders, for example), infrastructural development, and the relaxation of planning controls, which in many ways parallel the business orientation and weak local government function of 'residual' forms. In contrast, the formulation of a local housing plan in Haringey represented a 'community-oriented' attempt to campaign against resource constraints and to outline the radical measures required to meet local needs (Merrett, 1986). As such the 'enabling authority' reflects a political continuum, from 'right-of-centre' views which stress a marginal­ised role for local state provision, to left-of-centre approaches which emphasise advocacy and influence over implementation.

Questions of definition hint at deeper conceptual difficulties with strategic enabling. At one level the term automatically equates the relative distance of a local authority from the complexities of service provision with the development of a 'strategic' view. Brooke (1989, page 59) suggests, for example, "... as local author­ities are freed from direct provision their view will extend more widely over the needs of the community". However, this is a vastly optimistic reading of the enabling concept, which on the one hand largely ignores the substantial ongoing functions of local government in certain areas of service provision (though Brooke is aware of this), and on the other is unable to accept that a limited scale of local government involvement in certain aspects of provision might constrain 'strategic' capacities. In this respect Brooke's view contrasts with the postwar history of British local government as a dominant employer, service provider and, as a result, 'strategy maker' in many British cities. The position of local government, as a crucial aspect of the local economic, social, and political 'sediment', is unevenly expressed through current restructuring processes, and in many localities militates against the demotion of local government to an almost residual function.

A further problem concerns the nature of the putative 'strategic' function. This is variously defined in terms of: a revised regulatory or monitoring context as services are increasingly provided by a wider range of agencies; the capacity to be explicit about political priorities through the establishment of contract-based

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relations; and in stimulating or facilitating new forms of service provision. Crucially, however, these interpretations omit certain substantive strategic activities, partic­ularly with regard to the politics and mechanics of local coalition building, which in Britain has been largely dominated by Labour-controlled local states (Cooke, 1988, page 196; see also Cox and Mair, 1988; 1991; Harding, 1991; Harvey, 1989; Mayer, 1989). As Keating (1991) argues, local state restructuring has challenged the capacity of local government to formulate policies and to mobilise powers and resources behind the implementation of these policies:

"These problems of capacity to define issues, formulate policies, gain legitimacy and implement solutions are greatly increased by the new roles and relationships with which city governments are confronted. They are no longer merely service providers or more or less passive servants of business needs. Rather they are at the centre of a series of conflicts among rising social demands in the context of increased inter-urban competition" (page 197).

Alternatively, in the language of the new local government, 'community enabling' envisages consensus building between different interests, within which "a local authority is a political institution for the authoritative determination of community values" (Stewart, 1989, page 241). However, as Cochrane suggests (1991, page 284), Stewart's vision is less convincing in analytical terms: in some policy areas strategic direction is set at higher levels of government, and in others local authorities increas­ingly compete with new 'strategy-making' bodies such as TECs. And critically, here, Stewart's approach evades notions of local specificity and political process, broadly ignoring the context of local social relations within which the local state, institu­tional forms, and policy responses are constructed. As the case study reported below illustrates, the character and form of local policy reflect the combination of broader restructuring processes and local circumstances.

Local economic strategy My final introductory comments briefly review the historical development of local economic strategy. Traditionally, strategy making has not been a statutory function of British local authorities. Indeed, local government involvement in economic development has historically been ad hoc, with limited institutionalisation of either local machinery or national legislation (Cochrane, 1990, page 157; Eisenschitz and Gough, 1993, pages 3-28). The initial expansion of local authority economic development work in the 1970s was thus not directed at strategy formulation. At this time infrastructure and industrial property provision, together with developing functions in inward investment promotion and tourism was "not expected to relate particularly closely to the other work of the council. In practice it generated a series of fragmented responses to immediate pressures from potential 'clients' in the private sector, alongside attempts to construct a set of incentives based on what it was thought they might want" (Cochrane, 1988, page 133). As such, the emphasis on property and limited financial incentives reflected only a partial and indirect engagement with labour market issues, which Lovering (1988) has identified as central to local economic strategy. Also, policy responses lacked direction and coordination both within and between local authorities, in contrast to Cochrane's (1988, page 132) notion of 'strategy' as "a more or less integrated set of initiatives directed towards the achievement of relatively clear goals".

Subsequently, the 1980s witnessed a generally increasing and developing level of commitment by local authorities to initiatives in training and access issues, financial assistance to small firms, community development, and technology transfer (Mills and Young, 1986; Sellgren, 1987; Cochrane, 1990). And in many cases, it has been

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argued, such expansion was associated with a more reflective, in some senses 'strategic', view of economic development activity. However, the character of strategic economic development remains rather unclear. Cochrane (1990), for example, identifies seven distinctive elements of ostensibly strategic local authority activity: in the development of an influential or catalytic role through networking; in integrating a broader range of economic development activities; in serving a political function outside of purely technical and professional policy questions; in instigating a 'genuine' process of policy development; in adopting an initiatory stance, particularly with regard to European regional policy; in the overall local authority role in local economic restructuring; and in the political weight accorded to local economic policy through the involvement of high-ranking officers. Indeed the strategic function seems to derive from a combination of (some or all of) these elements, to reflect the context of local state restructuring and the framework of local sociopolitical and institutional forms.

In many ways the radical local economic strategies developed within local socialism mark the high point of strategy-making activity in Britain. The GLC in particular was at the forefront of policy development in the early 1980s, seeking to construct a wider sense of local government functions in production and consump­tion through detailed sectoral policies and the expansion of local authority activities and influence. As such, local economic strategy performed critical political functions, first in constructing legitimacy for interventionist policies in production restructuring and labour-market and access issues, and second in expounding the political com­mitment of the new urban left. Elsewhere, albeit with diverse emphases, radical strategies developed by Sheffield City Council and West Midlands County Council similarly reflected the increased scale of local government involvement, the centrality of local economic development policy, and the political commitment to a broader local authority function.

Abolition curtailed this activity. Though some aspects of radical policy subse­quently filtered into mainstream economic development, local economic strategies since the mid-1980s have broadly accepted the 'modified market' (Cochrane, 1990; Moore and Booth, 1986; Moore and Pierre, 1988). Here, the role of local authorities in facilitating market operations and alleviating market weaknesses is constructed around market functions in stimulating enterprise and identifying investment oppor­tunities. In turn, policy is increasingly associated with partnership development and generally closer and more consistent public-private links, and the character of strategy-making processes emphasises forms of partnership and networking within which local authorities use intervention to bargain and negotiate with other agencies. Also, Section 35 of the 1989 Local Government and Housing Act defines a revised legislative context for strategy making, imposing a new statutory requirement for local authorities to detail annual economic development expenditure and to consult with private and other interests regarding these proposals. To some extent this requirement is a clear challenge to local autonomy. In parallel with examples of central government localism it opens up opportunities for private sector and other agencies to influence policymaking processes. However, it also marks a partial reversal of central government policy towards local government, effectively tying local economic policymaking closely into the arena of local government, and at least implicitly acknowledging the function of local government in constructing legitimacy and providing skills and resources.

Given this changing legislative context, strategy making has become far more widespread. For many authorities the new requirement not only compelled the reporting of economic development expenditure, but also triggered a broader and

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more detailed process of policy development, often associated with quite extensive research into the local economy, and with the establishment of new internal organi­sational structures and external relationships. This interpretation varies from place to place. Generally, however, strategy-making processes have provided a foundation for relations between the public and private actors. As Cochrane suggests, "... one potential future for local economic strategies is that they develop further to encour­age close public-private partnerships in which the local or regional state has the responsibility of bringing together the various elements of development, including support from the EEC" (1988, page 140).

Such an approach highlights a number of fundamental issues: first, the function of local government in strategy development; second, the role of strategy making in the developing context of local public-private relations; and third, the influence of a changing national and international political and institutional context within which local economic strategies have been defined. In the following case study I seek to address these themes.

Cardiff City Council and local economic strategy The definition of local economic strategy, of what the policy process means in particular places, derives from the complex of economic, social, and political condi­tions found within and beyond a given locality (Urry, 1990, page 187). In this context, I would argue, CCC's local economic strategy has broadly constituted the contingent expression of 'wider' or more 'general' processes operating at regional, national, or international scales (Duncan, 1989; see Valler, forthcoming). These result from restructuring central - local government relations, the reorganisation of local government boundaries, and the reform of regional and urban policy at national and European levels. In combination with specific local political and institutional characteristics, these broader changes defined a strategy-making process which has not 'captured' the local political arena, and which fundamentally represents policy development in a sphere of historically limited City Council influence.

Three themes are examined: first, I assess patterns of economic, social, and institutional restructuring which historically have diluted CCC's function in strategy making, from a formerly prominent position in a spatial coalition constructed around the 'modernisation' of the city, to one in which political and institutional fragmentation actively constrain CCC's role. Subsequently, I examine how local economic strategy represented the contingent expression of wider processes, and characterise the form of private sector involvement in the development of CCC's strategy.

An historical perspective As the former "coal metropolis of the world" (Daunton, 1977), the capital of Wales, and the site of a dominant public sector service base, local politics in Cardiff has traditionally been dominated by its function as regional capital, and a context of pragmatic liberalism (Cooke, 1980; Thomas, 1989; Thomas and Imrie, 1993). First, Cardiff's development has long been defined with reference to a wider, regional scale. The dramatic 19th-century growth in the coal trade and shipping, for example, was dependent on the relationship with the South Wales coalfield areas and their national and international markets. Also the regional function and 'conceptualisa­tion' of Cardiff were established outside of these principal activities, associated increasingly with the professions, retailing, wholesaling, and service provision to the mining communities. Thus a level of momentum persisted behind a regional role despite the subsequent decline of the docks and the absence of a significant

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manufacturing base. This was reflected also in Cardiff's hegemonic municipal, educational, and cultural function within Wales, which in turn has resonated through more recent developments in the city (Cooke, 1980; Imrie and Thomas, 1993; Thomas, 1992).

In the redevelopment of the city centre in the 1970s and 1980s, for example, CCC, South Glamorgan County Council (SGCC), and the Welsh Office (WO) sought to establish a 'true' capital city (WO, 1967). Here, the inadequacies of Cardiff as a regional commercial centre were widely accepted, both within the city, where city-centre redevelopment had become a convention in postwar planning policy, and within the regional concerns of the central state. Redevelopment, therefore, built on a "politically dominant analysis of the region's problems", reflecting broad coales­cence between central state and local state levels to redefine Cardiff as a modern commercial centre serving a modernising region (Thomas, 1992, page 82). Second, the Cardiff Bay Development Corporation (CBDC) scheme to reunite Cardiff city centre with its waterfront and to "establish Cardiff internationally as a superlative maritime city ... enhancing the image and economic well being of Cardiff and Wales as a whole" (1988, page 2) also speaks to the wider conceptualisation of the city that had been cultivated earlier. As Thomas (1992, page 82) notes, the implication is that Cardiff has become established as the capital city of Wales in demographic, commercial, social, and cultural terms, and is now set to join a wider stage.

CCC adopted different roles in these developments. In the city centre, Cooke (1980) has identified the ongoing commitment of the state both at central and at local levels as a crucial foundation for modernisation. Though an initial public-private partnership arrangement failed in 1975, in part because of the deteriorating economic conditions, but also because of a loss of commitment after local govern­ment reorganisation in 1974 (Cooke, 1980, page 223), a subsequent public - private partnership diverted £10 million (1978) of CCC funds into 'social investment' and built upon ongoing WO support for Cardiff's growth as a regional centre. Also, the more recent development of a large city-centre hotel, leisure, and conference complex witnessed, in the view of a developer, "massive" City Council involvement. Here, CCC operated not only as landowner and planning and environmental health authority, but also as the vehicle for a £3 million urban-development grant applica­tion to the WO, as a partner in accessing European Investment Bank funding, and as the initiator of the City Centre Partnership Forum, established to coordinate development and management in the city centre. Clearly, the city centre has been critical in CCC activity for an extended period. A planning officer noted, for example: "The City Council, over the last 30 years, has always had the city centre as a priority at all times". In these ways the particular social formation of Cardiff as capital, and as a regional centre, has been exploited in "ideological, political and economic terms" (Cooke, 1980, page 227).

Though there is a superficial symmetry between 'modernisation' at the city centre and in Cardiff Bay, Thomas (1992) has illustrated the tensions arising from the reformulation of planning policy in the Atlantic Wharf area of the docks. Specifically, the diverse policy constituencies and trajectories of the City and County Councils resulted in different responses to the housing, leisure, and office develop­ments which now dominate the area. CCC reacted unenthusiastically to a shift away from industrial use, particularly following the closure of the East Moors Steelworks in 1978, with an estimated 7000 direct and indirect job losses. In addition, the Atlantic Wharf proposals were seen to jeopardise city-centre investment and to challenge the monopoly of the centre over commercial development, whereas CCC policy on large-scale redevelopments, infrastructural improvements, and constraints

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on peripheral commercial and retailing schemes remained committed to modernising the city centre (page 87). In contrast, SGCC supported an Urban Development Grant application with £2 million grant aid, constructed County Council offices within the site at a cost of £20 million, and was proactive in seeking planning permission and attracting developers. Here, Labour control of the County from 1981 and the prominence of Labour members from South Cardiff heightened concern for the most deprived area of the county; and SGCC's increasing involve­ment with economic development, and inward investment in particular (see below), fostered the belief that further heavy-industrial development in the area was inap­propriate given the long-term decline of British manufacturing and the early 1980s recession. Eventually agreement was achieved in 1983, when the Secretary of State for Wales extended the possibility of financial support for a mixed-use development, subject to the generation of active coalescence between public and private actors. In turn, CCC's autonomy was further constrained by WO control of compulsory-purchase orders, central government financial assistance, and planning powers, all of which would be fundamental to redevelopment.

These redevelopments identify several critical issues. First, the concept and operation of a 'spatial coalition' was indeed tied in a most specific way to particular places. Coalescence did not transfer unproblematically from the city-centre redevel­opment to the Bay area. Second, the changing functions of local, regional, and central state levels in the development of the city can be noted. Here, the experi­ence of postwar Wales as "the recipient of one of the most elaborate systems of regional state agencies in Britain" (Cooke, 1982, page 200), together with the separation of functions between local state levels, effectively dismembered formerly powerful local state organisations and undermined local state activity. Indeed, the history of regional state formation and local government restructuring has been associated with a profound abrogation of CCC influence. Local government has been portrayed as inadequate in the face of industrial restructuring, resulting in a decline in the legitimacy of local state intervention (page 196), and further chal­lenges to local state autonomy by centrally sponsored agencies such as the Welsh Development Agency (WDA), CBDC, and the Land Authority for Wales. In addition, the introduction of SGCC in 1974 further weakened CCC's status, particularly with regard to economic development activity. At this time an agreement between the two authorities assigned responsibility for infrastructural investment and inward investment promotion to SGCC, which thereby assumed a leading role in economic development activity, whereas CCC functions were restricted to indigenous small-business development and tourism promotion. Even in the city centre, the character and scale of CCC involvement has changed. As a planning officer commented: "Up to the mid-1980s the City Council had taken a leading role in development. The Cardiff International Arena was the last part of this, following pedestrianisation, shopping changes, etc. The private sector followed this. Now it is about managing what is there and enabling further private sector development."

The second characteristic, of nonradical or 'pragmatic' local politics, also has an extended history. As Daunton (1977) has illustrated in detail, the distinctive forms of labour-process and industrial-ownership patterns which dominated 19th-century Cardiff constrained local radicalism. Subsequently, industrial decline and the trans­formation of Cardiff into a dominant, public-service-based administrative centre, reinforced a 'moderate' local politics. Despite periodic conflicts over specific devel­opment issues and industrial closure, no sustained radicalism has emerged, and Labour has faced 'structural' weaknesses in local class composition and working class fragmentation (Evans, 1985; Thomas, 1989). Indeed, as the heart of Wales's

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bureaucracy, Cardiff witnessed the combination of rate-paying suburban lower-middle classes with the petty bourgeoisie of the central area to form a cogent force within local politics, which remains influential. In turn, postwar 'machine' labourism in Cardiff exhibited an overarching lack of "adventurousness" (Evans, 1985, page 86), expressed particularly with regard to local economic policy, and largely still evident despite an emergent 'green' agenda and a sporadic involvement with 'community' politics.

To summarise, briefly, these historical characteristics establish CCC's limited role in local economic development in the 1970s and early 1980s. As the spatial focus of redevelopment policy shifted, and infrastructure and inward investment emerged as principal areas of economic development activity, SGCC and CBDC became increasingly influential in local economic policy. In addition, the fragmentation of local government, and the absence of any radical commitment to local economic policy, further diluted CCC's function. Although this dilution should not be over­estimated—CCC has retained and developed important functions in aspects of city-centre redevelopment policy, tourism, and certain European initiatives, for example-local economic development has been dominated by other institutions. In turn, the reappearance of employment growth in the 1980s, particularly in financial services (Leyshon et al, 1989, page 224), retailing, public administration, and 'other services', was associated with an emergent growth politics based around a form of 'British growth coalition' (compare Cooke, 1988). Here a central government QUANGO (CBDC), in combination with SGCC as one part of local government, and with the support of the Secretary of State for Wales, sought to promulgate a vision of Cardiff as "one of Europe's premier cities" (Western Mail 1993a), with a population rising to 500000 and a redeveloped South Cardiff which represents "one of the great renewal projects of the post-war period" (Western Mail 1993b). Also, the local press has become euphoric with headlines such as "Capital aims for European top spot" and even "Jobs joy as Bay opens for business", though unemployment in the Butetown area of South Cardiff remains at 34.8%.

Strategy development The combination of these local characteristics with broader processes of state and local state restructuring has defined CCC's local economic strategy. In this context, I would argue, strategy making marked a CCC project, largely driven by broader restructuring processes, to construct 'capacity' in a new policy sphere. As such, strategy was associated with a developing involvement in, and concern with, economic development service provision in the early 1990s, and the construction of legitimacy around enhanced City Council activity. In the current section, therefore, I examine broader changes in central-local relations, local government structures, and urban and regional policy, in order to address the implications for Cardiff of more general restructuring.

First, section 35 of the 1989 Local Government and Housing Act, introduced a new statutory requirement for local authorities to develop a local economic 'plan'. From April 1991 CCC was obliged to report expenditure on economic development. However, though an annual plan satisfied the revised requirement, the production of an explicit economic development strategy sought to move away from the 'one-dimensional' character of annual statements, which essentially constituted a form of service plan, and to reflect the increasing profile of economic development activity within the Council. As a CCC officer suggested: "We have been publishing annual documents for some years. We don't see the strategy as fulfilling the role outlined in the act. They are separate in origin and separate in philosophy." In some senses, though, the notion of a more wide-ranging strategic framework coincides with the

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requirements of the revised legislation, and it seems clear that the widespread development of strategies nationally, as a result of new legislation, contributed towards an enhanced commitment to strategy in Cardiff.

More specifically, the strategy symbolised first the gradually increasing commit­ment of staff and other resources to strategy development directly and to the changing functions of CCC in economic development more generally. At this time CCC became involved in initial collaboration with SGCC, WDA, CBDC, and the Welsh Tourist Board to support marketing and tourism initiatives through the establish­ment of Cardiff Marketing Ltd in 1991, and separate partnership-based inward investment initiatives in financial services and information technology. Second, the strategy aimed, in the view of an economic development officer, to establish both a "corporate" document within the City Council, and, more broadly, a "strategy for the city". However, as we will see in further detail below, the substantive functions of legitimation and coalition construction around local economic strategy implied by these latter aims have not been fully established in Cardiff. In the forthright view of a City Council member, for example: "There is no doubt that a lot of people have thought that this strategy will disappear, and some people will have thought that maybe this is a good thing ... basically because for the past ten to twenty years the City Council has been sleepwalking."

This reflects the historical peripherality of CCC's economic development function. In addition to SGCC's established dominance in economic development, CCC activity received limited funding (never, for example, securing a capital budget), and its low profile within the Council structure constrained activities and restricted strategy development. The implications for local economic strategy were noted by a City Council officer:

"There was the issue that ... it's all very well doing a strategy, but if you're not going to deliver anything because you haven't got the resources then you are going to look a bit foolish in the first place. Even when we did it that was a worry and maybe it is even a worry now. I think particularly before two [additional] appointments [in economic development] were made it really was a very small function and it could have been laughable to have a strategy."

More broadly, historical patterns of institutional diversification and local state fragmentation, together with the restricted legitimacy of the local state in the face of regional problems, have constrained the strategic function. As we have seen, Cardiff's regional context has a direct impact on the legitimacy of local state intervention, and has been associated with rounds of regional state formation which remove City Council functions and erode the Council's authority in local economic planning.

Also, two eras of local government reorganisation have been critical to the changing institutional framework of the city, with direct consequences for CCC's economic development function. In 1974, reorganisation located economic development activity primarily at County level, which in turn challenged both the structure of coalescence in the city and the legitimacy of CCC involvement. Subsequently, the statutory and nonstatutory responsibilities of SGCC, particularly in the infrastructural develop­ment and inward investment areas that have dominated in the 1970s and 1980s, established the County's relative primacy. For example, the construction of the 'peripheral distributor road', to link South Cardiff with the M4 to the west and to the east, presented a 'necklace of opportunity' associated with eleven potential development sites and vastly improved communications to the Cardiff Bay area. Also, in inward investment, the attraction of a major overhaul facility for British Airways at Cardiff Wales airport, and the construction of offices for Tesco Stores Ltd in 1990, marked substantial County Council projects. To a large extent CCC activity

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has been hamstrung by this early agreement, the ramifications of which have become plain in the current period of reorganisation. Here, a complex and tense process running from 1991 to 1994 situated Wales in the vanguard of local government reform as the two-tier structure of 8 counties and 37 districts was eventually superceded by a single tier of 22 'most-purpose' authorities (Hambleton and Mills, 1993, pages 46-47). In turn, economic development has been identified by central government as a necessary function of new unitary authorities:

"At local level, economic development has become an important discretionary activity for both counties and districts and a similarly valuable role is envisaged for the new unitary authorities. Among their objectives will be to ensure that suitable infrastructure is in place to support industrial and commercial develop­ment. They will work with Training and Enterprise Councils to foster local enterprise and the provision of a full range of services to businesses and [to provide opportunities] in the fields of education and training ... Unitary author­ities will ... maximise the benefits to their communities from participation in European programmes, from tourism and inward investment; and ... work with central government and the relevant agencies in the development of strategies for the renewal of urban and rural areas of Wales" (WO, 1993, page 17). Clearly, such wide-ranging economic development responsibilities sit uneasily

with CCC's established function. Indeed CCC's strategy document (1992) recognises that the City Council "does not have a direct remit for the provision of infrastructure" (page 4), "is not involved in direct provision of training and education" (page 5), and is less extensively involved in securing European funding than SGCC (page 5). Consequently, the period leading up to reorganisation was marked by significant pressures within CCC to revise the scale of this involvement and the relationship with SGCC. In the words of a senior officer, for example: "The City Council wanted to disturb this relationship which had existed for fifteen years and which the members of the City Council had set up. Local government reorganisation brought this onto the agenda."

This situation was expressed particularly in strategy development. Indeed, the shift towards some form of strategic activity constituted a most significant departure given the scale of CCC involvement in economic development, its limited control over major functions, and the framework of 'competing' institutions in this policy area. In this way local economic strategy is predicated upon the anticipated expansion of CCC economic development activity into infrastructural development, inward invest­ment promotion, training initiatives, and small-business assistance following reorgani­sation, in addition to an already developing range of services associated with small businesses in Europe and community enterprise initiatives. The strategy approached this expansion directly. As an economic development officer noted: "When we thought in the first place about an economic development strategy we made a conscious decision not to exclude all those areas which the City Council had not been very active in, because it would not have been a strategy then ... we wanted to look more at what the city needed, because with a view towards the unitary authority situation, if we had an idea of what the city needed we might be in a position to have an influence over what was brought about by the whole of the new authority."

To some extent this view was paralleled by the manager of a development company heavily involved in recent city-centre investment: "If you look longer term the development corporation will not be there, and the single local authority, which will probably be CCC, will be running everything. In that sense CCC will have the ultimate responsibility for running the Bay. It is very difficult for the City Council not to become involved in local economic strategy. They have to have a view."

'Strategic' enabling? 847

The critical point is the link between the potential increase in the scale and scope of City Council involvement in economic development activity and the basis of legitimacy constructed around local economic strategy. Strategy development is driven by the increased involvement in service provision associated with unitary status. In turn this is supported by an initial limited increase of City Council resources, the heightened political salience of economic development within the council, and the anticipated establishment of a substantial function in the local economy.

This foundation for local economic strategy contrasts with the notion of strategic enabling instigated by central government and propagated by the WO:

"The White Paper 'Competing for Quality—Buying Better Quality Public Services' makes clear the Government's commitment to the further development of the enabling authority concept. The task of local authorities lies in identifying requirements, setting priorities, determining standards of service and finding the best way of ensuring these standards are met. This implies a move away from a model under which local authorities provide virtually all services directly, and assumes a clearer separation of service delivery activities from those of planning and strategic oversight" (1993, page 11).

In Cardiff, the position of the City Council in strategy development derives not from a withdrawal from service provision, but is established through a more wide-ranging and deeper involvement. In this sense the framework of expanding City Council activity is critical in constructing legitimacy around the strategy, while the strategy provides a foundation for increased City Council involvement. As such, local economic strategy development is central to the City Council's project to provide the base of a new unitary authority, or "to demonstrate a capacity to handle the responsibilities of a unitary authority" (Hambleton and Mills, 1993, page 47).

The third broad process driving CCC's local economic strategy relates to restruc­turing in British and European urban and regional policy (Valler, forthcoming). In the first instance, local economic strategy was seen as integral to the project to retain Assisted Area status, which was reviewed and partially removed as unem­ployment in the Cardiff travel-to-work area fell slightly below the national average in 1993. The partial loss of central government support in turn threatened the 'partnership' principle that decisions over European funding should be based on "close consultation between the [European] Commission, the member state and the competent authorities at national, regional and local level, with each party acting as a partner in pursuit of a common goal" (Audit Commission, 1991, page 2). Within this context the broader definition of CCC's local economic strategy reflected the scope of Objective 2 funding, which is dominated by infrastructural projects and training and educational initiatives, in parallel with the assertion that "... in the future development of [local economic] strategy and the setting of priorities it is clear that a consideration of the potential contribution which can be made by the Community's structural policies will be an essential ingredient" (Roberts et al, 1993, page 50). Though Objective 2 funding is accessible at the regional level, British experience informs a view of localities and local government as proactive in influ­encing the scope and scale of European regional policy support. In Cardiff, as a representative of the Standing Conference for Regional Policy in South Wales (SCRPSW) made clear, local economic strategies are increasingly important in the process of selecting projects for European support within the region:

"The monitoring committee goes through all bids and makes recommendations for European support. Essentially it is a competitive bidding situation. Increas­ingly, the project sponsors must show that it fits in with the local economic strategy, in terms of meeting specified objectives."

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Localities, and specifically the apparatus of local government, operate in a European institutional context. Given the broad exclusion of the private sector from accessing European funds and the relative weakness of regional organisation in Britain, the legitimacy of local government as a 'partner', as a source of expertise and resources, as the origin of programmes and local proactivity, as, in many ways, a 'service provider', has been fundamental. Consequently, in parallel with Cochrane's argument (1988, page 140; see above) the local economic strategies developed by local authorities assume a particular importance in European regional policy.

In summary, CCC's local economic strategy was crucially instigated and shaped by forces operating at national and international scales. This is not to negate the role of certain local social forms: at one level a shift to Labour control of CCC in 1992 strengthened the position of local economic strategy, and was associated with an increased commitment of financial, personnel, and political resources to economic development activity, though economic development never dominated local Labour Party policy or CCC activity. As a prominent City Councillor argued, the strategy never "captured the imagination of the Council" and though "Labour control partly explains the higher profile of economic development ... it wasn't one of the most prominent manifesto commitments". Second, here, the renewed salience of modernisation and growth in the 1980s focused the political agenda within the city and CCC. Indeed, as Thomas and Imrie (1993) note, the Atlantic Wharf develop­ment, in establishing a wholly new dialogue between CCC and a range of other actors over the future of South Cardiff and the Bay, signified the beginning of a revitalised local economic planning process, part of which undoubtedly found expression in the development of local economic strategy. However, the overall conclusion here highlights the causal significance of broader patterns of restructur­ing, which in combination with local conditions, defined a policy process predicated upon a broader engagement with service provision.

Within this context, CCC attempted to construct policy capacity in local economic development. As such, local economic strategy incorporated significant economic research, and extensive consultation and dissemination procedures. It reflected initial moves to expand CCC economic development activity from a limited base, and substantial anticipated growth following local government reorganisation. In addition local economic strategy performed political functions: in further establish­ing economic development activity within CCC; as an important theme in CCC's bid for unitary status; and in campaigning to retain regional policy support.

Thus, CCC's local economic strategy combines elements of 'market-oriented' and 'community-oriented' enabling. For example, City Council policy regarding the development and release of land, in city-centre management and in a wide range of lobbying procedures, indicate a modified market model within which public intervention adopts a facilitative and coordinating function. In addition, community-oriented activity was reflected in detailed research, in the establishment of new policy processes and networks (see below), and in campaigning. Unemployment, for example, was a central theme used to substantiate and legitimise enhanced City Council involvement. As the vice chair of CCC's Economic Development Committee commented: "We were anxious to use the strategy to tell people the truth about the local economy—to get them to make a commitment, frankly, to the people who vote for us. If you look at unemployment figures for 1980-90 you see things which shock you ... When we picked up the strategy we saw it as a tool—we did it with a conscious determination to turn it into something that would make people think."

'Strategic' enabling? 849

A further point here concerns the developing function of local government in civic leadership. As a CCC economic development officer argued, for example: "The City Council as a unitary authority is able to lead local economic strategy development". However, this automatic assumption of local authority power in 'determining community values' (Stewart, 1989, page 241) largely ignores the local political and institutional context within which CCC's local economic strategy developed. As we have seen, local state fragmentation and institutional restructur­ing restricted CCC policy capacity in economic development. Consequently, as I detail in the following section, the substantive functions of legitimation and coalition building implied in community-oriented enabling have not been fully developed around local economic strategy.

Private sector involvement The scope of private sector involvement also reflected wider restructuring. First, the combination of an initial postal opinion survey of 100 representatives of the 'business community', and subsequent interviews, open seminars, and first-draft consultation exercise, partially reflected the revised statutory context introduced in the 1989 Local Government and Housing Act. As an economic development officer suggested: "I think that because we had all the central government papers saying we should have a strategy, one of the reasons it came about was that pressure. Having had that, and having decided to do it properly it seemed that some degree of public consultation was necessary" (my emphasis).

However, given the autonomy which local authorities retain in organising this activity, it is the local, and particularly CCC's, interpretation of local economic strategy, that in many ways shapes the form of private sector incorporation. As such the notion of a 'proper' policy process in Cardiff encompasses a whole range of ideas, including, as we have seen, the incorporation of broader economic development functions and responsibilities, and, of particular concern here, the construction of legitimacy amongst private interests for City Council involvement.

A second theme concerns the notion of partnership in the European context. A CCC officer remarked, for example: "Clearly, companies that have moved in, and large indigenous companies, make their views known to the authority. There is a link between this and access to European money, because the Operational Programme starts in the locality. It is informed by views from the private sector. In this way the involvement of private sector firms in developing local economic strategy would feed into the process of gaining European funding." This reflects the continued stress on partnership and coordination which increasingly requires the "integration of actors and instruments involved in local economic development initiatives" (Roberts et al, 1993, page 51). In addition, as private sector views percolate through local economic strategies into the 'Operational Programmes' driving European bids, strategy development reflects a constraint on local auton­omy, in parallel with Keating's (1991, page 56) point that the development of the European Community (EC) and its increasing autonomy from national governments is creating new patterns of intergovernmental relationships. Also local state auton­omy from local private interests is further limited. Indeed, experience in Cardiff supports Peck and Tickell's (1993, page 24) point that "the construction of public-private partnerships ... is a pre-requisite for winning discretionary (and often competitively allocated) public expenditure projects, not only from Brussels, but also from Whitehall." However, there are senses here both in which private sector partners are being used by local states in attaining funds, and where "local author­ities now have to meet private aspirations to get anything done at all" (page 24).

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This, in turn, should not be overdrawn. The United Kingdom has, in general, been characterised by a much weaker framework of local corporatist links than many other European countries.

Last, the framework of local government reorganisation is critical. Here, the pattern of private sector involvement reflects the construction by CCC of legitimacy for City Council activity in a policy area where it had previously played a relatively limited role. Indeed, a Council member reinforced the view that the history of local economic development activity in Cardiff, its predominant location of outside of CCC, together with the City Council's position in local government reorganisation, prescribed a broad consultation process to build legitimacy:

"It was important from a political point of view that we did invite as many people as possible who make a contribution to the community to be involved."

In turn, it is clear that both the process of strategy development and the framework of private sector involvement were set by the City Council. An economic development officer, for example, outlined a consultation process seemingly dominated by the authority: "It was all coming from our side; we sent them the questionnaire, we followed up on the telephone, we did forty interviews, we ran a seminar—they talked, exchanged views—we published the first draft of the strategy, distributed it, received responses and ran a second seminar."

However, the project to establish legitimacy amongst private sector interests was constrained by CCC's historical peripherality in economic development activity. As the Chairman of Business in the Community Wales suggested: "I know the City Council want to do the strategy in depth, and they are sincere about it. But what you have to remember is that the city centre has been most highly developed. It has a natural energy as the centre of Wales, with retail and office development. There was less need for the City [Council] to act. South Glamorgan had to do things, especially with the Bay, which was an eyesore." Also, private sector represen­tatives noted the still limited commitment of City Council resources and personnel in economic development, its marginal functions in economic development service provision, and the low-key position of economic development within the Council structure.

In this context the City Council was concerned to increase the profile of local economic strategy in the 'business community'. However, as the manager of a large financial-services branch contended, the consultation exercise was seen as a marginal form of private sector involvement:

"Cardiff City Council are coming more onto the scene, but, to be honest, it is just talk at the moment. In a public meeting they asked 'what is wrong with Cardiff?' We all said that more should be done with the airport, deal with traffic and parking, find more factory space and the rest. At least they are asking the questions for the first time, but it is quite limited really." Broadly then, CCC's local economic strategy has not 'captured' the local political

arena. As the earlier discussion suggested, CCC's developing role in an emergent growth politics remains inhibited by established local political and institutional forms. In this sense the limited function of local government in coalition building around local economic policy is reflected in the form of local economic strategy.

However, within the limits of this strategic framework, local government has dominated the process of policymaking. Private sector interests were not directly implicated in instigating or directing the policy process. In turn, the process repre­sents the development of CCC's strategy, and consultation with private sector representatives reflects CCC's aim to justify a new departure in local public sector policymaking. Subsequently, private sector consultees noted that CCC "have to be

'Strategic' enabling? 851

seen to be talking to us", whereas private sector representatives "appear ... to be selectively modifying a largely pre-given agenda, then, by virtue of their presence, legitimating this to the outside world" (Peck and Tickell, 1993, page 26). This is not to deny the impact of private sector involvement, which revised a number of policy details and, more significantly, clarified the overall stance of the strategy with regard to Cardiff Bay, and issues of infrastructure, inward investment, image building, 'green versus manufacturing' growth, and unemployment. However, it substantially questions any simplistic notion of 'privatism', given the strong countervailing tradition in the United Kingdom of direct public sector involvement in local policymaking (compare Barnekov et al, 1989), and in a number of ways resonates with the position of CCC at a formative stage in the sphere of local economic planning.

Conclusion The process and function of strategy making acquire specific meanings in localities. This reflects the distinctive local interactions of broad processes of restructuring, which themselves differ between places, and the particular characteristics of localities. In important ways, therefore, the definition of local economic strategy, its meaning and political task, its content and form, its source in particular institutional and organisational structures, and its overall significance within the locality, will reflect both wider restructuring and local circumstances. As such it is only through a direct concern for the causal relations which produce specific forms of policymaking in localities, that we may approach a definition of local economic strategy.

In Cardiff, the City Council's local economic strategy sought to construct legiti­macy around a new departure in City Council activity. Here the capacity of CCC to define local economic strategy has been substantially constrained by its separation from large elements of economic development service provision. In this context, SGCC, CBDC, the WO, and the WDA have been primary actors, whereas CCC influence has been emasculated by a powerful regional state apparatus, and the arrival of centrally instigated QUANGOs. In many ways, therefore, the progression of local economic strategy marked an attempt to construct 'capacity' in a new policy sphere, largely influenced by patterns of restructuring taking place at broader levels. 'Capacity building' is thus referenced in the initial and anticipated expansion of CCC economic development activity, the more wide-ranging scope of strategy, and the pattern of private sector involvement.

Despite these shifts CCC remains, at least in the period before local government reorganisation, on the periphery of a public - quasi-private growth coalition that has dominated local economic development activity since the mid-1980s. Subsequently, CCC was unable to construct legitimacy around a local economic strategy for the city, or to establish local economic strategy as the focus of coalition politics. CCC thus exhibited limited capacity in local economic policy, and consultation partic­ularly with private sector representatives broadly reflects tactical manoeuvring by local government in the context of local state restructuring.

In this context urban regime theories (Elkin, 1985; 1987; Sanders and Stone, 1987) offer useful insights into the politics of local economic strategy. Here, in contrast to growth-machine models predicated upon the instrumentalist control of local government and a unitary interest in growth (Logan and Molotch, 1987; Molotch, 1976), regime theories direct attention to the political process. In partic­ular, the framework of coalition building amongst diverse interests and political agendas, and the temporary and conflictual nature of local policymaking are central themes. In turn local government devises and implements the policies of the prevailing coalition and negotiates with representatives of business, other levels of

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government, and local interests, and retains a degree of autonomy in performing legitimising functions. In Cardiff this finds a number of parallels: at one level the immobility of spatial coalescence and CCC's changing position in local economic development activity reflect the diversity of interests in, and conflicts around, 'growth', and the variable constitution of coalitions; and second, regime theories highlight the dominance of local government in the mechanics of local economic strategy making. Whereas growth-machine theories subordinate local government to private interests, and local corporatist models "may imply too tight a set of arrange­ments organised through ... rather formal public - private structures" (Cochrane, 1994, page 134), regime theories acknowledge local government functions in policy­making, particularly in the structural, political, and institutional context of the United Kingdom.

Last, at a more general level, British local authorities retain critical powers derived from the form of electoral legitimation (Duncan and Goodwin, 1982; 1988), and the scale of resources and knowledge built up over time:

"In Britain, local governments possess statutorily defined powers and substantial bureaucratic resources. Their policy capacity is further enhanced by territorial and functional integration and the presence of programmatic parties. Centralisa­tion of both economy and polity reduces direct dependence on business inter­ests, and there is a challenge to business definition of urban problems" (Keating, 1991, page 95).

Thus, governing capacity is defined within a complex environment comprising the formal structures and powers of local government, cultural and ideological assump­tions about the scope of government, the salience of territory in political discourse, the framework of central-local government relations, the scale of local service provi­sion and bureaucratisation, and the economic environment. Critically, however, as the Cardiff case illustrates, the capacity of local government to formulate, legitimise, and implement policy is, at least to some extent, constituted at the local level.

In Britain local government retains a dominant function in formulating local economic strategy. Indeed, recent expressions of central government policy seem to strengthen the position of local government. As George Young, Minister for Housing, Inner Cities and Construction suggested to the Association of Metropolitan Author­ities on 22 September 1993: "I regard local authorities as uniquely well placed to lead and encourage regeneration ... I believe that the changing role of authorities does open up opportunities for them to take a more strategic view of the needs and priorities of their area ... the enabling role means taking on responsibility for looking to the future, working with others to map out a strategy for an area's development." Plainly, British experience of local economic policy formation mili­tates against US-inspired models of business-interest dominated growth coalitions within which the local authority is conceived as "an instrument for furthering corporate profits" (Cooke, 1988). As such, local policymaking is not "wholly ensnared by the profit motive", but subject to a wider range of political and professional interests, thereby introducing broader questions of distribution and social justice.

However, as Urry (1990, pages 188-189) notes, the notion that local author­ities, as democratically elected local institutions, somehow 'best' represent the 'interests' of the locality, whereas private sector organisations are unrepresentative and direct central government involvement is inefficient and undemocratic, is predi­cated upon a rather simplistic conceptualisation of 'locality' or the 'local'. The 'interest' of the city is a reification: localities incorporate diverse social interests and groups differentially dependent on, or indeed, independent from, local economic performance (Clavel, 1986). More broadly, and in the light of an underlying

'Strategic' enabling? 853

economic determinism associated with concepts of 'dependence', social interests are expressed with reference to a wide range of issues, including, for example, concerns over the environment and conservation, and relations of race, gender, and age. Diverse interests possess different levels of resources and influence, and may operate in their individual interests or with ostensibly altruistic motives. However, this is not to suggest that common interests cannot exist. Rather, cities may represent political communities in which common interests coexist with ongoing internal differences, as political constructions in specific conditions.

In this context local economic strategy may, in particular local circumstances, be one way of generating common interests within the civic arena, which in turn operate to sustain local government. Similarly, local government may make a critical contribution in establishing a degree of consensus around local policy (see Valler, forthcoming). Though this is not to disregard the politics of coalition building, it highlights the particular characteristics of economic development policy in seeking to generate stability and continuity and promulgating commonality. In Britain, localities possess important powers of government, and local authorities, as well as continuing to perform a substantial executant role with associated control and skills in service provision, have political legitimacy. Although such legitimacy is unevenly developed across policy areas and between localities, local governments are inescap­ably involved in local economies not least because of their responsibilities for land use. In turn, business interests are well aware of the lineaments of local government involvement. As a result, therefore, whereas local state control of the local econ­omy is impractical, and simplistic formulations of private market solutions are unrealistic, local government leadership of local economic policy marks a critical, and unevenly developed, element in the construction of public interest in an arena characterised by equality stemming from citizenship, rather than inequality derived from property ownership. In this way local government in Britain retains a critical influence over the form and function of local economic strategy.

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