Strategies of responsibilization: development contributions and the political role of property developers

Deliberations over property development are so often typified by caricatures of the process, its actors and outcomes. The development process is generally portrayed as a ‘development game’ with planners and developers occupying opposing position. Drawing upon an examination with the engagement of property developers with development contributions in the London Borough of Southwark, this paper draws attention to the practices of these actors, by addressing how they assume responsibility for mitigating the impacts of their developments. By exploring property developers’ understandings of, attitudes towards, and interactions with development contributions, this paper examines how private property developers respond to and reflect upon this mode of state intervention. This paper argues that the attitudes and actions of property developers are neither technical or value free, but shaped by partialities that necessitate the conceptualization of the political role of property developers. It further contends that whilst developers inevitably conceptualize development contributions as financial costs, they ascribe a wider set of values to these contributions, as they mobilize these contributions to serve their own interest, often revolving around the building of reputational capital. This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Urban Geography on 04/11/2019, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/02723638.2019.1677989.