Looking Back on the Space of a Boom: (Re)developing Spatial Matrices in the City of London

Abstract

This paper is focused on the (re)development of the global financial space of the City of London during the mid-1980s. Although the financing of this process is the chief concern, the influence of the social space through which this funding was taking place is not ignored. Therefore, an interpretation is provided of, first, the ways in which a range of economic agents within a ‘structure of building provision’ interact with given sets of spatial practices to capitalise an established social space. And, second, the way in which these agents then realign to develop around newly emerging sociospatial relations is examined. The underlying influence of changes in the wider economic ‘setting’ of these agents is highlighted, with particular reference to how their economic calculations are mapped onto social space and the overall consequences of these processes.