Reshaping London's economic governance: the role of the London Development Agency

The shift towards network forms of urban and regional governance operating in a multi-level manner across different spatial scales and sectors is now well observed. For London, the system of network governance that developed from the 1980s appeared poorly positioned to respond to the particular challenges faced by world cities of retaining international competitiveness and dealing with increased social polarization. The restoration of pan-London strategic governance in 2000 initiated a phase of intense evolution in economic governance as the result of the creation of a Mayor and associated agency, the London Development Agency (LDA), to take the lead role for economic development and regeneration activity in the capital. This article analyses the emerging governance arrangements within London to illustrate the evolutionary and path-dependent nature of change through the interaction of national political and constitutional contexts, local conditions and wider processes of global change. The article argues that the potential of reinvigorated city-level economic governance within London is heavily constrained by the manner in which power was devolved by the central state. In its attempts to provide a strategic, lead role for London's economic development, the Mayor and the LDA must operate within a network governance system characterized by strong central control and a reliance on a complex array of partners operating across scales and sectors to deliver its economic strategy.