Just found this essay from 2006/7 - it's a nice insight into the weird contortions that occur when government encourages large corporations to have a go at policy, and will do as a blog entry while I try and remember how to write. My personal favourite is the "clone town britain by design" plan - see below. If I was writing it today, I'd probably put more emphasis on who wrote the most stunningly obtuse lines - since it's easy to read this stuff as the Voice of Capitalism rather than someone in a quango with an Open All Hours mentality. (One line I haven't used here, from the same report: among the benefits of luring Tesco into your regeneration area include offering unemployed locals 'the dignity that comes with work'. Clearly, the writer had never worked in a supermarket. I lasted two weeks.) But it's right to wonder - why on Earth would governments get so swoony over Tesco et al that they let them do this stuff?

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In New York, only a day after the towers fell, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani counselled his trembling constituents to 'show you're not afraid. Go to restaurants. Go shopping.' When the world's people asked how they could help, he said, 'Come here and spend money.' Shopping became a patriotic duty. Buy that flat screen TV, our leaders commanded, or the terrorists have won." [Levine 2005[1]]

Tackling social exclusion is the new main task for retail planning policy-to provide access to shopping for all." [Nick Raynsford, Planning Minister 1999 to 2001, speech to British Council, quoted in Wrigley et al 2002 p.2110]

Introduction

Business in the Community (hereafter BitC) is a Department of Trade and Industry funded QUANGO, with charitable status. According to its website, it "inspires, engages, supports and challenges companies to continually improve the impact they have on society."[2] In 2002 and 2005, they produced research to support a project called 'business investment in underserved markets.' This essay presents some of the key assumptions of this research. The aim here is not to examine the empirical accuracy of the research's claims - that topic is far too big to shoe-horn in here. Instead, I want to illustrate just how far UK governance has moved towards embracing a consumerist view of social progress. The research has very idiosyncratic blindspots and emphases that provide a sometimes startling insight into what happens when government policy and corporate thinking come together. Four 'transformational' pilot projects have been identified, based on the recommendations of this BitC work. Again, I haven't covered the results here; but it is worth noting that BitC do have the government backing needed to attempt their version of regeneration, at least on a small scale.

Business in the Community and 'underserved markets'

BitC published two reports that I will use. The first, 'Business investment in under-served markets: an opportunity for businesses and communities?', from 2002, was an initial research document for the Dti. The later 'Underserved markets: preliminary findings', from 2005, is a much more glossy affair.[3] The latter document was sponsored and steered by big-brand names like Tesco, Next, Ikea, B&Q and Lloyds TSB, as well the (now mothballed) Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. Other less-well known companies are involved too, such as Liberty International, a UK FTSE 100 listed property company, with shareholders' funds of £3.25 billion and property investments of over £5.3 billion, of which shopping centres amount to over 80 per cent. One of the company's arms is Capital Shopping Centres, the leading company in the UK regional shopping centre industry.

The market research company, Experian, provided pro bono analysis for the project. It was Experian's job to show "where residents are currently under-served by retail, where there are new markets to access and commercial opportunities on which to capitalise." [BitC 2005 p.2] They did this by looking at current retail provision, spending and predicted growth across the 88 'most deprived' local authorities in England. Experian's data is more detailed than the government's. They can identify very small pockets of wealth within 'under-served markets' - pockets that could make the difference for a retailer deciding to invest. They also have a system that combines 400 sets of data. This enables them to come up with a much finer-grained version of the government's own Index of Multiple Deprivation.

The one major blindspot in the research is apparent very quickly. The whole purpose of the project is to attract inward investment from large retail companies. The question of how this is likely to help those in the most deprived wards is simply not asked. I will return to this point.

The first and most vital step in attracting companies is to redefine 'deprived wards' as 'under-served markets'. Dropping the 'deprived' tag is necessary, the project says, because "such labels can deter investment by encouraging a 'no-go ' perception of areas. By using positive and commercially recognisable terms, such as 'under-served ', we can assist in countering adverse perceptions and encouraging investment." [BitC 2005 p.9] This means portraying these communities "as places of opportunity where the people are not disadvantaged but under- served." [BitC 2005 p2]This will enable 'retail-led regeneration'. The question isn't whether large chains stores will benefit the community - that's taken as read - but how to get them to invest.

The original inspiration for the project came from the US; a case study from Harlem in New York is used as its starting point. As BitC say, "the area was effectively a 'no-go ' for national brand retailers, with no sizeable shopping centre resulting in a restrictive range of available products." It is claimed that a high proportion of retail spending "leaked to the better served areas of Manhattan" - that is, shoppers wanting big brand names went elsewhere, taking their money out of the area. The way to solve this was, of course, to get those big names to move in. If done, it was claimed that "a higher proportion of retail spending could be retained within the local community" - and new money would come in from shoppers outside the area. So the work began - to 'create an economic environment on 125th Street acceptable to national chains'. In the next few years, a bank moved in, followed by a total of 350,000 square feet of shopping mall. More has since been built.[BitC 2005 pp.6]

The problem of poverty equals...

Experian's bro bono geo-statistical work underpins the whole 'under-served markets' project. Goss criticises the whole field of geodemographics as "a problematic conception of social identity as a coherent and relatively stable lifestyle project organised around a particular mode of consumption... The statistical and stereotypical fictions of segmentation belie the contingent, fragmentary process of contemporary identity formation, or rather they present a normative alternative, a model of consumer identity consistent with the productivist organisation of the social relations of consumption." [Goss 2003, p212] Groups of people are 'instrumentalised'. The specific technique I imagine he is criticising is principal components analysis: a method that can take a large number of variables and produce 'components' of correlations. These are turned into categories of people, such as the ones Experian use in the research discussed here. This kind of critique is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Geodemographics is, for example, the only way any left-leaning government would be able to know where to direct resources. Yes, it will be a simplification: that's OK. The disturbing aspect of the 'underserverd markets' approach isn't the use of geo-demographics per se, but rather the eerie presentation of a syllogism with the middle missing. One: we can re-frame the problem of poverty as a problem of access to the consumerist lifestyle; two.... ; three: therefore shopping can regenerate 'underserved' (deprived) areas.

Four examples serve to illustrate this point.

The earlier BitC research - a less glossy report not designed for public consumption - contains quite a few remarks any Corporate Communications officer would have filtered out. In coming up with selling points for why poor areas might be good for business, it notes that research shows inner-city inhabitants are "generally more brand-conscious, and will outspend other consumers on clothing and electronic items whatever their income." [BitC 2002 p8, my emphasis.] It also tells of a project in Atlanta similar to Harlem. It kept its local culture as the big brands came in. How? "The host community is reflected in the restaurants of TGI Fridays and in Starbucks coffee shops through incorporation of culturally relevant décor."[BitC 2002 p.6]

The final examples are two quantitative methods that Experian used to support the project. The first, Goad, is:

the most comprehensive and consistent source of retail floorspace information. The first stage is to identify which 'benchmark ' towns have similar numbers and types of shopper to a particular centre. It is then possible to compare the coverage of retail fascia and discover the absentees, and also which have a smaller presence than the same stores in the benchmark centres. For example, Oldham is the largest town in Britain without a Marks & Spencer, but it also has no Blockbuster, Clarks or Wilkinson, all retailers expected to be present in a town of similar size and with similar demographics. [BitC 2005 p15.]

This is a piece of analysis that any supporter of the 'Ghost Town Britain'[4] hypothesis would find horrifying. Not only is the UK losing the fabric of its local economies to faceless chain stores, government supported research even has a method for rolling it out as regeneration policy.

Lastly, Mosaic is Experian's geodemographics system. It:

... classifies consumers into distinct lifestyle types which describe their socio-economic and socio-cultural behaviour. In the case of Walthamstow, Mosaic shows a population of typically large young families living in houses, most of which are mortgaged. The local economy is 'deprived' but flourishing… The majority of the population place a high value on hard work, on providing for their families and on creating a comfortable and warm family home. The group represents an excellent market for fashion products, hair care, fitness centres and cosmetics, for consumer durables and for children 's clothes and toys. Many spend heavily on takeaway foods and on videos.

All these examples paint a slightly surreal picture of retail dressing up in the clothes of regeneration. They are a very uncomfortable fit. How is encouraging people at the lowest end of society to buy more branded goods - knowing that they will spend, whatever their income - going to help them? It isn't. How is BitC's claim that all towns should have the same number and type of main stores justified? It isn't. It may be their idea of utopia, but there's no evidence for its regeneration benefits. Does 'culturally relevant décor' in your local Starbucks equal local culture? Of course not. The last example is perhaps the most telling: this area, despite being 'underserved', can afford the list of goods. Nowhere does the research ask: how will the most vulnerable 'under-served' people benefit? What about those who can't afford to shop in big brand stores?What about those who lack mobility? The assumption is similar to that shared by the World Bank and the IMF: economic growth of any sort equals 'poverty-reducing growth' by definition. Besides, can it really be the case that major retailers, having previously done their analysis and found where profit can be made, are now going to be swayed by 're-packaging' deprived areas? The track record of the World Bank's attempts to transform 'developing countries' in order to make them attractive to inward investment - exactly the same philosophy - does not bode well.

Wheelen et al argue that such arguments are "arguably naive and rather overprecious." They quote Huw Williams, former planning manager for Sainsbury's and now director of the Town Planning Consultancy, regarding supermarkets. The same philosophy could be applied to BitC's underserved markets work:

If you go and visit the local district centre, which might be falling apart at the seams, a new store with all the bells and whistles is exactly what is required. My criticism is that those people get a little bit precious about these district centres where really development is the only option. When big retailers like Asda or Safeway say that they would like to locate in a run-down area, they shouldn't be turned away because they don't conform with our expectations of what shopping should be about … Isn't the prospect of a multimillion pound investment, with the prospect of local employment and training, as good a way as any to kick-start regeneration? [Huw Williams, Quoted in Wheelen et al 2002]

BitC are not making a claim that their work can solve all the problems of an area - but might it 'kick-start regeneration', as Williams suggests?This is actually an empirical question, and one I can't answer here. But the penetration of regeneration policy with such a peculiar brand of market research demonstrates the depth of consumerism's hold on society. Long before the spectacle of US and UK leaders telling us that it was our patriotic duty to shop our way through the trauma of September 11^th, Bauman argued:

For the consumer system, a spending-happy consumer is a necessity; for the individual consumer, spending is a duty - perhaps the most important of duties.There is a pressure to spend: on the social level, the pressure of symbolic rivalry, of self-building through the acquisition of distinction and difference, of the search for social approval through life-style and symbolic membership; on the systemic level, the pressure of merchandising companies, big and small, who between them monopolise the definition of the good life, the needs whose satisfaction the good life requires and the ways of satisfying them. [Bauman p.76-77]

I don't want to over-emphasise the impact of this research: it is one pilot among a vast and diverse regeneration sector in the UK. But it does vindicate Bauman's point: the 'underserved markets' research attempts to monopolise a definition of the good life, and sell it as a way out for the poorest in our society. This is an unsurprising result of asking retail giants to come up with regeneration policy. The surprise is that the current government has so enthusiastically funded and endorsed it.

What of the hole in the syllogism? Lex and Gordon quote someone from an unemployed family in the 80s: "The children can't understand why they never have a holiday. They can't understand why they don't get new clothes like their friends do."[Lex & Gordon 1990 p.282] In marked contrast to unemployment in the 30s, poverty from the 80s onward is an isolating experience - and one that every facet of consumer society presents daily. As Bauman says:

In a society organised around consumer freedom everybody is defined by his or her consumption. Insiders are wholesome persons because they exercise their market freedom. Outsiders are nothing else but flawed consumers. They may claim compassion, but they have nothing to boast about and no title to respect; after all, they failed where so many others succeeded, and they must still prove that cruel fate, rather than their corrupt character, bears responsibility for the failure. [Bauman p.92]

Bauman hits the nail on the head here: to redefine people as 'underserved markets' is precisely to condemn them as flawed consumers. Everyone is a shopper -it's just some can't shop yet. Underserved starts to look like undeserving.

Conclusion

One of the potential benefits the project claims it will bring the public sector is "greater partnership with the private sector in order to address issues of social exclusion and multiple deprivation." A cynical person might respond, "this being the same private sector who built all the out of town stores that decimated our town and district centres in the first place?" As Wheelen et al note, there is a remarkable correlation between the retail sector's sudden interest in inner-city regeneration and their inability to continue to build out-of-town.[Wheelen et al p.2105.] There is an argument that this represents a vindication of government policy: legislate to direct market forces towards beneficial ends. This looks worryingly like having a tiger by the tail. To finish with another animal metaphor, might the underserved markets research suggest Business in the Community translates as 'fox in the henhouse?'

Refs

Bauman, Z., (1988)

Freedom

Milton Keynes, Open University Press

Business in the Community

Business investment in under-served markets: an opportunity for businesses and communities?

Business in the Community 2002

Business in the Community

Underserved markets: preliminary research findings

Business in the Community 2005

Goss, J., 'we know where you are and we know where you live: the instrumental rationality of geodemographic systems' , in Clarke, D.B., Doel, M.A., Housiaux, K.M.L., (2003), p.211-216

The Consumption Reader

London, Routledge

Lex & Gordon, ' Down the Road: Unemployment & the Fight for the Right to Work' ,quoted in quoted in Burnett, J. (1990)

The Nature of Unemployment 1790 to 1990

London, Routledge

Wrigley, N., Guy, C., Lowe, M., (2002)

Urban Regeneration, Social Inclusion and Large Store Development: The Seacroft Development in Context

Urban Studies, Vol. 39, No. 11, p.2101-2114