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Arches of Discontent: The product vs feature problem of infrastructural residual space

Author

Listed:
  • Barua, Srijon

    (Temple University Japan Campus)

  • OSF, Anonymous

Abstract

In February 2019, Network Rail sold 5,261 railway arches to a Blackstone-led consortium for £1.46 billion, terminating the security of several thousand micro-enterprises, migrant traders, and arts producers. This article reads the transaction as a clarifying case of the asset-manager phase of rentier capitalism, in which publicly produced infrastructural value is converted into a securitized income stream through administrative decisions whose technical surface obscures their distributional content. Drawing on documentary analysis, site survey, and stakeholder interviews across London, Zurich, Kyoto, and Dhaka, the article identifies four institutional instruments through which infrastructural residual space is converted from feature of the urban commons to product extracted from it: discount rate methodology, rent-uplift trajectory, head-lease cascade, and statutory carve-out from security of tenure. Each of these instruments has a counterpart in regimes that produce different outcomes asking the question-what happens when infrastructure ends but the space remains? Commodity, or feature for community?

Suggested Citation

  • Barua, Srijon & OSF, Anonymous, 2026. "Arches of Discontent: The product vs feature problem of infrastructural residual space," SocArXiv n9cyv_v1, Center for Open Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:osf:socarx:n9cyv_v1
    DOI: 10.31235/osf.io/n9cyv_v1
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Michael Pryke & John Allen, 2019. "Financialising urban water infrastructure: Extracting local value, distributing value globally," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 56(7), pages 1326-1346, May.
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