ESRC Seminar Series:

Entrepreneurship in Homes and Neighbourhoods

Glasgow, Scottish Universities Insight Institute
January 23rd and 24th 2014
The (re)appropriation of enterprise and urban entrepreneurialism
Alan Southern and Geoff Whittam
Abstract
Neo-liberal perspectives heavily influence the language and outcomes from the
enterprise and entrepreneurship agenda. While in recent years there has been a
challenge to the market-driven functionalist approach to understanding
enterprise, particularly from the Scandinavian School who prioritise narrative and
meaning, the primacy attached to enterprise has remained essentially neo-liberal.
This, as we argue, has been accepted by the Left and the Right; both sets of
views coalesce around the characteristics of enterprise with for example, profit
seeking and exploitation referring to the same sets of activity although from a
different perspective. In this paper we attempt to develop an argument for the
reappropriation of enterprise, entrepreneurship and place.

This paper is a work in progress and apologies for any inaccuracies or typos.
For comments on this paper please contact either author, details shown below.

Alan Southern is at the University of Liverpool and can be contacted at:

alan.southern@liverpool.ac.uk
Geoff Whittham is at the Glasgow Caledonian University and can be contacted
at: Geoffrey.Whittam@gcu.ac.uk

1. Introduction
In this paper we argue for the reappropriation of the language and actions about
enterprise and entrepreneurship. Most of the debate about enterprise today is
informed by a neoliberal agenda that along with demonising the public sector,
uses a particular vocabulary to explain the economy (Massey, 2013) and
entrepreneurship has become encapsulated by this. For example, in a speech in
2010 Rupert Murdoch outlined how free enterprise is all about hard-working
individuals, who want to make their way in the world, and help themselves and
their families and their society (Murdoch, 2010, p.5) adding how it is taxation and
the actions of the state that destroys opportunity. This is illustrative of a
dominant ideology at play, how the term free is used to show a natural order of
the market built around free enterprise. In this sense free as a verb rather than
adjective, free from the chains of the public sector, and free from the debilitating
effects of the state. Yet in inner urban communities enterprise is anything but
free.
Enterprise and entrepreneurial behaviour takes place in context of the end of
mass industrialisation and latterly, the austerity-driven threat to large scale
consumerism that has manifest severely in the developed world. We see this
from the rustbelt of the USA, Detroit in particular, to the northern towns and cities
of the UK. If this is free enterprise then we should question the role of
entrepreneurship if it is designed to exploit in the creation and use of surplus.
Even under the previous Labour administration an estimated 1.3 million
manufacturing jobs were lost and as new jobs were created in the boom years it
is estimated by the ONS that 81% of all new jobs were filled by non UK born
workers. A downward pressure on wages continued despite the introduction of a
national minimum wage (NMW), with particular pressures felt on those who were
just above the NMW, meaning that the social programmes of the last Labour
government were so important.
These structural pressures were not a push factor into entrepreneurship but a
push factor into poverty and reactionary politics. Under these circumstances
while enterprising behaviours and activities could well be a form of resistance to
poverty, generally entrepreneurship was part of the problem; too few academics

have considered whether the policy push for entrepreneurship in low income
inner urban communities was actually reinforcing poverty, inequity and jobs
imbalance.
We try and show here how the accepted narrative of enterprise and
entrepreneurship has succeeded in debilitating community enablers and has thus
contributed to the destruction of inner urban neighbourhoods. We use this paper
to challenge the perspective that says enterprise is an apolitical and acultural
phenomenon that is good for all and we argue here that the reappropriation of
enterprise, entrepreneurship and place is a project ripe for pursuit. This is indeed
difficult to argue because it is about putting forward an alternative framework to
understanding enterprise and entrepreneurship by implying that we have all, to
some degree, been taken in by a neoliberal ideology that many of us may or may
not agree with. Yet the political economy is not in stasis and some would argue it
is in crisis and unfortunately entrepreneurship research is often undertaken
without recourse to this dynamic, without acknowledgement that it
(entrepreneurship) is shaped by ideological beliefs.
In the first part of this paper we argue that enterprise and entrepreneurship has
been appropriated by a neoliberal agenda. We do not believe that this is a
metanarrative able to explain all and we do feel it can be challenged. Although
we state that contemporary views on enterprise have remained essentially
neoliberal and that this limits our understanding of enterprise and therefore
access to enterprise. We then suggest that the work on urban
entrepreneurialism, inspired by Harvey (1989) also plays into the neoliberal
agenda in the way that the term and meaning of entrepreneurial and enterprising
is understood and deployed, although we concur that attempts to reconfigure
neighbourhood as a neoliberal space have been underway for some time. Finally
we draw on two examples, one in Glasgow and one in Liverpool to demonstrate
the resilience, resistance and political vision that accompanies enterprise and
entrepreneurship in urban communities. Examples such as these are not
uncommon, although as we seek to explain, it is the accompanying theoretical
argument that can help us situate entrepreneurship in urban neighborhoods in
ways that can enable the use of the terms in a more productive manner.

2. The appropriation of enterprise and entrepreneurship

A particular language about enterprise and entrepreneurialism exists. This has
been shaped by and helps to shape the outcomes of enterprise policy and in a
general sense has influenced academic research into entrepreneurialism. When
a language is formed around a particular phenomenon it can have the affect of
acting as a barrier to other forms of explanation and understanding and can close
off alternative discourses. In this section of the paper we seek to demonstrate
how the way we talk about entrepreneurialism, and the way enterprise policy is
directed has been appropriated by a neoliberal language and that this is not
beneficial to entrepreneurs or for inner urban communities. If we are to
understand entrepreneurialism and enterprise as a means by which wider society
is to be served then we must consider alternative ways in which this
phenomenon can be discussed, can be shaped and how it might be aligned with
other (theoretical) positions that would counter neoliberalism.
2.1 Contemporary views on enterprise have remained essentially neoliberal
The contemporary importance attached to enterprise has remained essentially
neoliberal. In the UK the fixation with entrepreneurship has developed well
beyond that envisaged by the Bolton Report (see Stanworth and Gray, 1991) and
has coincided with levels of industrial restructuring in urban areas that led to
much theoretical posturing about post industrialisation and the new economy.
Inner urban communities and neighbourhoods are the site of social reproduction
and because of this they become at the same time essential and a threat to the
workings of global capitalism. The recognition of entrepreneurial behaviour in
these communities is important because the dynamics at play in the social
reproduction of the system require entrepreneurialism and enterprise; it is here
that decisions can be made about how wealth can be produced although there is
little influence in the decisions about how wealth can be distributed. Yet as the
small business sector came to be regarded as more important their situatedness
(that is, how we understood their reinvigorated role in society) was accounted for
primarily through the ideas emanating from those such as the New Right in the
UK and the neo-Conservatives in the USA. In essence, the social function of

entrepreneurialism was explained with a strong free market focus serving to

marginalise many of the long standing debates about economic order that had
previously been written and debated (cf. Belloc, 2004; Chesterton, 2002; Polanyi,
2001; Polanyi, Arensberg and Pearson, 1957).
This is not to suggest that entrepreneurialism and enterprise had been viewed
that much differently by reformists such as Belloc or Chesterton. While Harvey
(2005) from a Marxist perspective explained how enterprise became associated
with the language of freedom by those free market advocates such as Hayek.
Because of this the role of small business in society simply came to be assumed
as part of a particular way of thinking. And related, it has become more difficult
to counter the ideology of neoliberalism that has emerged in recent decades and
this has become an important part of the policy and techniques that national
governments have pursued. Equally demanding, has been any challenge to the
notion that entrepreneurship should be understood in ways other than through
neoliberal constructs and the significance given to the workings of the market
over and above the importance attached to for instance, the state has become
part of the neoliberal belief. While this contains a particular logic, giving one
perspective on the shift experienced from Fordist industrialisation and the retreat
from demand-led economics and consensual politics (although at least two of
these have predominantly been Western and wealthy nation experiences), it
tends to categorise the public sector as bureaucratic and working in opposition to
the interests of ordinary people, while inflating the role of the private sector. This
is one reason why neoliberalism is a contested theory and it is vitally important
for its continuous review so we can help to situate and understand
entrepreneurship and enterprise and their contemporary effects on society.
Gamble (2006) warns of the dangers in seeing neoliberalism manifest in
everything and everywhere so we should emphasize that because it is a process
and it is not a permanent state of affairs; neoliberalism is never preordained and
is not something that can claim total victory (Peck, 2013). It is important
therefore not to elevate neoliberalism into an essentialist metanarrative and to
understand that its meanings should always be evaluated and challenged. We
return to this point specifically in relation to enterprise, but for now it is useful to
unravel further the relevance of neoliberalism to our argument about markets and

the economy.
Massey (2013) has outlined what she calls the vocabularies of the economy and
how this has become integral to the establishment of a neoliberal hegemony.
She draws on Gramscis ideas on hegemony and Foucault on discourse, and
importantly from Althusser on the notion of ideology and interpellation. Massey
claims that the dominant vocabularies of the economy have worked to reclassify
the identities and relationships of people, places and institutions. In this
explanation the language we use to talk about the economy can be presented as
a description of the natural and the eternal (Massey, 2013, p.12), and by
interpellation acts as the basis of an ideology that functions in a way to recruit
belief (Althusser, 1970), while it is in fact a political construction that needs
contesting (Massey, 2013, p.12). This is how enterprise and freedom become
allied and we can identify how entrepreneurship as a means by which
interpellation takes place as one component part of neoliberal ideology. As a
result entrepreneurs, those involved in creating, implementing and managing
enterprise policy and the wider academic research community will - in a general
sense - accept the values associated with the social function of
entrepreneurialism. We tend to accept the market-led explanation of enterprise
as the debate about the traits and behaviours of entrepreneurs tend to
demonstrate (see Gartner, 1989). This social function is reinforced through
neoliberal ideology where vocabularies of the market economy aggrandize
entrepreneurship and enterprise and give the meaning of these terms a heroic
status.
Drawing on Polanyi, Peck (2013, p.144) suggests that
the neoliberal worldview rests on the fundamentally mistaken
understanding that it is possible somehow to liberate markets from
their various institutional moorings and social entanglements, to
disembed and purify social life as (if) a projection of utilitarian
rationality
This is an argument for recognising how there exists a deviation between

neoliberal theory and what happens in practice and that markets are part of the
socially embedded character of the contemporary economy. As we point out
below, we see an increasing number of academic researchers in the field of
entrepreneurship drawing out the socially embedded nature of enterprise
although this is not an explicit critique of the values associated with neoliberal
entrepreneurialism. This is why the classic analyses that allow us to consider
non-market economies (see for example, Pearson, 1957) and the more
contemporary writing on alternative economies (despite claims of voodoo
economics by neoliberals) are useful as they help us to understand the dynamic
of state and market. As Mazzucato (2013) in her dialogue with John Kay argues
the market has never been free and always contains hierarchical relationships
meaning what is often referred to as the force of the market is actually a
representation of power structures in markets. If we crudely use Keynes
momentarily, we can describe enterprise as a process that involves the
forecasting of wealth creation over the lifetime of using an asset and ideally, the
financial structure should assist enterprise. Yet according to Minsky (1992) when
financial speculation occurs the performance of the market falters and this draws
attention to the power relations between types of enterprise. And this draws out
the difference between what Mazzucato (2013) refers to as Schumpeterian
profits and Ricardian rents, implying that market economies can be structured in
a way that are actually anti-enterprise and anti-small business because they
reinforce existing power structures. This is as Massey (2013) argues, a politicaleconomic construct.
2.2 The limits to understanding enterprise in this way
Our point then is that while contemporary views on entrepreneurship remain
essentially neoliberal then it limits our understanding of enterprise. This in turn
prevent a reappropriation of language and practice around enterprise in inner
urban communities, negates the role of collective organisation and therefore
restricts ideas about what potential entrepreneurship might have to address
fundamental problems that often exist within urban areas, particularly those faced
by low income communities and in those places where deprivation is used as
part of a normative description of place (see Southern, 2011).

We see however, how recent attention paid by academics to entrepreneurship

has thrown down a challenge to the dominance of neoliberalism understanding.
In the main this has not been explicit although theoretically, the use of narrative
and discourse analysis has challenged the market centric explanation of
enterprise that accords with a particular neoliberal (and political) logic. This
approach also deviates from the often agitated definition problem and those who
would advocate characteristics of entrepreneurs as critical as opposed to those
who would suggest it is was entrepreneurs do that is significant. Researchers in
this field of discursive analysis argue against economic reductionism and tend to
reject the analysis of entrepreneurial behaviour that gives rise to the heroic
discourse often to be found. Bjerke and Rm (2011) explain enterprising
behaviour as an activity that recognises how human action in timely places
constitutes different expressions of the concept (p.48) and while less critical but
equally as challenging to the heroism of the entrepreneur Anderson and Warren
(2011, p.605) talk about the way discourse locates entrepreneurs in a particular
entrepreneurial trajectory and the need to re-present enterprising behaviours in
different ways.
The focus on discourse as a means of analysis in entrepreneurship has grown in
recent years and has been a welcome development categorised as a period of
theorisation by Cornelius, Landstrom and Persson (2006). This type of thinking
marks a turn towards more of a social and cultural analysis perhaps shown by
Hjorth and Steyaert (2004, p.2) who suggest it took some time for this turn to
reach organization studies it emerged as an interest in metaphors as tropes in
a language re-inaugurated as an active force rather than as a passive medium
for the distanced observer. It has given space for those such as Hamilton
(2006) who argues that narrative is essential in determining entrepreneurial
identity, in her case seeking to illustrate how family is central to the operation of
small enterprises and that understanding gender is a critical part to how we see
the role of family in this field. Similarly, Down and Reveley (2004) look at
generational difference and identity formation of entrepreneurs. What this does
is to use the entrepreneurs voice to help legitimise the role of small businesses in
society (Ogbor 2000) and as Fletcher (2006) would note, a social constructionist
perspective on the entrepreneur and enterprise identifies the relational space in

which entrepreneurial processes are played out. This relational space is derived
from the situatedness between people, institutions, physical entities and
language.
Bjerke and Rm (2011) distinguish this form of explanation of the enterprise
from what they term the American view. They explain the latter as the process
of opportunity spotting and this distinguishes the more Heidegger-inspired
approach that they use and which infiltrates much social constructionist research
on small business, from the functionalist American School. Typical of the
American School has been the debate referred to above concerning the
importance attached to the traits of the entrepreneur vis a vis the behaviour of the
entrepreneur. Gartner critiques the former by suggesting that the personality
characteristics of the entrepreneur are ancillary to the entrepreneurs behaviour
(1989, p.57). Although in a more recent article McKenzie et al (2007) argue that
a focus singularly on what entrepreneurs restricts understanding of
entrepreneurship and it is notable that their broadened definition (of
entrepreneurship) maintains the seeking and exploiting economic opportunity
(Ibid. p.29) heroism of much of the trait versus behaviour debate.
The claim by McKenzie et al (2007) that entrepreneurship concepts are useful to
help examine and understand social phenomenon in other disciplines appears to
us to be unjustified and the wrong way around! Despite Low (2001) implying that
investigating entrepreneurship from other disciplines would unravel the broad
forum of entrepreneurship studies that weave together ideas from other ideas,
our view is that this should be encouraged. We need to understand how the
values of entrepreneurship in general permeate the academy; we need to accept
that the social function of entrepreneurialism as it is understood and discussed in
a contemporary sense, contains neoliberal tendencies. And in spite of innovative
methodological deployment the social constructionist Scandinavian School is
unsuccessful in realising the value-driven political economy that accompanies the
functionalist approach of the American School. Thus we are left with research
that fails to provide a critique of the market, fails to break entrepreneurship
research away from the ideological framework that constrains thinking about the
possibilities of enterprise and fails to recognise the opportunities exhibited by

those who would argue that neoliberalism can be understood through political
economic frameworks or by examining a wider range of enterprising
circumstances and counter movements.
While the Scandinavian School is an excellent base from which to argue for the
socially embedded character of enterprise (and therefore markets) it is an
approach that fails to break from its own methodological constraints. In fact one
might argue that the identity and voice of the entrepreneur will contain greater
levels of explanatory power when their analysis is disconnected from the ancillary
link to the traits and behaviour of the entrepreneur (to exploit Gartner in a manner
he would probably disapprove of). This would help to explain how because of the
neoliberal agenda, entrepreneurship at the local level remains as what we may
term, essentially an article of trade (Hall, Massey and Rustin, 2013) and that the
situatedness between people, institutions, physical entities and language is
always viewed as a commodity and must always therefore, be prone to such
definitions offered by those such as McKenzie et al (2007).1 It is why these
authors can juxtaposition Starbucks and the naked cavorting of the Womens
Institute; a multinational tax avoiding enterprise becomes ideologically typed
alongside the opportunity spotting by middle class women in the north of
England. Even non-standard forms of enterprise, such as social enterprise
become commodified because of the values attached to the neoliberal
entrepreneurship framework turning the activities of those with a social mission
into a Trojan horse on behalf of a different agenda.2
Those concerned with narrative and discourse represent a theoretical leap
forward from the American functionalist researchers.3 Yet do the authors
associated with the Scandinavian School take into account those class
contradictions that are contained in the complexity of enterprising experiences?
Ex post, does this approach provide clarity on the structures of gender, race and

1

This is ironic because it is trade that can illustrate levels of enterprising behaviour in low income
inner urban areas yet this is always secondary in formal entrepreneurship definitions.
2
Crudely, this is how in some cases social enterprise lose work to the more professional private
sector on key government contracts. The private sector winners are often large corporate
companies.
3
And not all US based academics fall into this category, see for example those in Southern
(2011).

10

status that operate within entrepreneurship? Our attempt here is to offer a

critique of neoliberalism to help explain the theoretical and practical utility of
entrepreneurship for inner urban communities. This is explicitly a politicaleconomic project that seeks to understand how the representation and operation
of global capitalism produces particular accounts of understanding, the neoliberal
framework, in which entrepreneurship is explained.
Collectively the academy should be able to posit an alternative, particularly in
respect to the inner urban (working class) neighbourhoods that not only can
challenge the dominant understanding of enterprise, but will add credence to
those advocates of entrepreneurial research who appear to be dissatisfied with
normative (read neoliberal) explanations. Entrepreneurial behaviour explained
from the neoliberal perspective may, in crude terms, exploit self interest and
individualism over and above the collective and for this reason it seems logical to
want to understand the characteristics of those involved. However, there are
types of enterprise that do not fit - in an empirical sense - such a view; social
enterprise for example, or many independent retailers who struggle alone and
attempt to work cooperatively against those larger corporate offerings and which
manage to override individualism by recognising what might be achieved
collectively. This is not to imply that the collective bonds are as strong as those
described in working class organizations associated with industrialization in the
20th Century. Simultaneously, the behaviour of some types of entrepreneurs and
the outcomes of some types of enterprise will continue to fit the neoliberal model.
Yet this is worthy of further examination and we look at this in the context of
urban communities in the next section of this paper.
3. Urban entrepreneurialism and neighbourhood
As we have suggested in the preceding section, the acceptance of central
tenants of neo-liberalism, namely that market relations are essential and that we
are competitive individuals, underpins the logic of private gain to the denigration
of the public sector. These contested terms are accepted as common sense
(Massey 2013), a testament to the hegemonic dominance of neoliberalism, and
relevant here because of is its impact on policy relating to urban areas,
specifically communities and neighbourhoods. In this section we look specifically

11

at how the term urban entrepreneurialism plays to the neoliberal agenda and
how in low income community, inner urban areas, the focus on enterprise has
remained essentially neo liberal.
3.1 Urban entrepreneurialism plays to the neoliberal agenda
The seminal work of Harvey (1989) crystalised the recognition that urban spaces
had begun to undergo transformation after decades of being seen as a drag on
societys resources. Harvey was amongst a leading group of academics that
recognized how cities began to be seen as places that could attract new levels of
consumption and therefore investment. Harvey critique of this change, termed as
urban entrepreneurialism, countered the analysis offered by Porter (1995), who
with his economic insights emphasized the potential productive capacity of cities
at the expense of social support within inner urban communities. It is important
to explore the relationship between Harveys idea of urban entrepreneurialism
and the concept of entrepreneurship and enterprise as we have outlined above.
In so doing we can take into account the neoliberal ideology as we encounter the
connections between entrepreneurship, households and communities.
Harveys focus on Baltimore drew out three main claims that help to do this.
First, is the role of the private sector in the local governance of place, which is
subject to different operation between places. What we have observed in recent
decades is the emergence of an elite of business and politics at the local level
and the introduction of Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs, in England) are the
latest symptom of this. Heseltine (2012) in his recent report for the Coalition
government was clear about how arrangements need to enable local
entrepreneurs. Second is the feature of risk absorption that is taken by the local
public sector. These points demonstrate how on the one hand, the role of
institutional infrastructure has become critical in the transformation of cities
(Stone, 1989), while the provision of public investment has been significant to
enable investment from the private sector (Smith, 1987). Both lines of argument
reinforced the notion that the role of the public sector was important in supporting
the entrepreneurial character of cities. What this shows is how in practice
neoliberal ideas struggle to overcome policy formation, implementation and
management. It is an indication of the point made by Peck (2013, p.153) that

12

neoliberalism is not a permanent condition and is always contested. Harveys

third assertion is the focus on place and the upgrading of imagery for cities such
as Glasgow and Liverpool with prestige initiatives such as the Commonwealth
Games and the European Capital of Culture positioned to attract the consumer
through a range of cultural, retail and entertainment offers.
For Harvey there is almost a hegemonic approach that entrepreneurialism has
produced in terms of urban economic development. He notes how a general
consensus has emerged among the advanced capitalist states on how local
institutions have responded to the neoliberal agenda as within cities many
strategies of the political and private sector elite have sought to initiate cultural
transformation where once Fordist mass industry resided. This consensus holds
between cities within the nation state, across national boundaries and across
political parties. And in this way urban entrepreneurialism plays to the neoliberal
agenda:
The new urban entrepreneurialism typically rests, then, on a publicprivate partnership focussing on investment and economic development
with the speculative construction of place rather than amelioration of
conditions within a particular territory as its immediate (though by no
means exclusive) political and economic goal.
(Harvey, 1989, p.8)
Other academics have identified the entrepreneurial city (Jessop, 1997),
highlighting the attempts to run cities in more businesslike manner (Hall and
Hubbarb, 1998, p.2). This entrepreneurial turn has cascaded down from the
city-region level to those inner urban communities and neighbourhoods. This is
how as we have implied above, that calls for community based social enterprise,
that are often treated with difference from cooperatives, to become more
professional and like businesses have been made to legitimize their operation
(see the argument put forward in the 2007 Quirk Review on public assets).
In the UK context and more recently, Ward (2003) has provided an insight of the
implication of this entrepreneurial turn for an inner city area, namely East

13

Manchester. Ward situates his analysis within the contested domain of urban
regeneration and notes that there is an uneven development to entrepreneurial
urbanism (Ward, 2003, p.117). To counter this unevenness the public sector
must intervene here is the risk absorption to provide the rent gap as Smith
(1987) argues, and while this intervention takes numerous forms, we see the
public sector acting as an enabler rather than producer. In spite of severe
restrictions on public expenditure and an austerity drive from the current Coalition
government that decimated many urban regeneration programmes, the ability of
the public sector to protect future investments from the private sector remains.
Indeed, some may argue that the work of English LEPs is designed not only to
support the private sector, but to protect it as well (Bentley and Pugalis, 2013;
Southern, forthcoming).
The loss of assets within neighbourhoods and communities coupled with the
adoption of a narrow and limited understanding of enterprise in inner urban
communities has led to an entrepreneurial regime that according to MacLeod
is essentially concerned with reviving the competitive position of urban
economies, especially through the liberation of private enterprise and
an associated demunicipalization and recommodification of social and
economic life
(2002, p.604)
Our argument here is that it is precisely because of the dominant neoliberal
discourse and its emphasis on making urban areas entrepreneurial that has
resulted in deeper lines of inequity and poverty. This has not delivered as Porter
(1995) implied, thriving inner city communities.
3.2 The neighbourhood reconfigured as a neoliberal space
There is a general distributive consequence of urban entrepreneurialism. Often
the much vaunted public-private partnerships amount to subsidisation for the
more affluent consumer, providing an outlet for private corporations who are able
to make use of reconfigured space in city centres, often at the expense of
services that previously would have been provided on a collective basis for low

14

income residents and unemployed (Harvey, 1989). Indeed, many new jobs
created in the reconfigured urban economy are not high tech, creative jobs as
Florida (2005) would convince us but instead are low-skilled and low paid.
Even so, in using the language of enterprise and entrepreneurialism Harvey and
others have simply ceded the discourse to the dominant neoliberal ideology.
They have provided rigorous critique that has explained the contemporary
development of cities in an age of major industrial restructuring and have
demonstrated how in practice the state has become an important component in
urban entrepreneurialism. Although in so doing, instead of challenging the use of
this language, to contest the ways in which entrepreneurial behaviours and
enterprising activities could be shaped, they have allowed the vocabularies of the
local urban economy to remain dominated by a neoliberal agenda and discourse,
as Massey (2013) outlined.
In the UK it was under the previous Labour admininistration that Porters views
on neighbourhoods and inner-city enterprise translated into policy. Porter (1995)
argued that the focus of welfare over and above the economy meant that state
led initiatives had made inner city areas less competitive and had undermined
the creation of economically viable companies and that without the lead of
entrepreneurs and the jobs they create then the social problems will worsen
(Porter, 1995, p.55). The role of the local state along with other community
partners should face the reality of the market (that is the natural, eternal and free
market operating in the ideological manner desired in neoliberal belief) to focus
on its enabling role; to enable the local economy by developing infrastructure
such as transport links, increasing the economic value of inner-city locations,
working with the private sector to establish new financial initiatives to support
private sector investment and align incentives with economic performance. In
other words reduce the role of the state in the provision of social reforms and
concentrate their energies on clearing the way for the market, to reverse the trap
that the state had fallen into in thinking its role was to redistribute wealth and
focus on the need to create wealth.
The response of the Labour government that drew on Porters inner city initiative

15

illustrates the difficulty in reducing the state and providing the free space for the
market to operate in. Labour did attempt to bend enterprise policy to support
their programmes on poverty, through for example Policy Action Team 3 under
the remit of the Social Exclusion Unit. Many new initiatives had a US flavour
slanted towards UK delivery4 and adhered to Porters (1985) inner city principles
of shifting intervention away from welfare and towards enabling wealth creation.
The Labour administration introduced the City Growth Strategy, the Local
Enterprise Growth Initiative (LEGI), Business Improvement Districts and within
the Neighbourhood Renewal Fund, explicit baseline targets to increase levels of
self employment in low income communities. They also set up the Phoenix Fund
and later on established the Community Development Finance Association made
up of local agencies who would be responsible for managing community-focused
micro-loan funds, known as Community Development Finance Institutions. Other
initiatives included the Business Volunteer Mentoring Association, the
Community Development Venture Fund, and the Community Investment Tax
Credit and under the Companies Act of 2004, Community Interest Companies
was facilitated. The logic in play was unmistakable. Ensure the conditions for
wealth creation exist, wealth will be created and social and economic problems
will be addressed.
Yet Porter wrote at a time when the state was in a position to facilitate in ways
that are much more difficult than today. If the emergence of neoliberalism
reflected the end of the Keynesian consensus with full employment in the
western world based on Fordist production and state-led collective consumption,
then the expansion in the supply of credit in the two decades leading to the 200708 financial crash also provided a period of stability. Not only were those such as
Fuyuama claiming the end of history, but Brown as Chancellor was claiming an
end to boom and bust. Porter was able to volunteer his advice on the economy
of inner city enterprise when there was scope for a social safety net. Even so,
many were able to provide a substantive critique of his ideas (see for example,
Bates 1997; Harrison and Glasmeier, 1997; Bates and Robb, 2011; Sass Rubin,
2011).

4

In essence this was an English implementation because of the regional devolution agenda
introduced at the same time.

16

Few have considered to what extent the pursuit of enterprise under neoliberal
auspices has reinforced poverty and inequality in inner urban areas (see authors
in Southern, 2011 for an exception to this). The range of policies that have
emphasized the individual over the collective has affected urban communities.
This pursuit has become part of a broader neglect of existing community
resources and has encouraged flight away from those poorer neighbourhoods
when individual mobility is augmented in some way. In addition, it has
contributed to the destruction of those institutions that represented collective
interests, from the activities associated with religious bodies, tenants
organisations and trade unions that where once the organisations involved
nurtured organizational, communication, financial and enterprising skills.
To make this point we can draw on North (2011, p.291) who highlights
enterprising activity during the Miners Strike in the 1980s:
within the pit villages themselves, Women Against Pit Closures
(WAPT) groups were set up to support the strike collectively. Families of
striking miners were not left to sink or swim; they were collectively
supported. Food would be cooked collectively. Christmas parties
organized The Barnsley WAPT group organized a kitchen within five
weeks of the strike starting. Offered 50 by the union, they insisted on it
being a loan to ensure they controlled it.
North (2011) then cites an interview he held with a Director of a Training and
Enterprise Council (TEC) in a northern town where he finds amazement at the
amount of entrepreneurial behaviour by people suffering from no income during
the strike; innovation and good ideas to ensure a living was made.
Equally as revealing is the case of FaSinPat put forward by Gibson-Graham,
Cameron and Healy (2013). This was a case where workers responded to
closure of a ceramic tile factory that was profitable by locking themselves in and
locking out the managers and owners. By establishing what the authors refer to
as a cooperative and democratic business model the enterprise has doubled its
workforce and significantly increased output. This factory without a boss belongs

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to the community. Additionally, the case of Detroit has demonstrated a collective

response to bankruptcy. This was explained by one blogger as the living,
breathing Detroit new economy movement [that] taps into Detroits deep political
traditions of advocacy for economic and social justice (Joyce, 2013). A view
reinforced in the Julien Temple documentary and aired by the BBC, Requiem for
Detroit where we hear claims of new enterprise emerging in a post capitalist city.
In each of these examples those involved have had to mobilise resources, secure
funding, communicate their message, and build networks. We see in the three
cases aspects of organization that are typically covered by any undergraduate
textbook on enterprise and entrepreneurship. They are also a demonstration of
the collective effort based on solidarity that can exist within urban communities in
spite of policies pursuing the enterprise agenda.
The reconfiguration of neighbourhood as a neoliberal space has meant that
mainstream entrepreneurship has entered the domain of urban neighbourhood
and it has tended to marginalize other forms of enterprise. It is not coincidence
that this has been accompanied by a neoliberal push to limit the role of the state
and to place a greater emphasis away from collective consumption of goods such
as housing, education and health and towards an individual responsibility of
accessing markets. Attempts to capture highly mobile capital along with tourist
and conference visitors will lead if successful, to more opportunity for wealth
creation. Yet despite attempts in two major UK cities to achieve this, is it
noticeable that both Glasgow and Liverpool have the highest levels of workless
households in the UK. We turn to these two now to illustrate further our
argument.
4. The reappropriation of urban enterprise and entrepreneurialism
We begin this section by arguing that local evidence shows that now is the time
to argue for a reappropriation of enterprise and entrepreneurship. We draw on
Glasgow and Liverpool as cases to ask of the relevance of the accepted narrative
of enterprise and entrepreneurship. We seek to illustrate how we can understand
entrepreneurship and enterprise in different ways, and that we can imagine
enterprise in these neighbourhoods in a different way. To do this we suggest that

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these forms of enterprise can be reframed as a means to empower communities

rather than a way to make individuals more mobile to access markets away from
the decline in working class neighbourhoods.
4.1 Example 1: the reappropriation of urban enterprise in Glasgow
Currently in the West of Scotland there is an initiative for communities to take
action themselves through Grow Trust. Interestingly Grow Trust is an
amalgamation of four separate Community Trusts, two urban Linwood and
Govan, and two rural Beith and Lochboisdale. They have been brought together
under the guidance of Oxfam. Grow Trust is a community asset based initiative
that is seeking to copy the principles set out by the Mondragon Corporation, the
Basque cooperative movement established in the 1950s. On their website Grow
Trust claim
We are going to transform how business is done at a local level We
are going to do this by building local enterprises which can generate
community wealth; which will be controlled by the community through
their Development Trusts.
(Grow Trust, 2014)
The idea behind Grow Trust is that by working together these differing
communities can achieve some form of synergy based on the assets they
control. Each local trust has particular skills and abilities that can be utilized by
all members of the Grow Trust and despite the urban and rural difference each
community has suffered from uneven development in the sense that they have
witnessed a decline in local economic activity.
Linwood is an old industrial town, a part of the Glasgow conurbation that had a
thriving textile industry that in time was replaced by paper production only to be
replaced by car manufacturing. The car plant closed in 1981 and the town has
struggled to attract employment since then. The town scores above average on
all the indices that make up the multi-deprivation index. Along with this decline in
economic fortunes the infrastructure of the town has likewise declined to such an
extent that the town was awarded the carbuncle award by Urban Realm for

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being the most dismal town in Scotland. A similar history can be found in
Govan, which is an inner city area of Glasgow. Govan has witnessed a long term
decline in its dominant industry namely shipbuilding that the area was renowned
for. Like Linwood Govan scores highly on all the indexes of multi-deprivation
indexes. Lochboisdale is a village on the isle of South Uist. The islands of
Scotland have a history of depopulation and it has been a constant struggle to
attract sustainable enterprises to limit population loss. While Beith is a small
rural town 18 miles South West of Glasgow and has struggled with the changes
that affect a rural community and has now become a commuter town for
Glasgow.
All four communities became frustrated at being told what they could achieve in
attempts to regenerate their respective communities. They all had experiences
of one off community initiatives which saw the injection of public money for one
particular initiative, which, when the subsidy ran out, ended. Furthermore they
have had experience of one off assets being handed over to the community only
for the asset to become a liability. The trusts are therefore stressing that what
they are attempting to do now is not the same old initiative and it is not about
local authorities telling the community what it is that they need. Rather it is about
the community owning assets, and developing those assets and facilities in a
collective sense.
The spark for the establishment of the trust within the differing communities arose
from the realization that community assets were being lost. In the case of Beith it
was a matter of the loss of sporting facilities, local football pitches. Local club
teams had to travel 20 miles to play home games and when it was calculated that
the cost of travel and hire of pitches amounted to something around 40,000 per
season it was decided to act and to do something about it. The trust was formed
to regenerate disused pitches within Beith. It took three years for the trust to
secure the support of the local authority and convince them that the community
was able to construct and manage the sports pitches. The pitches are of such a
high standard now that other teams now come to Beith and hire the facilities and
this provides a revenue stream for the trust. This emphasis on sport is brought
under the broader community responsibility for local health and well being

20

demonstrating an enterprising initiative that provides for a particular local need.

The catalyst for action in Linwood arose through the proposed demolition of the
Linwood Education Community Centre. The Centre was to be demolished to
make way for an access road for a 24 million sports hub. The local authority
assured the community that all facilities previously provided through the Centre
would be serviced through other venues across the town so there would be no
loss. For the community this was typical of the way the local authority operated
without the levels of involvement and consultation that the community felt was
required.
Now that the four trusts are coordinated they want to approach community
development in a similar way. In Linwood for example community surveys have
been undertaken, public meetings and interviews conducted and this resulted in
over 2,200 people being involved and providing a response. In Govan a road
map was taken around various community facilities, pubs and clubs to consult
with people over what they believe the priorities for the community should be. In
Linwood public meetings with attendances of up to 300 people took place. The
emphasis is on ownership of assets by the community and for the community
and a number of initiatives have been set up to establish sustainable businesses.
For example there is an attempt to establish a community owned fish farm. Not
many people in Govan have experiences of fish farms but there is plenty of
experience of fish farming in Lochboisdale. The experience and knowledge
gained in Lochboisdale is therefore being transferred to Govan.
What Grow Trust is showing is the way in which collective organization can be
enterprising for the purpose of the local community. Grow Trust is utilizing
expertise and knowledge from four different communities in search of a
coordinated goal through collective actions. Much of the sharing and trading of
experiences between the individual trusts brought together under the umbrella of
Grow Trust is not necessarily based on market relationships although
entrepreneurial behaviours and trading activities can be identified, supported
through a collective effort. This is typical to many initiatives in the UK where
communities use their enterprising behaviour to resist those outcomes of

21

globalization and neoliberal pursuit of wealth creation that serves a particular

business and political elite.
4.2 Example 2: the reappropriation of urban enterprise in Liverpool
The second example is centred on a community enterprise and Community Land
Trust in Liverpool. The seeds for Homebaked began in 2010 stimulated by the
Liverpool Biennial artist in residence, Jeanne van Heeswijk who chose Anfield as
the area to engage a community with her art. Homebaked is a bakery with some
limited housing ambitions located in a building adjacent to the Liverpool Football
Club stadium in the Anfield district of North Liverpool.
Anfield was once more a physically appealing neighbourhood. Employment
opportunities were readily available on the waterfront, local industrial estates and
city centre, all in close proximity. If not affluent part of Anfield was a sought after
private residential area adjacent to a well kept Victorian park (Stanley Park).
While near to the stadium was a stock of well kept council homes that provided
housing for the post war family. How such areas shift over time from a narrative
of respectability to something of a discourse of pathological intent has been well
documented (cf. Harvey, 1973; Jacobs, 2002). In their analysis of the area Ellis
and Henderson (2013) note that 60% of Anfield is in the most deprived 10% of
areas in England, with concomitant indices relating to lower life expectancy,
incapacity benefit claimants, poor health, poor educational attainment and child
poverty. And in spite of more than 40 million invested from the public sector into
the area through the Anfield/Breckfield Housing Market Renewal initiative the
local housing market remains dysfunctional particularly with a number of vacant
properties held by absentee landlords near to the football stadium. A number of
commentators have recognized the negative impact of the football club in the
long drawn out decline of Anfield.
Early in the Homebaked initiative the artist van Heeswijk, held a number of
workshops with local young people to take into account what they felt was
needed in the district. She also worked with a number of empty buildings in
Anfield and this coincided with the decline of Mitchells bakery, as the owners of
the small business decided it was time they close. Ideas around using the

22

premises of the bakery emerged and over time it was thought the building could
be brought into operation by installing a new oven and renovating the living
space above the bakery into flats that could be held as a community asset. In
part this was a reaction to the development taking place were the feeling was that
whole swathes of the built environment were being wiped out and there was an
end to any form of collective ownership. It was felt that the local authority had
lost touch with local people, who they simply saw as a means to a resource, as a
deprived group who lived in derelict housing. Anfield, L4 was a postcode with
clinical depression as people began to think of themselves in the same terms
that had been used to describe their neighbourhood.
One representative from Homebaked explained how the local authority and
private developer Keepmoat, were acting like behemoths. Their relationship
including that with large housing association, were having a detrimental impact
on the local community. Not least because they were allowing properties to get
run down, encouraging people to leave so they could redevelop and build anew.
This meant that local people who had paid their mortgage off, living in their own
homes were watching their neighbourhood become more run down. At the same
time the housing associations were thriving but more so the private developers
who would have their management representatives park their Porches in the
same neighbourhood while local people lost their homes. They profited and
lived outside of the area while the locals suffered.
The bakery is now established as a cooperative. It bakes bread, cakes and food
such as pies and provides training for local people who wish to learn for purposes
of employment or self employment, the trade of baking. The oven, which is
central to this, was purchased when funding was raised through crowd sourcing
and there is also a communal space in the bakery. The process has begun to
raise finance to transform the living area into flats under the governance of a
Community Land Trust (CLT). The aim is to turn the flats into homes for rent,
rented at significantly below market rates with each tenant a member of the
CLT. The CLT is looking at ways to use the rent to help the tenants build up
some form of wealth, such as an equity stake or other form of financial
management that gives the tenant a possibility of developing some financial

23

base. The tenant would not be able to purchase the property, but there could be
something that could be arranged to allow some degree of ownership. The
bakery will lease the premises from the CLT and will be accountable to the CLT,
who will be the landlord and owner. The bakery will effectively act as the shop
front for the CLT, leasing space and paying its dues.
What Homebaked have been able to do is to position themselves in the local
community offering an alternative to the processes of regeneration that Anfield
has been subjected to. This is important because they provide a different type of
representation from the formally constituted groups that exist for example,
through local housing associations. While on the one hand this has the potential
to be fractious it also offers a contemporary voice, one without a bureaucratic
commitment and with an enterprising vision. So much so that informal discussion
with the local authority has taken place on Homebaked acquiring further land and
adjacent premises. Homebaked trade, offer training and support for those
contemplating their own enterprise venture and will offer homes for rent. This is
not voodoo economics of the neoliberal claim.
5. Concluding comments
Our demonstration of Grow Trust and Homebaked are in no way unique. And
just as the initiatives during the Miners Strike, in FaSinPat and Detroit show there
is enterprising potential and action in inner urban communities. We have
deliberately used two initiatives that in other parlance are referred to as social
enterprise. There will be many more such examples, because in practice they
share many of the same attributes. The crucial point is that rather than allow a
contemporary understanding of enterprise and entrepreneurship occupy the
space of initiatives such as these, it is time to recognize that the reappropriation
of the language in this domain is required. Grow Trust and Homebaked are as
much a political resistance to the neoliberal comprehension of enterprise as a
group of people with particular entrepreneurial skills.
We can see clearly here how mainstream entrepreneurship has entered the
space of neighbourhood and how it has tended to ghettoise social, informal and
often ethnic enterprise. This adds to the idea that the neighbourhood, the

24

community is at fault, and it must play its businesslike hand if it is to engage

entrepreneurially in its wider urban setting, which in turn has to compete within a
global order of cities. And while arguments to reclaim back the city, the
revanchist city, have been of vital importance their analysis remain limited in
understanding enterprise, leaving the space for those such as Porter to argue
simplistically, for an abandonment of the social in favour of the economic in inner
urban areas.
In this post-financial crisis era of reinvigorated, ideological resurgence of
neoliberalism, we have attempted to make a case for enterprise to be
considered, examined and understood in a different way; as a social
phenomenon that can challenge the entrepreneurial identity constructed through
the neo-liberal agenda. Our argument has been that we can reframe
entrepreneurship and enterprise as a politically and culturally situated,
recognizing the elements of political resistance to some types of enterprising
behaviour, and that this is a project that can challenge the dominant neoliberal
agenda. In reappropriating the language of enterprise we can see that there are
elements of agitation that are entrepreneurial and that there is engagement in
enterprise for reasons other than driving surplus profit that serves a neoliberal
agenda. Indeed, agitation is entrepreneurial and enterprise can be political.

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