Can we design the future? Civic economics in austerity Britain

Radical transformation is promised through elegantly elaborated theories of change, branded as a model, and packaged seductively, sold as a lucrative commodity in a growing marketplace of place-based policy ideas. In catching the imaginations of cash-strapped commissioners in innovative partnerships with flush foundations – beyond the reach of democratic decision-making – such models concentrate scarce resources intensively on a handful of places, leaning into the competitive winner-takes-all logic of neoliberalism