The Financialization of Urban Development Projects: Concepts, Processes, and Implications

Abstract

This paper pleads for revisiting Urban Development Projects (UDPs) in the light of the financializationof the urban built environment. If the rising integration of the urban fabric and financialmarkets has been acknowledged, it remains incidental to most of the literature on UDPs. The restructuringof the built environment (real estate, infrastructures) into bundles of assets providedfor finance capital investors looking to diversify their portfolio through risk-adjusted strategies isdeveloping on an increasing scale, from so-called ‘developed’ to ‘emerging’ countries. We posit thatcontemporary UDPs are an attempt to transform land-use by leveraging resources (including capital)exchanged on real estate markets. Therefore, the financialization of UDPs can be tackled throughan analysis of the processes through which investors’ strategies and requirements may be circulatedamong key actors of UDPs (e.g. local authorities, planners, development agencies, property developers).Three paths through which UDPs are shaped for finance capital investors are examined. First,the production of market representations, by internationalized property consultants, skewed towardsinvestors’ standards. Second, the tailoring of buildings as ‘quasi-financial’ assets in the course of realestate development, through which developers seek to address this now dominant financial clientele.Third, the evolution of strategic planning and land development, whether as a byproduct of greaterroom gained by developers, or as a result of a direct targeting of the investment industry by localpublic authorities and their development agencies. Eventually, the paper discusses three avenues forresearch for an urban political economy of one salient, though undersearched, aspect of the financializationof cities.

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