Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-s2hrs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-14T03:24:43.408Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Urban frontiers in the global struggle for capital gains

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 November 2023

Peter Mörtenböck  and
Helge Mooshammer
Peter Mörtenböck*
Affiliation:
Goldsmiths, University of London, UK
Helge Mooshammer*
Affiliation:
Goldsmiths, University of London, UK
*
Corresponding authors: Peter Mörtenböck/Helge Mooshammer, Department of Visual Cultures, Goldsmiths, University of London, New Cross, London SE14 6NW, UK. Email: [email protected]/[email protected]
Corresponding authors: Peter Mörtenböck/Helge Mooshammer, Department of Visual Cultures, Goldsmiths, University of London, New Cross, London SE14 6NW, UK. Email: [email protected]/[email protected]
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

This article examines different ways in which finance models have become the ruling mode of spatializing relationships, arguing that the ongoing convergence of economic and spatial investment has transformed our environments into heavily contested ‘financescapes’. First, it reflects upon architecture's capacity to give both material and symbolic form to these processes and considers the impacts this has on the emergence of novel kinds of urban investment frontiers, including luxury brand real estate, free zones, private cities, and urban innovation hubs. Focusing on speculative urban developments in Morocco and the United Arab Emirates, the article then highlights the performative dimension of such building programs: how architectural capital is put to work by actively performing the frontiers of future development. Physically staking out future financial gains, this mode of operation is today becoming increasingly manifested in urban crowdfunding schemes. We argue that, far from promoting new models of civic participation, such schemes are functioning as a testbed for speculation around new patterns of spatial production in which architecture acts less as the flagstaff of capital than as a capital system in itself.

Keywords

Urban speculationarchitectural capitalfrontier processesluxury real estatecrowdfunding
Type
Article
Information
Finance and Society , Volume 4 , Issue 1: Financial times , 2018 , pp. 108 - 125
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits noncommercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
© 2018 The Author(s)

References

Adams, J. (2011) Occupy time. Critical Inquiry [Online], 16 November. Available at: <http://critinq.wordpress.com/2011/11/16/occupy-time/>. Accessed 26 January 2018..+Accessed+26+January+2018.>Google Scholar
Adams, J. (2012) Occupy Time: Immediacy and Resistance After Occupy Wall Street. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Agamben, G. (2011) The Kingdom and the Glory: For a Theological Genealogy of Economy and Government, translated by Chiesa, L.. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Al Jandaly, B. (2008) Ajman freezes freehold visas. Gulf News [Online], 10 October. Available at: <http://gulfnews.com/business/property/ajman-freezes-freehold-visas-1.136561>. Accessed 26 January 2018..+Accessed+26+January+2018.>Google Scholar
Appadurai, A. (1996) Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Benjamin, W. (2010) Werke und Nachlass, kritische Gesamtausgabe. Vol. 19: Über den Begriff der Geschichte. Berlin: Suhrkamp.Google Scholar
Bhabha, H. (1994) The Location of Culture. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, P. (2005) The Social Structures of the Economy. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Calvino, I. (1974) Invisible Cities, translated by Weaver, W.. New York, NY: Harcourt Brace & Company.Google Scholar
Chiapello, E. (2015) Financialisation of valuation. Human Studies, 38(1): 13–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Datta, A. and Shaban, A. (2016) Mega-urbanization in the Global South. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dubai Land Department (2016) 150 Nationalities invested AED 135 Billion in Dubai's real estate market in 2015. Dubailand.gov.ae, 18 January. Available at: <http://www.dubailand.gov.ae/English/MediaCenter/Pages/news-viewer.aspx?nid=329>. Accessed 26 January 2018.. Accessed 26 January 2018.' href=https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Dubai+Land+Department+(2016)+150+Nationalities+invested+AED+135+Billion+in+Dubai's+real+estate+market+in+2015.+Dubailand.gov.ae,+18+January.+Available+at:+.+Accessed+26+January+2018.>Google Scholar
Dunham-Jones, E. (2009) Free trade zones, downtown financial cores, and sprawl: the landscapes of globalization. In: Owen, G. (ed.) Architecture, Ethics and Globalization. London: Routledge, 17–29.Google Scholar
Easterling, K. (2005) Enduring Innocence: Global Architecture and Its Political Masquerades. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Elsheshtawy, Y. (2010) Dubai: Behind an Urban Spectacle. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Esposito, E. (2011) The Future of Futures: The Time of Money in Financing and Society. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldman, M. (2011) Speculative urbanism and the making of the next world city. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 25(3): 555–81.Google Scholar
Graham, S. and Marvin, S. (2010) Splintering Urbanism. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Hardt, M. and Negri, A. (2001) Empire. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Harvey, D. (1981) The spatial fix: Hegel, von Thünen and Marx. Antipode, 13(3): 1–12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harvey, D. (2001) The Spaces of Capital: Towards a Critical Geography. New York, NY: Routledge.Google Scholar
Howe, J. (2009) Crowdsourcing: Why the Power of the Crowd is Driving the Future of Business. New York, NY: Crown.Google Scholar
King, A. (2004) Spaces of Global Cultures: Architecture, Urbanism, Identity. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Liberti, S. (2013) Land Grabbing: Journeys in the New Colonialism. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Marazzi, C. (2011) Capital and Affects. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Massey, D. (2007) World City. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Massolution and Crowdsourcing.org (2015) 2015CF-RE Crowdfunding for Real Estate. Available at: <http://reports.crowdsourcing.org/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=52>. Accessed 26 January 2018..+Accessed+26+January+2018.>Google Scholar
McClanahan, A. (2016) Dead Pledges: Debt, Crisis, and 21st Century Culture. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Merrifield, A. (2014) The New Urban Question. London: Pluto.Google Scholar
Mezzadra, S. and Neilson, B. (2013) Border as Method, or, the Multiplication of Labor. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Mooshammer, H. and Mörtenböck, P. (2016) Visual Cultures as Opportunity. Berlin: Sternberg.Google Scholar
Moretti, E. (2012) The New Geography of Jobs. New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.Google Scholar
Palan, R. (2003) The Offshore World. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Prodigy Network (2012) BD Bacatá: The biggest product in the world. Youtube.com, 17 December. Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=As4HWL0rE8g>. Accessed 26 January 2018..+Accessed+26+January+2018.>Google Scholar
Ramos, S. (2010) Dubai Amplified: The Engineering of a Port Geography. Farnham: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Roy, A. (2010) Poverty Capital: Microfinance and the Making of Development. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sassen, S. (2012) Expanding the terrain for global capital. In: Aalbers, M.B. (ed.) Subprime Cities: The Political Economy of Mortgage Markets. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 74–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schönig, B. and Schipper, S. (2016) Impacts of the Global Financial Crisis on Cities in Europe. Berlin: TdZ.Google Scholar
Simone, A. (2010) City Life from Jakarta to Dakar: Movements at the Crossroads. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Soules, M. (2016) Financial formations. In: Thomas, K.L., Amhoff, T. and Beech, N. (eds.) Industries of Architecture. London: Routledge, 199–210.Google Scholar