Financial geography III: The financialization of the city

Abstract

This report discusses the financialization of urban governance and the built environment as an explicit state strategy, focusing on municipal finance and the use of financial products by the local state and (semi-)public sector. A number of lessons can be drawn regarding the temporality and spatiality of financializing ‘the urban’. Firstly, the financial crisis that started in 2007 has not resulted in a definancialization of the city. Secondly, despite a number of common trends, the literature also highlights the diversity of experiences. Yet it would be too easy to conclude that the financialization of the land, housing and real estate is exclusively a Global North phenomenon, as it extends into the Global South. Finally, the literature notes an emerging gentrification-touristification-financialization nexus. The role of the state in all of this is variegated and often ambiguous.