Re-anchoring capital in disaster-devastated spaces: Financialisation and the Gulf Opportunity (GO) Zone programme

Abstract

This paper contributes to scholarship on the relationship between financialisation and the production of urban space by examining the implementation of the Gulf Opportunity (GO) Zone Act of 2005 (Pub. L. No. 109–135). From 2005 to December 2011, the GO Zone provided over $23 billion in tax-free, low-interest bonds and other tax incentives to individuals and businesses in the Gulf Coast area affected by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Drawing on government documents, planning reports, and interviews, I identify the limitations of the GO Zone and provide a critical assessment of the use of financialisation techniques to revitalise disaster-devastated communities. In doing so, my investigation seeks to deepen scholarly understanding of post-disaster regulatory experiments to illuminate the mechanisms underlying the production and regulation of uneven spatial development. My analysis challenges accounts that locate financialisation in deregulatory initiatives and, in contrast, shows that financialisation is a state-driven process that exacerbates risk and is associated with a series of intense contradictions, regulatory failures, and crisis tendencies.