Description
Book SynopsisThe Speculative City explores property speculation as a key aspect of financialization and its role in reshaping the contemporary built environment. The book offers a series of case studies that encompass a range of cities whose urban fabrics have undergone significant transformation in recent years.
While the forms of these developments share many similarities, their trajectories and social outcomes were contingent upon existing planning and policy frameworks in addition to the historical roles assumed by the state and the private sector in housing and welfare provision. By paying close attention to the forces and actors involved in property development, this book underscores that the built environment has played an integral part in shaping new values and collective aspirations, while also facilitating the spread of financial logics in urban governance. The essays in this collection show that these dynamics represent a larger shift of politics and culture in the ong
Table of Contents
List of Figures Introduction: Financialization, Speculation, and the Production of the Urban Built Environment Cecilia L. Chu and Shenjing He Section I. Mega Projects and Speculative Urban Development 1 Property Speculation: Causes and Consequences Susan Fainstein and Johannes Novy 2 The Financialization of Urban Redevelopment: Speculation and Public Land in Porto Maravilha, Rio de Janeiro Mayra Mosciaro, Alvaro Pereira, and Manuel B. Aalbers 3 From Spectacular to Speculative Gulf Cities: A Tale of Dubai and Doha Ali A. Alraouf Section II. Reconfiguring the State: The Politics and Pragmatics of Speculation 4 Mega-Event Urbanism and the Politics of Speculative Urban Development in Shanghai Yunpeng Zhang and Shenjing He 5 Urbanization as Mass Speculative Event: Informal Finance and City-Making in Ordos, Inner Mongolia Max D. Woodworth 6 El Quiñón: Corruption and Speculative Development in the Spanish Financial Crisis Marta Catalán Eraso and Cecilia L. Chu Section III. Forms and Norms of Speculative Housing 7 Speculation in the London Housing Market: Flat Break-Ups, Loft Conversions, and Overseas Buyers Chris Hamnett 8 Speculative Subdivision of Private Rental Flats in Hong Kong Mandy Lau 9 Contradictions of State and Household Investments in Public Housing in Singapore Chua Beng Huat Afterword Alan Smart List of Contributors Index
