Political Economy of Land : Rent, Financialization and Resistance

Recent years have seen a gathering interest in the importance of real estate development to the growth and development of cities. This has included theoretical work on such topics as land rent and property rights as well as empirical studies on property investments, assetization, securitization, and the effects of changing property values on economic growth and the global status of cities. In the field of urban political economy, attention has turned particularly to the financialization of land and the built environment and to the globalization of property ownership, real estate development, and architectural design. This edited volume brings together a collection of original investigations of the current thinking on three broad themes: the assetization of land and buildings, the relationship of land rent to valuation and speculation in the markets for private and public properties, and the different ways in which land functions as a social relation. In order to ground the discussion, each chapter combines a theoretical perspective with empirical evidence. And, to convey a sense of the global nature of these phenomena, the book includes cases from Finland, India, Spain, Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, Italy, China, and the United States.

Although its prime goal is to solidify and extend the political economy of land, this book is also a celebration of the Finnish scholar Anne Haila who was a major contributor to this literature and, specifically, to the work of this book’s authors. Prior to her sudden death in 2019, she was a key figure in the discussions that are at the core of the political economy of land: this book, in part, is a public acknowledgement of her contributions.

Mika Hyötyläinen is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Institute for Housing and Urban Research, Uppsala University. His research concerns urban inequality, housing precarity, Nordic land and housing policies, and transformations in public real estate policy. He received his doctorate in 2019 from the University of Helsinki. He has published in journals such as Acme, Critical Social Policy, Geoforum, and the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research.

Robert Beauregard is a Professor Emeritus at Columbia University where he taught in the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation. His most recent, authored books are Cities in the Urban Age: A Dissent (Chicago, 2018), Planning Matter: Acting with Things (Chicago, 2015), and Advanced Introduction to Planning Theory (Edward Elgar, 2020). He also co-edited Regulation and Planning (Routledge, 2021) and Planning for a Material World (Routledge, 2016).