'The Landscape of Power and Profits - The Multiple Roles of Developers in Urban Development'

Background

Cities are economic power houses and places of decision making. Also, they concentrate growth, wealth, cultural and technological innovation as well as pollution, poverty and violence. The path to greater prosperity and sustainable development in the 21st century will need to start in cities. Such view is increasingly shared by the international community which currently debates urban development challenges and the “future we want” (e.g. Sustainable Development Goals, New Urban Agenda).

Despite this recent attention, one billion slum dwellers in the world are not only a clear reminder that the way to more liveable, sustainable and inclusive cities is still long and cumbersome, but also illustrates that our past and current understanding of urbanization processes is unsatisfactory.

This lecture aims at discussing one major driver of urban transformation that to date has received little research attention. With roots in the Neo-Marxist tradition of the architectural and urban profession, property markets have for long time been excluded from more detailed analysis. This is highly problematic as governments have increasingly assigned greater powers to markets based on academic insights postulating their inherent benevolent nature and efficiency.

The global financial crisis and the spread of financialization and real estate investments have sparked new engagements with the landscape of power and profits. Real estate developers are key agents in the (formal and informal) decision making that underlie urban growth trajectories. Much profits can be done in urban development and developers can be seen as the spider in its web. From influencing public infrastructure to developing entire new centralities, the range of potential roles and impacts on cities is broad.

The lecture will problematize the role of developers by presenting empirical findings from the Global North and South based on the research of several scientists who have joint hands to publish a book (envisioned for Wiley Blackwell) and a special journal issue (accepted by Geoforum) as well as organize several panels (RC21, ISA 2018, AHF 2018).

This lecture should be of interest for everyone who researches urban development issues but also the general public curious to receive some glimpse at the largely obscured side of planning and policy making of our cities.

About the speaker

Anthony Boanada-Fuchs is a trained architect and urban planner (double MSc degree obtained from TU Delft) and a PhD in development studies awarded by the Graduate Institute of Geneve (2015).
After post-doc research positions at the University of Sao Paulo (USP, 2015-17), University of Lausanne (UNIL, 2017-18), and ETH Zurich (CASE, 2017 ongoing).
Anthony has recently started to work as manager at the St. Gallen Institute of Managment Latin America (GIMLA).

His research focuses on the interplay of market actors and government circles in order to influence urban and housing developments as well as policies.