Beyond the limits of rentability: Revalorizing urban space in late neoliberalism

Abstract

How has the process of urban spatial valorization evolved since the global financial crisis of 2007–2008? In the late neoliberal city, flows of value are increasingly captured through new forms of privately-controlled rentable property. In order to explore this process, this article develops the notion of rentability. It argues that the post-crisis period of urbanization in the neoliberal core is characterized by an emphasis on the expansion and deepening of rentability throughout urban and suburban space. The article details multiple manifestations of this process. It argues that there this process features distinctive spatial, scalar, and political patterns. And it explores how the expansion of rentability and of landlord-tenant relations are being contested in various ways. As more of urban life becomes subject to rent relations, new opportunities for resistance emerge.