Financialised urban development: Chinese and (South-)East Asian observations

Abstract

The world-wide financial turn in land and urban development is now leading to financialised urban development, reflecting the rising influence of financial sector actors over the built environment. Observing Chinese and (South-)East Asian urban development, this collection interrogates financial sources and instruments as well as actors in variegated development practices. First, these studies confirm the wide spread of financialised urban development in the region and provide in-depth knowledge of financial operations associated with rental housing, infrastructure development, land and urban regeneration, which demonstrate remarkable similarities to Western economies. Second, the collection further reveals state agencies in financialised urban development, echoing recent research on the role of the state in financialisation. Third, these studies identify variegated developmental intentions and the contradiction between developmentalism and financial logic, which inevitably means that financialised urban development can be neither entirely entrepreneurial nor a smooth process of financialised value extraction. The studies highlight that, besides large development and financial corporations, the state utilises financial sector actors and deploys financial instruments that are often created by the state itself, such as a sovereign wealth fund or state-owned enterprises across spatial scales, to achieve its developmentalism and at the same time enhance statecraft.