New-Build Speculation and the Financialization of Urban Development in the Global South: A Perspective from Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Abstract

This article analyzes how urban development and property management strategies shape and accelerate new-build speculation (i.e., speculation mechanisms attached to the development of newly built real estate projects) in Phnom Penh (the capital of Cambodia), a city experiencing a growing financialization of its real estate markets. By discussing dominant conceptions of property speculation within critical research in geography and urban studies, the article shows that speculation has primarily been seen as a fictitious and unproductive form of capital accumulation rather than as an effective mechanism of urban production. Analyzing the development of mixed-use, large-scale, and condominium projects, the article argues that not only does property speculation participate in shaping real estate development but also that the production and management of real estate projects “engineer” property speculation and the spatialization logics of real estate financialization. Four main mechanisms of new-build speculation are identified: the design of speculative urbanity, the refining of the liquidity of real estate assets, the spatialization of speculation, and the production of territorial investment platforms. Ultimately, the article discusses how the intensification of the construction of large-scale, mixed-use, and condominium projects in Global South cities is supporting a speculative turn of urban development in so-called frontier markets.