2018 UAA Annual Conference

Cities across the globe have been undergoing a massive transformation in the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis. While some cities have witnessed deepening poverty, foreclosures, and homelessness, others have experienced bubbling property markets, rampant gentrification, and rental housing crises. Some cities have witnessed both processes simultaneously, with effects on social, income, and wealth inequalities that vary along axes of difference such as race, gender, class, age, and citizenship. Undergirding such changes has been a reorganization of the global financial system, with new kinds of lenders and insidious innovations in new credit products. Simultaneously many countries have implemented national consumer protection strategies, financial literacy initiatives, and financially inclusive policy, which potentially serve their stated purposes of strengthening the financial resilience of individuals and households, but can also be conceptualized as deepening processes of state-led neoliberalism and financialization. Comparison between cities, countries and their associated policy initiatives will promote dialogue on the scalar components and effects of contemporary finance-led capitalism.


This first panel in the series seeks to understand the logics, actors and institutions of finance-led capitalism, including the role played by think-tanks, institutional investors, urban development institutions and processes, and urban policies related to lending and borrowing. It begins with a statement of theory related to the logics linking urban policy, urban institutions, and municipal processes. It then empirically interrogates how think tanks, planning regimes and state policies foster the environment for finance-led investment, and the institutions and actors that drive investment behaviour in selected cities.


Moderator: Andrew Kaufman, University of Toronto


The Financialization of the City
Manuel Aalbers, KU Leuven, Belgium


Symbolic Structures and Symbolic Power in the UK Housing Crisis: Think Tanks and Territorial Stigma
Tom Slater, University of Edinburgh


Shareholder as Client: Planning Practice in Publically-Traded Firms 
Orly Linovski, University of Manitoba


The Role of Institutional Investors for the Production of New Real Estate Commodity: A Case Study in West Loop, Chicago
Youngjun Kim, University of Illinois at Chicago


Circling Vultures: The Legal Geographies of Sovereign Debt Investors 
Andrew Kaufman, University of Toronto