We are looking for a few more papers to round out a session on the variegated circuits of - and theorizing about - urban-level financialization. We are especially interested in cultivating a comparative perspective, and the papers will precede a panel session on the same theme.
THE CITY LIMITS OF FINANCIALIZATION
Geographers are working at the intersection of cities and financialization in several important, yet often siloed, ways. The financialization-focused sessions organized at the 2015 AAG session reflected both this diversity and lack of cross-pollination. Empirically, a ‘North American’ approach resulted in sessions concerned with how specific urban financial instruments (SIBs, TIFs, etc.) are impacting community development organizations, their projects, and the urban built environment. Meanwhile, a mainly UK/European school of thought produced a series of sessions highlighting the rise of urban infrastructure as a new asset class for global investment.
Conceptually speaking, financialization is being framed by some thinkers as the next regime of urban regulation (e.g. Lake, 2015), while others argue that the concept has lost coherence and that new approaches -- or more historically embedded ones (e.g. Baptist, 2014) -- would be more analytically productive (Christophers, 2015). This paper and panel session seek to put these different perspectives into conversation with one another, in order to suss out broader theoretical implications, future research directions, and possible futures of finance-driven urban governance.
Please send abstracts to [log in to unmask] and [log in to unmask] by October 23, 2015.
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