International audienceThe 2008 global financial meltdown has redirected attention to the entwinement of financial markets and the urban built environment. Against that background, recent works in urban political economy have focused on how city governments support the rent-maximisation strategies of landowners, thereby reinforcing ‘the increasing tendency to treat land as a financial asset’ (Harvey, [1982]2006). However, this perspective paradoxically understates the importance of market finance actors, neglecting to demonstrate how, in practice, such financial investors, who have been shown to adopt selective investment practices, shape urban redevelopment projects. In this article, the role of financial investors is analysed through a case study of a large-scale redevelopment project on the outskirts of the Paris city-region (city of Saint-Ouen). The analysis of negotiations over urban design and economic development issues – raised by property developers seeking to fashion commercial properties as investment assets – reveals the unevenness of a local authority’s ability to implement an agenda that potentially diverges from the expectations of financial investors. Accordingly, given the growing importance of investors in the ownership of the built environment, the article considers urban redevelopment as the outcome of power relations that originate in the circulation of investors’ expectations. These expectations are met through translating market finance categories (risk, return and liquidity) into elements of the urban fabric. This bears substantial consequences for policy-making, given the current context of austerity, as municipal authorities are increasingly constrained to rely on property markets. Urban redevelopment projects are thereby increasingly shaped to provide investment assets for financial investors

There is increasing pressure from political circles and citizens’ groups to ensure the production of urban built forms that can address both social and economic needs while respecting long-term environmental goals. This has resulted in new legislative and policy frameworks aimed at encouraging the adoption of sustainable development practices. This paper analyzes how professionals investing finance capital in commercial real estate properties in France are responding to such pressure. It raises the theoretical question of how sustainability goals may be internalized by investors in a context of financialization of urban production. Based on a qualitative analysis, the paper questions how property investors engage with the sustainability agenda and how this affects their organizational charts, business strategies, investment processes and day-to-day management of commercial real estate. The results show that FCIs have to internalize potentially contradictory objectives, i.e., countering the capital depreciation arising from new legislation by upgrading their portfolios and, at the same time, limiting their investments to maintain their profit margins. To achieve this, they both encourage their tenants to reduce energy consumption and adopt spatially selective ‘green’ investments that favor a limited number of ‘established’ markets at both intra and inter-urban levels

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This article is part of a project that has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (Grant agreement No. 680313). Cities on the global real estate marketplace: Urban development policy and the circulation of financial standards in two French localities Departing from localised accounts of the role of local governments in the financialization of the built environment, this article outlines their contribution to the process through increasing attendance at global real estate fairs such as the Marché international des professionnels de l'immobilier (Mipim), where they showcase investment opportunities. Following urban political economy approaches centred on the transcalar intermediations of financialization, Mipim is conceptualized as a site of the circulation of the expectations of investors that involves spatial and temporal dimensions. Based on a comparison of two local authorities in France, namely the Grand Lyon metropolitan authority and Saint-Ouen municipality, the article examines the motives, modalities, and outcomes of their attendance. If both committed to the event despite opposite political agendas, the impact of Mipim has been more significant in the case of the Grand Lyon, where the metropolitan authority adjusted not only the type of showcased projects over the years, but also their content as well as its local planning strategy. The article explains why and how, and discusses under which conditions Mipim is not a mere display showcase, but instead can actively contribute to the adjustment of urban space and governance to the requirements of financial markets.

L’extension du domaine d’intervention de la finance de marché à l’exploitation de biens immobiliers repose sur des gestionnaires d’actifs mandatés par leurs clients-investisseurs particuliers ou institutionnels. L’article montre comment leurs critères d’investissement, définis au sein de leur communauté professionnelle, pèsent sur les espaces urbains en raison de l’enrôlement des acteurs traditionnels de l’immobilier et de l’aménagement. Ces derniers, incités à s’aligner sur les gestionnaires par la discipline marchande, par l’intégration de la filière d’investissement et de promotion d’immobilier locatif, ainsi que par l’évolution entrepreneuriale des agendas du développement territorial, font circuler les standards d’investissement auprès des gouvernements urbains. Cela se matérialise par une hypersélectivité géographique et sociale promue par les gestionnaires d’actifs, qu’il s’agisse des territoires accédant aux capitaux, des formes urbaines, ou du type d’usages et d’usagers. La financiarisation à l’œuvre dans l’immobilier renforce alors la dynamique de métropolisation.