Revisiting the Urbanization of Capital

Christophers, Brett

doi:10.1080/00045608.2011.583569

Cited by 147 publications

(111 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…The overaccumulation of capital within the insurance sector, particularly exemplified in the stagnation of rates in the UK and Europe since about 2002, is likely an expression of the larger overaccumulation crises within the broader economy since roughly 2000 -a crisis manifested by investment switching from "productive capital to the world of financialized, surplus-capital-swollen real estate'' (Christophers 2011(Christophers , 1361. New financial investments in (re)insurance manifested themselves clearly in the early 2000s.…”

Section: (Re)insurance and The Spatial Fixmentioning

confidence: 99%

Catastrophic fixes: cyclical devaluation and accumulation through climate change impacts

Johnson

2015

Environ Plan A

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Abstract. This paper investigates the scales and temporalities through which climate change impacts may be rendered into socio-ecological fixes for crises of overaccumulation within the (re)insurance industry. The property insurance and catastrophe reinsurance sectors are notorious for their cyclicity, with prices and returns oscillating dramatically between "soft" and "hard" markets. The problem of overaccummulation in soft market periods is often resolved by the destruction of reinsurers' capital reserves through huge catastrophic losses. This is typically followed by the revision of catastrophe models and reestimation of exposed values, processes which absorb additional (re)insurance capital and provide technoscientific legitimacy for raising rates. Reframing climate change risk in terms of ecologically-sourced devaluation suggests that, rather than posing an immediate existential threat, in the short to medium term the uncertain impacts of global climate change might constitute a recurrent "catastrophic fix" for particular segments of financial capital. This highlights both the productivity of uncertainty about climate change impacts and the limits of presuming that the operations of the private insurance market can produce a built environment more adapted to climate change. Rather, the more likely outcome is splintering protectionism: a patchwork of high risk, high reward areas where insurance is available only to those with the ability to pay rising premiums, leaving the state to manage the retreat and relocation of less remunerative properties and populations.

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Section: (Re)insurance and The Spatial Fixmentioning

confidence: 99%

Catastrophic fixes: cyclical devaluation and accumulation through climate change impacts

Johnson

2015

Environ Plan A

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“…Capitalism can only survive if in addition to the conventional path of purchase, production of profit and distribution for consumption in a cash economy it also promotes the secondary path of circulation of fixed capital. This is well summarised by Christophers [31] that, 'A capitalist society generates surplus value and hence profit, must invest not only directly in the production process (e.g. in labour and machinery) but also in the built environment that houses companies, the state institutions that regulate them, and the employees that work for them'.…”

Section: Theoretical Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The switching takes the form of using this capital to construct factory buildings, administration offices, warehouses, employee residences, sewers, schools and hospitals and shops and other fixed developments and infrastructure such as roads, canals, docks and harbours and so on. According to Christophers [31], the gained value of surplus capital takes different forms such as increased consumption (when shopping malls are constructed) and social reproduction (housing when the capital is converted into construction of workers' residences) and easier access to labour (people attracted to live in the built housing).…”

Section: Theoretical Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

The City as an Experimental Space: The Interface between Public Satisfaction and Effects on Urban Planning Resulting from Kampala City’s Sprawl

Bidandi¹

2018

Urban Agglomeration

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This paper analyses the interface between public satisfaction and effects on urban planning in the context of Kampala City, Uganda. The interface is significant because it provides an understanding of the effects of urban sprawl service delivery in relation to planning. It further discusses the underlying forces responsible for the city's urbanisation process. The objective of the study is to establish what defines Kampala's public satisfaction with urban changes resulting from the city's sprawl. The study involves focus group discussion interviews, which were used to collect the qualitative data from a group of respondents simultaneously. Moreover, purposive sampling was used to select the respondents interviewed. The analysis indicates that public dissatisfaction with poor urban environment has resulted in urban changes, which are officially sanctioned to take place in their residential areas, and the desire to access services easily that explains urban dwellers' decisions.

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“…This new financial architecture has implied a new movement of capital through the creation of liquidity based on a spatial fix (Gotham 2009) -in this case, a toxic spatial fix. This has constituted another step in the financialization of the built environment (Aalbers 2008;Christophers 2011).…”

Section: Accumulation Of Urban Rents Through Evictions By Catalunya Bancmentioning

confidence: 99%

Extracting rents through foreclosures: The rescue of Catalunya Banc as a new urban strategy following the burst of the Spanish bubble

Vives-Miró

Gutiérrez

2017

Miscellanea Geographica

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Using the paradigmatic example of Catalunya Banc, this paper analyses the Spanish varieties of the new financial engineering used to appropriate urban rent by home dispossession. It aims to contribute to the study of the new forms of financialization that have appeared since 2008. Particular attention is given to the role of the state, the emergence of private equity funds as global real estate owners and how this has translated into a wave of evictions due to mortgage foreclosures. In short, this article highlights the implications of the uneven development resulting from the exhaustion of the so-called Spanish model of accumulation during the real estate boom years. Keywords

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Revisiting the Urbanization of Capital

Cited by 147 publications

References 24 publications

Catastrophic fixes: cyclical devaluation and accumulation through climate change impacts

Catastrophic fixes: cyclical devaluation and accumulation through climate change impacts

The City as an Experimental Space: The Interface between Public Satisfaction and Effects on Urban Planning Resulting from Kampala City’s Sprawl

Extracting rents through foreclosures: The rescue of Catalunya Banc as a new urban strategy following the burst of the Spanish bubble

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