Speculative Urbanism and the Financialisation of Public Life of the City

This paper offers an analytical–methodological approach to understand this current historical conjuncture in which global finance capital plays an increasingly important role in urban transformation. Whereas the scholarship makes sharp distinctions between what occurs in the global North and the South, this paper presents an analytical approach that is attuned to the inter-scalar hyper-mobility of finance capital working across the postcolonial map. The paper suggests the method of “following the financial strategy” by analyzing urban forms and projects as processes constituted by the nexus of practices in finance and city planning. It looks closely at finance’s use of inter-scalar financial tools (such as arbitrage, interest rate swaps, collateralized debt obligations, currency hedges) that work across borders, sectors, infrastructures, and conditions. The paper analyzes financial transactions occurring in and across cities of Spain, the USA, and India. The focus is on financial strategies emerging from the detritus of the 2008 financial crisis and the mobilization of public space and goods as the next/last frontier of financialisation that seeks to undermine any sincere attempts towards universalism.