The local strikes back? A multi-scalar comparative view of the transformation of real estate and urban water supply markets in Brazil

Keywords: Urban Development Markets; Water and Sanitation; Real Estate; Financialization; Territory
Abstract Type: Virtual Paper Abstract

Abstract

How do different types of investors navigate spatial scales in their efforts to (re-)shape local urban development and service provision? This paper examines this question through a comparative, multi-scalar analysis of the development of real estate and water and sanitation markets in Brazil over a span of 20 years. We draw on insights from urban political economy, institutional economic geography, and the sociology of markets to conceptualize urban development markets as interconnected socio-spatial arenas in which private investment in the urban built environment takes place. We compare these two key sectors in Brazil's rapidly urbanizing economy to understand processes of market making in their territorial as well as temporal dimensions. Our analysis shows that key industry-specific characteristics, such as knowledge requirements, material qualities, and duration of contracts, as well as investor characteristics strongly shape how actors configure and expand markets, and how they deal with potential setbacks and barriers to market consolidation. In tracing processes of market-making, we also demonstrate how financialization is a situated process, developing differently in distinct types of urban development markets within the same country. This analysis fills important gaps in the comparative and historical understanding of the dynamics of market change across urban planning sectors, illuminating how territory and agency matter for trajectories of market creation and consolidation.