Urban Development Theory: Review for the 21st Century

As the world’s population trends towards being predominantly urban, the delivery of the needed habitation in those centers is largely undertaken by speculative private real estate development. This economic machine is prone to harsh cycles with extravagant wealth followed by widespread financial damage and, extending beyond the commercial impact, communities are protesting the dramatic changes to their neighborhoods and the rising social dislocation.And, yet, though much attention is given to decrying these outcomes, the property development process at the heart of this dynamic is barely subjected to critical analysis and scholarly investigation. In the aftermath of World War II, the recovering Western countries experienced a burst of real estate development – urban and suburban – and academic research and institutional formulations were commenced. A variety of models of the development process emerged, broadly clustered into four types: sequential, cyclical, agency and production or structural. Although initially attempting to encompass a mix of economic ideologies, by the dawn of the 21st century, analysis had largely bifurcated into either the neoclassical economic framework with its focus on the every-stronger capital flows and sophisticated investment structures, derived as corporate finance evolved along this route, or the Marxist-originating constructs that critically interpreted the urban form, and its socio-economic characteristics, that had resulted from the intense development activity.At that point, with the exception of some pragmatic descriptions, primarily for pedagogical use, scholarship about the real estate development process effectively ceased. The private sector business activity, despite the very vulnerable public context of the city, continues to be practiced as a trade, continuing much as it had done for centuries. But, we cannot neglect this activity - how do we revive the critical interrogation and advancement of the real estate development practice.This paper reviews the early scholarship and, with the benefit of hindsight from the urban environment approaching 2020, elucidates key steps, features, and model mechanisms that might be used to form a platform for re-launching intellectual investigation. Additionally, by referencing the compelling contribution from the few urban theorist who continued to address the activity, adding some recent new thoughts on the macroeconomic context, and also acknowledging the potential contribution of more incisive data gathering and analysis, a general direction for continuing this critical research is proposed. The hope it that the property development process can comprise a self-critical dimension and progress the activity for the improvement of its own commercial condition and its impact on urban communities.