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How Subordinate Financialization Shapes Urban Development: The Rise and Fall of Warsaw's Służewiec Business District

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  • Mirjam Büdenbender
  • Manuel B. Aalbers

Abstract

This article studies the development of Warsaw's Służewiec neighbourhood, Poland's largest business district, as a case of real estate financialization. We argue that the neighbourhood's chaotic ‘de‐contextualized’ growth was shaped by Poland's semi‐peripheral position in the global economy on the one hand—enabling a process of subordinate financialization—and legacies of state socialism on the other. In so doing, we mobilize research on peripheral financialization and global economic hierarchies, and studies of post‐socialism to enhance debates about real estate financialization. Commercial real estate—and office development in particular—is a crucial domain in which contemporary core–periphery structures are produced and negotiated. A key function of subordinate financialization is to absorb globally mobile capital—the product of financialization in the core. The case of Służewiec shows that only by considering the interplay of global hierarchies (Poland's position as capital absorbent), local dynamics (fragmented urban development, which was characterized by competition among these unequal municipalities, with local growth coalitions in some municipalities, but not in others) and specific historical legacies (Warsaw's socialist‐time functional organization and its transformation, which weakened the city) can we fully understand the specific dynamics that shape real estate financialization in different places.

Suggested Citation

  • Mirjam Büdenbender & Manuel B. Aalbers, 2019. "How Subordinate Financialization Shapes Urban Development: The Rise and Fall of Warsaw's Służewiec Business District," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(4), pages 666-684, July.
  • Handle: RePEc:bla:ijurrs:v:43:y:2019:i:4:p:666-684
    DOI: 10.1111/1468-2427.12791
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    1. Jennifer Robinson & Katia Attuyer, 2021. "Extracting Value, London Style: Revisiting the Role of the State in Urban Development," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(2), pages 303-331, March.
    2. Alami, Ilias & Alves, Carolina & Bonizzi, Bruno & Kaltenbrunner, Annina & Kodddenbrock, Kai & Kvangraven, Ingrid & Powell, Jeff, 2021. "International financial subordination: a critical research agenda [working paper]," Greenwich Papers in Political Economy 33233, University of Greenwich, Greenwich Political Economy Research Centre.
    3. Michael Goldman & Devika Narayan, 2021. "Through the Optics of Finance: Speculative Urbanism and the Transformation of Markets," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(2), pages 209-231, March.
    4. Zhang, Fangzhu & Wu, Fulong, 2022. "Financialised urban development: Chinese and (South-)East Asian observations," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 112(C).
    5. Luan, Xiaofan & Li, Zhigang, 2022. "Financialization in the making of the new Wuhan," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 112(C).
    6. Dorota Celińska-Janowicz & Maciej Smętkowski & Katarzyna Wojnar, 2021. "Behavioural Aspects of Office Space Structures in the City: The Case of Warsaw’s Business Districts," Urban Planning, Cogitatio Press, vol. 6(3), pages 431-443.

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