Form Follows Function: On the Interaction between Real Estate Finance and Urban Spatial Structure

The fundamental connection between the spatial development of cities and financial markets is a topic that has received little attention from either urbanists or economists. In this short piece, I argue that part of the post-crisis recovery is predicated on a multi-faceted understanding of the subtle causal linkages between financial flows and urban morphologies. Following a historical contextualization of my main argument, I speculate about the key channels through which the dialectical relationship between capital, its regimes of accumulation and its unequal spatial distribution affect the urban fabric. I identify two separate economic processes and historical developments that have co-defined the nexus of real estate finance and urban systems. First, the process of financial globalization and deregulation has been instrumental to the financialization of real estate, and, second, post-Fordist forces of organizational fragmentation have altered the formational principles of core aspects of real estate development processes, including the role of architecture.