Capitalist private property in land and buildings - real estate - is the ground of modern cities, materially, politically, and economically. It is foundational to their development and core to much theoretical work on the urban environment. It is also a central, pressing matter of political contestation in contemporary cities. Yet it remains largely without a history. This Element examines the modern city as a propertied space, defining real estate as a technology of (dis)possession and using it to move across scales of analysis, from the local spatiality of particular built spaces to the networks of legal, political, and economic imperatives that constitute property and operate at national and international levels. This combination of territorial embeddedness with more wide-ranging institutional relationships charts a route to an urban history that allows the city to speak as a global agent and artefact without dispensing with the role of states and local circumstance.

This Element examines the modern city as a propertied space, defining real estate as a technology possession.

Book Information
ISBN 9781108797115
Author Alexia Yates
Format Paperback
Page Count 75
Imprint Cambridge University Press
Publisher Cambridge University Press
Weight(grams) 140g
Dimensions(mm) 230mm * 150mm * 5mm