Chair: OzlemCelik
Louis Moreno
UCL, Urban Laboratory / The Death and Life of the Rentier: revisiting the urban rent question
Jamie Gough
University of Sheffield, Department of Town and Regional Planning / ‘Fictitious commodities’, generalised rents, and the contradictions of growth regions: a quantitative model
Mary Robertson
SOAS, Economics / UK Housing Supply in the Credit Crunch
Two Panel Sessions for Urban and Regional Political Economy Working Group 2013
Conference of the International Initiative for the Promotion of Political Economy, University of the Hague, 9-11 July 2013
Panel 2: Changing Forms of Interventions of the State in IstanbulChair: Jamie Gough
OzlemCelik
University of Sheffield, Department of Town and Regional Planning / Changing Forms and Strategies of State Intervention at Different Localities in Istanbul
Aysegul Can
University of Sheffield, Department of Town and Regional Planning / The Relationship between Neighbourhood Renovation and Gentrification in a Historic Environment: The Example of Istanbul
Hade Turkmen
Cardiff School of Planning and Geography / Dynamics of Urban Struggle and Contentious Urban Politics in Istanbul
ÇağrıÇarıkçı
Istanbul University, Faculty of Economics / Large-Scale Urban Development Projects and Public Private Partnerships in Istanbul
ABSTRACTS
Panel 1: Critical Reflections on Urban Rent
Louis Moreno, UCL, Urban Laboratory
Contact:
The Death and Life of the Rentier: revisiting the urban rent question
The crisis of 2008 is deeply rooted in the way urban space has been financially exploited in recent decades. But while many argue that 'the built environment helped create the economic crisis' what is less clear is the spatial process which enabled the rise of a financialised form of capitalism. One line of political economic analysis is that the pattern of financial accumulation demonstrates that capital restructuring has established a new regime of rentiers. Functionless investments in financial instruments, have replaced 'useful' fixed investments in production, providing a template for entrepreneurship, the privatisation of social infrastructure, and galvanised the marketisation of collective consumption. Yet, this analysis of financialisation and rentiership, which foregrounds the social power of a new class of investors and gentrifiers, still does not explain why the ownership and management of urban space has been integral to the ascendency of finance as a systemic phenomenon. In other words, what is the specifically spatial, urban component of the recent intensification in financial activity across all areas of social and economic life? I argue that the issue of rent – the pecuniary bond between the owner and occupier of space – casts fresh light on the problem. Through a review of the 'urban rent question' debate of the 1970s and 1980s, and examination of recent Marxian analyses of the social and spatial basis to the financial boom, I try to show how categories such as rent, fixed capital and merchant's capital, provides an illuminating and geographically flexible analytical framework. One that can help track the turbulent and tendentious relationship between finance capital and urban space.
Jamie Gough, University of Sheffield, Department of Town and Regional Planning
Contact:
‘Fictitious commodities’, generalised rents, and the contradictions of growth regions: a quantitative model
This paper presents a theorisation of economic uneven development and contradictions within growth regions, arising from flows of ‘generalised rent’ between capitals, workers and residents. It outlines a model for measuring these generalised rents using official statistics.
The regional economy is divided between a ‘core’ of finance, business services, media and design, which reaps a surplus rate of profit based on technical/design rents, political access and location, and the remaining non-core sectors of manufacturing and consumer services. The surplus profits are partly appropriated by the core firms themselves, partly as high commerical ground rents, and partly as high wages; the last in turn filter through to high housing prices. High commercial and residential property prices in turn impose higher costs on non-core sectors of business and state services, which may or may not be passed on in higher final prices. They also impose higher costs on non-core workers, which may or may not be offset by higher wages. They impose higher costs on unwaged households. These flows of generalised rents thus construct the uneven development between sectors, sections of labour power and residents’ reproduction. They disrupt the overall reproduction of economy-society of the region.
Generalised rents arise from anomalous commodities. The high prices gained by the core enable ‘surplus profits’ in Mandel’s sense. The value of labour power is determined in an anomalous way in Marxist theory, and ‘labour’ one of Polanyi’s ‘fictitious commodities’. Land is a non-produced commodity, pure ‘fictitious capital’ in Marxism, and another Polanyian ‘fictitious commodity’. Thus the high profits and prices of growth regions, often taken as measures of their ‘dynamism’, are based on commodities which defy the equilibriating effects of free flows of capital.
The paper outlines a quantitative model and methodology for measuring the flows of generalised rents within growth regions, using only official statistics.
Mary Robertson, SOAS, Economics
Contact:
UK Housing Supply in the Credit Crunch
In this paper I explore the character of housing production in the UK, specifically looking at the agents involved and their sources of profits, and the imperatives and conflicts these generate. While some research remains to be completed, my working hypothesis is that UK housing supply is dominated by speculative production, supported by other agencies in the chain of dealing in housing that have traditionally sought, or sustained, profits through mercantilist land trading rather than competitiveness in construction. With demand constrained by a credit (and therefore mortgage) crunch, house building has fallen to historic lows because house-builders have not been able to capitalise on latent-but-currently-ineffective demand by allowing for cheaper forms of provision.
Panel 2: Forms of Strong State Intervention in Istanbul
OzlemCelik, University of Sheffield, Department of Town and Regional Planning
Contact:
Changing Forms and Strategies of State Intervention at Different Localities in Istanbul
This paper outlines a theorisation of changing forms of state intervention by examining vertical level relations, which are the relations between different scales of the state (rescaling of the state) and horizontal level practices, which are differentiated interventions of the state at different localities for a particular moment in Istanbul. The Open Marxist approach adopted in the paper produces a very different understanding of relations between state and space from extant theorisations, including functionalist, pluralist, elitist, managerialist and strategic relational approach.
The (spatial) state in capitalist society is seen as a particular historical form of social relations, in particular capitalist class relations and it is an essential aspect of the development of class struggle and not an institutional entity that is above or outside this struggle. Therefore, the interventions of the state are not simply in the service of capital interests, and do not automatically assure social reproduction, but have emerged historically from the development of class struggle involving the contradictions embedded in the state. The contradictory nature of class relations disrupts their reproduction, and while the state attempts to amend these disruptions through its interventions, it does not entirely overcome them.
This paper explores why the scaling of the state and its spatial policies are constantly unstable and how the forms of interventions change at different localities in Istanbul since 2000.
Aysegul Can, University of Sheffield, Department of Town and Regional Planning
Contact:
The Relationship between Neighbourhood Renovation and Gentrification in a Historic Environment: The Example of Istanbul
This paper will focus on the renovation and regeneration projects, as well as the gentrification concept in regards to neoliberal urban politics in the historic neighbourhoods of Istanbul. Besides examining at first the diverse and complex relationships between regeneration and renovation projects and gentrification processes, one of the pivotal aspects of the present study is to understand why, in certain cities, gentrification occurs after renovation and regeneration projects. Investigating these points will help to understand (i) interventions of the state, (ii) organisations that have been operating in these processes and (iii) association between work and social life with the effect of gentrification. Before the 2000s, indeed, gentrification through private housing market was the case in Istanbul, but beginning from the 2000s, state-led gentrification started to become more common. To investigate these issues and the reason behind the increase in state intervention, supply and demand aspects of the gentrification, displacement and loss of cultural heritage will be analysed. In addition to that, a particular attention will be provided to the gentrified neighbourhoods in the historic part of Istanbul. Changes in Turkish economic and housing system will be explored to understand the dynamics that affect Istanbul. As a case study, I will also refer to Tarlabasi district. The case study will analyse effects of gentrification process on the social dynamics of the city and the links between larger-scale authorities such as local or national state and inhabitants of the neighbourhoods.
Hade Turkmen, Cardiff School of Planning and Geography
Contact:
Dynamics of Urban Struggle and Contentious Urban Politics in Istanbul
The announcement of many gecekondu (squatters) settlements and inner-city dilapidated areas as urban regeneration areas after 2004 with the motivation of transforming the existing urban fabric and social, political and economic structures has changed the dynamics of contentious urban politics in Turkey drastically. Different from the previous periods interventions to space by the state, urban regeneration projects are formulated as large scale spatial interventions in order to supply land for new urban development projects. The change in the interventions of the state and power relations in the urban politics also transformed characteristics of urban struggles and movements. Since eviction and displacement are observed as the very consequences of urban regeneration projects, comparing with previous urban resistances, current urbanisation dynamics have caused to a significant change in the characteristic, militancy and incidence of urban movements in Turkey, particularly in Istanbul. The ability of developing alliances and collective action among residents and activists against urban regeneration has been increased. However, it is not possible to claim that each and every movement groups have similar characteristics and defined targets. While some localities are able to develop grassroots’ actions and engage to the extended struggle, some places are more inward-looking to their localities and some places are even wordless during the implementation of these projects.
This paper aims to investigate what limits and what encourages the development of collective action against urban regeneration by looking at two neighbourhoods in Istanbul. While the first case represents an ‘action’ area against the urban regeneration, the second case represents an ‘inaction’ area which is spatially close to the action area. It is aimed to analyse the relationships established in these areas both with the actors of contentious urban politics and within own localities of neighbourhoods. Analysing dynamics and relations in these areas provides not only how the projects are implemented and the power relations are established in these areas, but also a comprehension of characteristics, militancy and incidence of the actions taken by urban movement groups in a broader context.
ÇağrıÇarıkçı, Istanbul University, Faculty of Economics
Contact:
Large-Scale Urban Development Projects and Public Private Partnerships in Istanbul
During the post-1980 era when neoliberal policies took over, industrialization policies of the private sector to increase capital accumulation have been adopted. Parallel to this, the public investments in the industrial domain have gradually decreased, and public investments of infrastructure that would increase the accumulation of capital of the private sector have become prominent in the state budget. Within this scope, in the recent years, the Public Private Partnership model has started in the investments of infrastructure after 1980 and, today, has found area of implementation in public services like health and education that may be considered basic.
The most common kind of intervention of the entrepreneurial state is the central government entering the field of urban investment through joint ventures with the local government and the private sector.
At the same time, the projects in question are a reflection of the way public economics is organized in urban space. The PPPs aim to attach the international capital to urban space by establishing the relationship between the construction capital and the state through the investments in question. The fact that the process that currently brings the central and the local government together with the economic interest in Istanbul is based on pulling colossal public lands into the market mechanism bring up a much more radical and comprehensive process of transformation.
We know that the Public Private Partnership discourse that legitimizes the intervention of the entrepreneur state is not unique to Istanbul, and that many large scale investment projects are advocated today in different big cities with the same rhetoric.
This study aims to try to perceive the Public Private Partnership model in Istanbul through the changing state intervention, and the importance of this model in the capital accumulation process. In this regard, the Public Private Partnership projects that have taken place since the early 1980s will be briefly discussed and the sectoral distribution of the Public Private Partnership projects in Istanbul will be examined.
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