The StadsSalonsUrbains lecture series are back with an amazing line-up of speakers from across Europe and beyond! This year we will focus on struggles over urban property while drawing on empirical and theoretical accounts from cities across the globe.
Since the global financial crisis, among the most prolific investors in urban rental housing around the world have been asset management firms. Various commentators have observed that as time has passed, such firms have increasingly become long-term investors in housing: holding it for rental income rather than seeking capital gains via the quick-fire purchase and then sale of distressed assets. Needless to say, in such cases, increasing rents is a strategic priority of the firms. But the question of what exactly enables rent increases in the various cities targeted by such firms remains largely unaddressed. What are those asset managers’ specific rent-inflation strategies? What conditions on the ground serve to facilitate such strategies? This talk explores these questions through a discussion of one leading such investor, the Blackstone Group.
Part of the 2021/22 StadsSalonsUrbains lecture series 'Cities for People, not for Profit. From private ownership to communal stewardship'.
Brett Christophers is a geographer interested in various aspects of Western capitalism, both today and historically. Based at the Institute for Housing and Urban Research at Uppsala University, he has particular interests in urban and housing issues, although he continues to do research more widely.
His recent publications include two books published by Verso, The New Enclosure: The Appropriation of Public Land in Neoliberal Britain (2018) and Rentier Capitalism: Who Owns the Economy, and Who Pays for It? (2020).