The Political Economy of a Collusive Urban Regime: Making Sense of Urban Development Projects in Rome


Abstract


The relative hegemony of land rentiers and real estate developers over the process of urban socio-economic reproduction is a defining characteristic of the "collusive regime" of Rome. Through the analysis of a case study, we tried to establish if the realisation of Urban Development Projects in this regime favours the unequal distribution of the benefits deriving from urban development. Applying a neo-Gramscian lens to urban political economy, we identified an interpretative model for explaining the role of UDPs in the urban regime of Rome. First, UDPs are suitable occasions for realising accumulation strategies based on the capture of rent gaps and the valorisation of urban assets. Second, the actors involved in UDPs mobilise ideational and material resources for gathering consensus for a project, that rewards their specific interests, by framing their investment as the best solution for localised collective needs. UDPs in Rome, therefore, facilitate the concentration of benefits and the generalisation of costs of urban development. Our research contributes to the understanding of Rome's fragile trajectory of growth and offers insights on the mechanisms reinforcing unequal urban development.

DOI Code: 10.1285/i20356609v14i2p806

Keywords: neo-Gramscian approach; Rome; unequal urban development; urban development projects; urban regime; urban rent

References


Aalbers M.B. (2019), “Financial geography II: Financial geographies of housing and real estate”, Progress in Human Geography, 43(2): 376-387.

Aalbers M.B. (2020), “Financial geography III: The financialization of the city”, Progress in Human Geography, 44(3): 595–607.

Aalbers M.B., B. Christophers (2014), “Centring housing in political economy”, Housing, theory and society, 31(4): 373-394.

Beach D. (2017), Process-Tracing Methods in Social Science. Retrieved

May 15, 2021 (https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.013.176).

Beach D., R.B. Pedersen (2013), Process-tracing methods: Foundations and guidelines, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.

Béland D. (2007), “Neo-Liberalism and Social Policy: The Politics of ownership”, Policy Studies, 28(2): 91–107.

Bennett A. (2010), “Process Tracing and Causal Inference”, in H. Brady, D. Collier (Eds.), Rethinking Social Inquiry: Diverse Tools, Shared Standards, Lanham MD: Rowman and Littlefield, pp. 207-220.

Bennett A., C. Elman (2006), “Qualitative research: Recent developments in case study methods”, Annu. Rev. Polit. Sci., 9: 455-476.

Brenna S. (2008), La strana disfatta dell'urbanistica pubblica, Santarcangelo: Maggioli Editore.

Bryson J.R. (1997), “Obsolescence and the Process of Creative Reconstruction”, Urban Studies, 34(9): 1439–1458.

Bryson J.R., Mulhall R.A., Song M., R. Kenny (2017), “Urban assets and the financialisation fix: Land tenure, renewal and path dependency in the city of Birmingham”, Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, 10(3): 455–469.

Byrne M. (2016), “Bad banks and the urban political economy of financialization: The resolution of financial–real estate crises and the co-constitution of urban space and finance”, City, 20(5): 685–699.

Busetti S., B. Dente (2017), “Using Process Tracing to Evaluate Unique Events: The Case of EXPO Milano 2015”, Evaluation, 23(3): 256-273.

Causi M. (2018), SOS Roma. La crisi della capitale. Da dove viene, come uscirne, Rome: Armando Editore.

Causi M. (2020), Il bilancio del Comune di Roma e la città. Retrieved May 15, 2021 (https://www.ricercaroma.it/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Causi_bilancio-comunale-e-citta%CC%80.pdf).

Clark E. (1995), “The rent gap re-examined”, Urban Studies, 32(9): 1489-1503.

Clarke S. (1978), “Capital, fractions of capital and the state: ‘neo-marxist’ analysis of the South African state”, Capital & Class, 2(2): 32-77.

Coppola A., G. Punziano (Eds.) (2018), Roma in Transizione. Governo, strategie, metabolismi e quadri di vita di una metropoli, Rome, Milan: Planum publisher.

Cox K.R. (1998), “Spaces of dependence, spaces of engagement and the politics of scale, or: looking for local politics”, Political geography, 17(1): 1-23.

Crisci M. (2019), “Il rallentamento della diffusione residenziale nell’area romana: un fenomeno da governare”, in E. d’Albergo, L. De Leo (Eds.), Politiche urbane per Roma Le sfide di una Capitale debole, Rome: Sapienza University Press, pp. 37-46.

d’Albergo E., G. Moini (2013), “Politics, power and the economy in Rome: continuity and change in an urban regime”, Métropoles 12. Retrieved May 15, 2021 (https://doi.org/10.4000/metropoles.4626).

d’Albergo E., G. Moini (2015), Il regime dell’Urbe. Politica, economia e potere a Roma, Rome: Carocci.

d’Albergo E., Moini G., B. Pizzo (2018), “The uncertain metropolization of Rome: Economy, space and governance”, in J. Simone Gross, E. Gualini, L. Ye (eds), Constructing Metropolitan Space, London: Routledge, pp. 172-195.

De Lucia V., F. Erbani (2016), Roma disfatta. Perché la capitale non è più una città e cosa fare per ridarle una dimensione pubblica, Rome: Castelvecchi.

Erbani F. (2013), Roma: Il tramonto della città pubblica, Rome, Bari: Laterza.

Esposto E., G. Moini (2020), “Diseguaglianze e potere a Roma”, La Rivista delle Politiche Sociali, 1: 175-190.

Fernandez R., M.B. Aalbers (2016), “Financialization and housing: Between globalization and Varieties of Capitalism”, Competition & Change, 20(2): 71–88.

Fine B. (1986), “Banking Capital and the Theory of Interest”, Science & Society, 49(4): 387-413.

Gotham K.F. (2009), “Creating Liquidity out of Spatial Fixity: The Secondary Circuit of Capital and the Subprime Mortgage Crisis”, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 33(2): 355–371.

Governa F., C. Salone (2005), “Italy and European spatial policies: polycentrism, urban networks and local innovation practices”, European Planning Studies, 13(2): 265-283.

Guironnet A., L. Halbert (2014), “The Financialization of Urban Development Projects: Concepts, Processes, and Implications”, LATTS Working Paper, 14(04): 3-43.

Guironnet A., Attuyer K., L. Halbert (2016), “Building cities on financial assets: The financialisation of property markets and its implications for city governments in the Paris city-region”, Urban Studies, 53(7): 1442–1464.

Haila A. (1988), “Land as a Financial Asset: The Theory of Urban Rent ss s Mirror of Economic Transformation”, Antipode, 20(2): 79–101.

Haila A. (1990), “The Theory of Land Rent at the Crossroads”, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 8(3): 275–296.

Halbert L., K. Attuyer (2016), “Introduction: The financialisation of urban production: Conditions, mediations and transformations”, Urban Studies, 53(7): 1347–1361.

Hall S. (1986), “Gramsci's Relevance for the Study of Race and Ethnicity”, Journal of communication inquiry, 10(2): 5-27.

Harvey D. (1976), “Labor, Capital, and Class Struggle around the Built Environment in Advanced Capitalist Societies”, Politics & Society, 6(3): 265–295.

Harvey D. (2013), A Companion to Marx’s Capital. Volume Two, London, New York: Verso.

Iacovino R. (2016), “Restructuring Public Action in Rome. Neoliberalization and the relationships between public and private actors”, PACO, 9(2): 596-613.

Jessop B. (1991), “Accumulation Strategies, State Forms and Hegemonic Projects”, in S. Clarke (Ed.) The State Debate, Houndmills, Basingtoke: Palgrave, pp. 157-182.

Jessop B. (1997), “A neo-Gramscian approach to the regulation of urban regimes: accumulation strategies, hegemonic projects, and governance”, in M. Lauria (Ed.), Reconstructing urban regime theory: regulating urban politics in a global economy, London: SAGE, pp. 51-73.

Jessop B. (2010), “Cultural political economy and critical policy studies”, Critical Policy Studies, 3(3-4): 336-356.

Jessop B. (2013), “Credit money, fiat money and currency pyramids: Reflections on the financial crisis and sovereign debt”, in G. Harcourt and J. Pixley (Eds.), Financial Crises and the Nature of Capitalist Money, Basingstoke, New York: Palgrave-Macmillan, pp. 248-272.

Lelo K., Monni S., F. Tomassi (2019), Le mappe della disuguaglianza. Una geografia sociale metropolitana. Rome: Donzelli Editore.

Madden D., P. Marcuse (2016), In defense of housing. The politics of crisis, London, New York: Verso.

Marcelloni M. (2003), Pensare la città contemporanea: il nuovo Piano Regolatore di Roma, Rome, Bari: Laterza.

McGuirk P.M. (2004), “State, Strategy, and Scale in the Competitive City: A Neo-Gramscian Analysis of the Governance of ‘Global Sydney”, Environment and Planning A, 36(6): 1019–1043.

Moini G. (2012), Teoria critica della partecipazione. Un approccio sociologico, Rome, Milan: Franco Angeli.

Moini G. (2017), “Participation, neoliberalism and depoliticisation of public action”, SocietàMutamentoPolitica, 8(15): 129-145.

Moini G., B. Pizzo (2017), “Riding roughshod over People. Reading Politics, Economy and Civil Society in Metropolization. A case study in Rome”, in T. Reilly (Ed.), The governance of Local Communities. Global perspectives and Challenges, New York: Nova, pp. 3-20.

Moini G., Pizzo B., S. Vicari Haddock (2019), “Business immobiliare e governance urbana: i casi di Porta Nuova a Milano e dell’headquarter Bnp Paribas a Roma”, in E. d’Albergo, D. De Leo, G. Viesti (Eds.), Quarto Rapporto sulle città Il governo debole delle economie urbane, Bologna: il Mulino: 201-214.

Orueta F., S. Fainstein (2008), “The new mega-projects: genesis and impacts”, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 32(4): 759–767.

Pizzo B. (2014), “Piano città a Roma – quale politica urbana?”, Urbanistica Informazioni, 256: 18-20.

Pizzo B. (2020), “Rendita e metropolizzazione. Il caso di Roma”, Archivio di Studi Urbani e Regionali, 51(129): 64-85.

Pizzo B. (forthcoming), Vivere o morire di rendita. La rendita urbana

nel XXI secolo, Rome: Donzelli.

Pizzo B., G. Di Salvo (2015), “Il nodo della rendita immobiliare”, in E. d’Albergo, G. Moini (Eds.), Il regime dell’Urbe. Politica, economia e potere a Roma, Rome: Carocci, pp. 82-97.

Raco M. (2014), “Delivering Flagship Projects in an Era of Regulatory Capitalism: State‐led Privatization and the London Olympics 2012”, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 38(1): 176-197.

Ravazzi S. (2018), “Unpacking multi-level governance. Evidence of distributive slippage and type III error from two process-tracing analyses”, Rivista Italiana di politiche pubbliche, 13(2): 285-313.

Roma Capitale (2016), Gli Indici di Disagio Sociale ed Edilizio a Roma. Retrieved May 15, 2021 (https://www.comune.roma.it/web-resources/cms/documents/Gli_indici_di_disagio_sociale_ed_edilizio_Cens2011.pdf).

Savini F., M.B. Aalbers (2016), “The de-contextualisation of land use planning through financialisation: Urban redevelopment in Milan”, European Urban and Regional Studies, 23(4): 878–894.

Schwartz H. (2012), “Housing, the Welfare State, and the Global Financial Crisis: What is the Connection?”, Politics & Society, 40(1): 35–58.

Smith G.A. (2011), “Selective Hegemony and Beyond-Populations with ‘No Productive Function’: A Framework for Enquiry”, Identities, 18(1): 2–38.

Smith N. (1996), The new urban frontier: Gentrification and the revanchist city, London, New York: Routledge.

Sokol M. (2017), “Financialisation, financial chains and uneven geographical development: Towards a research agenda”, Research in International Business and Finance, 39: 678-685.

Sum N.L., B. Jessop (2013), Towards a cultural political economy: Putting culture in its place in political economy, Cheltenham, Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar Publishing.

Swyngedouw E., Moulaert F., A. Rodriguez (2002), “Neoliberal urbanization in Europe: large–scale urban development projects and the new urban policy”, Antipode, 34(3): 542-577.

Tocci W. (2015), Roma. Non si piange su una città coloniale. Note sulla politica romana, Florence: goWare.

Tocci W. (2020), Roma come se. Alla ricerca del futuro per la capitale, Rome: Donzelli Editore.

Toporowski J. (2010), Why the world economy needs a financial crash and other critical essays on finance and financial economics, London, New York, Delhi: Anthem Press.

Türkün A. (2011), “Urban Regeneration and Hegemonic Power Relationships”, International Planning Studies, 16(1): 61-72.

van Loon J., M.B. Aalbers (2017), “How real estate became ‘just another asset class’: The financialization of the investment strategies of Dutch institutional investors”, European Planning Studies, 25(2): 221-240.

Ward C., M.B. Aalbers (2016), “Virtual special issue editorial essay: ‘The shitty rent business’: What’s the point of land rent theory?”, Urban Studies, 53(9): 1760–1783.

Ward C., E. Swyngedouw (2018), “Neoliberalisation from the ground up: Insurgent capital, regional struggle, and the assetisation of land”, Antipode, 50(4): 1077-1097.

Weber R. (2015), From Boom to Bubble: How Finance Built the New Chicago, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Wilson J.Q. (1980), The politics of regulation, New York: Basic Books.


Full Text: PDF

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.
کاغذ a4

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribuzione - Non commerciale - Non opere derivate 3.0 Italia License.