Since the 1990s, transnational financial investors have been investing in commercial real estate markets in Mexico City, as in most major cities in "emerging" countries. These new players are helping to reinforce the spatial expansion of the metropolis and its structuring on a regional scale.
This particular contribution to Mexico City's urban development can be explained in two ways: on the one hand, the specific characteristics of transnational financial investments can be explained by the restrictive internal functioning of the transnational financial network, which is organized around concepts and tools defined outside Mexico; on the other hand, their concentration on the periphery of the central state of the Mexico City metropolis—the Distrito Federal (DF)—can be understood through an analysis of the historical construction of the different territories that make up the metropolitan area.
Within the DF, the integration of transnational financial investors into real estate markets is hampered by competing developers and investors who are part of closed social networks characterized by community-based operations and an old system of favors. On the periphery, on the other hand, transnational financial investors are able to enter the real estate markets more easily, embedded in more recently urbanized territories where political and economic resources are more dispersed.
This thesis thus seeks to contribute to a better understanding of the ways in which the financialization of real estate markets and urban production is taking place in a Latin American metropolis such as Mexico City. It shows that the spread of practices, concepts, and a new division of labor promoted by the transnational financial network is the subject of a power struggle with other pre-existing and competing ways of developing and investing in real estate.
Keywords:
Financialization, Territory, Mexico City, Urban production, Real estate development, Network
Thesis defended on May 31, 2013
Jury
Olivier CREVOISIER, Professor, University of Neuchâtel, rapporteur.
Patrick LE GALÈS, Director of Research, Sciences Po Paris, rapporteur.
Ludovic HALBERT, Research Fellow, University of Paris-Est, Latts, co-supervisor.
Catherine PAQUETTE, Research Fellow, Institute of Research for Development.
Vincent RENARD, Director of Research, IDDRI – Sciences Po, thesis supervisor.
Vicente UGALDE, Researcher, El Colegio de México.
Doctoral school:
VTT – City, Transport and Territories