Louise David: Urban development in Mexico City: between financialisation and territorial development. An analysis of the integration of the transnational financial network into commercial property markets

Since the 1990s, transnational financial investors have been investing in Mexico City’s commercial property markets, as they have in those of most major cities in ‘emerging’ countries. These new players are helping to drive the city’s spatial expansion and its development on a regional scale.

This specific contribution to Mexico City’s urban development can be explained in two ways: on the one hand, the distinctive features of transnational financial investment are explained by the restrictive internal workings of the transnational financial network, which is organised around concepts and tools defined outside Mexico; on the other hand, their concentration on the outskirts of the central state of the Mexico City metropolitan area – the Distrito Federal (DF) – can be understood through an analysis of the historical development of the various territories that make up the metropolitan area.

Within the DF, the entry of transnational financial investors into property markets is hindered by rival developers and investors who are part of closed social networks, characterised by a community-based approach and a long-standing system of favours. In the periphery, by contrast, transnational financial investors find it easier to enter property markets, which are embedded in more recently urbanised areas where political and economic resources are more dispersed.

This thesis thus seeks to contribute to a better understanding of the mechanisms through which the financialisation of property markets and urban development takes place in a Latin American metropolis such as Mexico City. It demonstrates that the spread of practices, concepts and a new division of labour, 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 property.

Members of the jury

• Olivier CREVOISIER, Professor, University of Neuchâtel, rapporteur.
• Patrick LE GALÈS, Director of Research, Sciences Po Paris, rapporteur.
• Ludovic HALBERT, Research Fellow, Université Paris-Est, Latts, co-supervisor of a PhD thesis.
• Catherine PAQUETTE, Research Fellow, French National Research Institute for Development.
• Vincent RENARD, Research Director, IDDRI – Sciences Po, PhD supervisor.
• Vicente UGALDE, Research Fellow, El Colegio de México.