Global urban forms and local strategies of property market actors: Fid-Bau Portal

Global urban forms and local strategies of property market actors

Taşan-Kok, Tuna

Abstract As the neo-liberal economic and political ideology spreads, the associated mobility of capital has been driving investment in urban economies throughout the world. Local organizations and institutions have reacted in different ways to economic globalization, which may be explained by local contingencies. This article focuses on large-scale commercial complexes (e.g., shopping malls, office estates, entertainment centers) and examines these global urban forms in relation to property market dynamics and the behavior of the actors involved. Over the past decade or two, such complexes have become characteristic features of the urban landscape in countries at the periphery of advanced capitalism. For many years, the peripheral economies of Hungary, Poland, and Turkey had lagged behind advanced capitalist markets in terms of the supply of these commercial properties. By focusing on how actors in local property markets respond to dramatic changes within these booming commercial markets, this article sheds light on the institutional and organizational transformations in these countries. Furthermore, it elucidates the interaction between local and global actors—all of whom influence the materialization of these new urban forms—and the arrangements that induce them to develop the urban space. A number of projects in Budapest, Warsaw, and Istanbul have been selected to illustrate these dynamics.