Cities under state capitalism

Gertjan Wijburg and Richard Waldron
Additional contact information
Gertjan Wijburg: University of Leuven, Belgium
Richard Waldron: Queen’s University Belfast, UK

Urban Studies, 2025, vol. 62, issue 10, 2154-2168

Abstract: State interventions in urban development and planning are not new to state capitalism, even though intensifying ‘muscular’ state responses to urban challenges can now be observed across the entire geopolitical and urban landscape. This viewpoint explores this intensifying connection between state capitalism, the capitalist state and urban governance. It argues that for strategic geopolitical and economic reasons states increasingly govern, regulate, manage and own parts of the urban built environment. However, regulatory intervention in the city cannot be mistaken for a return to the post-war development state which strongly focused on promoting spatial development and industrial policy and protecting social welfarism and labour conditions. Rather, the new state capitalism is about proactive market intervention so that states and their partners can profit from the growth, wealth and revenue that cities have to offer. As for that, this commentary concludes with four avenues for future research at the boundaries of state capitalism and urban governance. Examples from cities in the Global North, Global South and Global East are given to illustrate the broader argument. Shifting geopolitics are also discussed as a driver of state rescaling and reterritorialisation.

Keywords: de-risking; financialisation; post-dirigisme; state rescaling; statecraft; state-led urban development; 去风险; é‡‘èž åŒ–; å Žå›½å®¶ç»Ÿåˆ¶; å›½å®¶å°ºåº¦é‡ æž„; 治国方略; å›½å®¶ä¸»å¯¼çš„åŸŽå¸‚å ‘å±• (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00420980241303832 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:62:y:2025:i:10:p:2154-2168

DOI: 10.1177/00420980241303832

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Urban Studies from Urban Studies Journal Limited
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().