The Sustainability of a Financialized Urban Megaproject: The Case of Sihlcity in Zurich

Thierry Theurillat and Olivier Crevoisier

No 04-12, GRET Publications and Working Papers from GRET Group of Research in Territorial Economy, University of Neuchâtel

Abstract: Financialization and sustainable urban planning are now two major components of urban production and landscape change in Western cities. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate how the intervention of financial actors influences urban sustainability in the building of megaprojects, by developing a conceptual framework for analysis and interpretation. This framework aims first to examine the way in which sustainability has been produced by the different actors involved in a real-life situation, and then to place these interactions in their institutional, spatial and temporal context. Consequently, sustainability is understood as a social construct which is the object of negotiations that have led to the making of institutional arrangements in order to allow the project to be carried through. This framework has been constructed from the financial geography and urban geography literature on ‘finance, the city and sustainability’ and from a case study. The latter looks at the regeneration of a brownfield site to create a shopping and leisure complex that was the biggest in Switzerland and was purchased by financial actors.

Keywords: Financial actors; public–private partnerships; urban sustainability; territorial and institutionalist approach; urban megaproject; Switzerland; Zurich (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D71 D81 G1 G23 Q01 R11 R51 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 22 pages
Date: 2012-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Published in International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, May 2012, Pages 1-22

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Journal Article: The Sustainability of a Financialized Urban Megaproject: The Case of Sihlcity in Zurich (2013)
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