Metropolitics

Agrarian Fantasy, Settler Colonial Property, and the Making of Industrial Johannesburg

Renugan Raidoo — 2026-01-20T06:00:00Z

Some of the gated estates in and around Johannesburg and Pretoria sell residents a settler colonial fantasy of a bucolic idyll away from the urban condition. But Renugan Raidoo examines the important role agricultural surplus played in mining industrialization, which tells a much more complex story of urban–rural relations.
---- Series: Provincializing the “Real-Estate Turn” “A piece of the past has found its' [sic] way to the future” in all-white majuscule is the first thing one sees on the

- Essays / Africa, South Africa, Global South, Johannesburg, Pretoria, gated communities, rural, colonial urban planning, agriculture, industry, history, apartheid, real-estate turn, real estate

On the Land Question in India: The Case of Sriperumbudur Industrial Region in Peri-Urban Chennai

V. Gajendran — 2025-12-23T06:00:00Z

Amidst intense demand for land, farmers near Chennai, India face dispossession by neglect.
---- Series: Provincializing the “Real-Estate Turn” My essay begins with a puzzle. The past two decades have been called the decades of intense land conflicts in India. There has been an outpouring of media and academic scholarship on agrarian landowners resisting and protesting the acquisition of their land for urban and infrastructure projects. In this context of land dispossession and opposition to

- Essays / India, Global South, land, land use, agriculture, farming, real estate, real-estate turn, periurban, Chennai

Unexpected Outcomes: Land Ceilings, Rent Control, and the Rise of Real Estate in Bombay

Nikhil Rao — 2025-12-09T06:00:00Z

Paradoxically, Mumbai's neoliberal real-estate system has its origins in progressive legislation.
---- Series: Provincializing the “Real-Estate Turn” When the Phoenix Mills compound in central Mumbai reopened in 1999 after a long closure, the former textile factory complex featured a bowling alley and a nightclub. It bore the distinction of being the first mill compound in Mumbai's storied textile mill district—Girangaon, or the village of mills—to transform itself from a manufacturing space

- Essays / Bombay, Mumbai, rent control, land ceilings, real estate, real-estate turn, legislation, governance

Urban Public Transit: A Choice Between Two Models

Arnaud Passalacqua & Philippe Poinsot & translated by Oliver Waine — 2025-12-02T06:00:00Z

Public transportation has a decisive role to play in any meaningful ecological transition. And yet key players in the sector continue to prioritize technical innovations that consume huge quantities of resources. Arnaud Passalacqua and Philippe Poinsot re‑examine past experiences in France in order to identify solutions that are more technically modest and available in the shorter term.
Urban public transportation is considered an important tool for public policies aimed at promoting a

- Essays / funding, innovation, mass transit, mobility, model, public transportation, resources, technical innovation, transport, urban technical networks

“The Apartment You Can Own with Pride”: Federally Insured Black Housing Cooperatives, 1950–1955

Nicholas Shatan — 2025-11-25T06:00:00Z

Postwar Black cooperatives insured by the federal government trouble the binary of public and private in housing development.
---- Series: Provincializing the “Real-Estate Turn” In October 1950, civil-rights leader Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune spoke when the cornerstone was laid for Parkway Gardens, perhaps the first apartment development cooperatively owned by African Americans in Chicago (Chicago Defender 1950). Built next to the “L” rapid-transit station at 63rd St and South Park Avenue on the

- Essays / race, segregation, residential segregation, housing, cooperative housing, Federal Housing Administration, United States, Black neighborhoods, real estate

Urban Theory and the Cold War: Reflections on the Political Economy of Urban Land and Real-Estate Development in Southeast Asia

Gavin Shatkin — 2025-11-07T06:05:00Z

The Cold War's repressive politics of land and law still underpin the region's contemporary struggles over land rights, urban space and democracy.
---- Series: Provincializing the “Real-Estate Turn” When the non-governmental organization Jakarta Legal Aid sought a legal avenue to confront the Indonesian state over its use of summary eviction as a tool of urban planning, it focused on a Cold War‑era law, Law 51/1960. Commonly used to justify evictions of settlements for urban infrastructure

- Essays / real estate, real-estate turn, Asia, Southeast Asia, authoritarian regime, Cold War, Thailand, Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos, The Philippines

Visible Minorities, Visible Risk: Toronto's Unequal Eviction Burden

Prentiss Dantzler & Khalil Martin & Abigail Meza — 2025-09-16T05:00:00Z

In Toronto, who gets evicted isn't random—it follows the city's racial and economic divides. Canada's data practices hide crucial details about who is most at risk.
Evictions are a leading cause of housing insecurity in cities worldwide, disproportionately affecting lower-income households and non-white racialized groups. In Canada, although attention to evictions is growing, there is limited research available. As the most populous city in the country, Toronto is home to a diverse set of

- Essays / evictions, social class, poverty, housing, tenants, rental, rental housing, minorities, precarity, Canada, Toronto

Settling on the Financial Periphery: Alternative Housing Practices in Hegang, China

Yimeng Yang — 2025-06-17T05:00:00Z

Can valuing a home for its use value constitute a form of resistance to housing financialization? Considering the case of housing in Hegang, China, Yimeng Yang argues that the grassroots rejection of the logic of financialization is a form of resistance.
Hegang, a city in Northeast China known for its coal industry, rose to prominence during China's socialist era. It has faced economic stagnation, a population exodus, and plummeting housing prices over the past decade. This decline followed

- Essays / China, Hegang, Asia, financialization, real estate, housing, housing markets

Planning in the Age of Political Populism: Kolkata's Tram Debate

Tathagata Chatterji — 2025-06-10T05:00:00Z

Using the case of Kolkata's tram system, Tathagata Chatterji shows how two distinct political strategies—populism and clientelism—operate in a symbiotic relationship to circumvent formal planning processes in India's third-largest city.
Political populism and clientelism are two distinct political strategies with significant conceptual overlaps. From a theoretical standpoint, political populism is associated with charismatic leaders who mobilise mass support through ideological and rhetorical

- Essays / India, Global South, Asia, Kolkata, mass transit, rapid transit, transport, transport policy, public transportation, tram, clientelism, populism, streetcar, light rail, tramway

Using Cross-Class Politics to Challenge Urban Housing Inequality in Islamabad, Pakistan

Hafsah Siddiqui — 2025-04-01T05:00:00Z

When redevelopment schemes target a city's poor for removal to provide opportunities for the privileged, how can poor residents assert a right to their home? With Islamabad as a case study, Hafsah Siddiqui shows how cross-class politics can be the basis for collaborative efforts for the poor to maintain a right to the city.
---- Series: Horizons in the Housing Struggle Islamabad is touted as Pakistan's loveliest city, with lush greenery and clean public spaces. The slogan “Islamabad the

- Essays / Global South, Asia, Pakistan, Islamabad, housing, right to housing, informal housing, urban services, social class, mobilization, urban inequality