Home  About us  Contact
 

Property Development (property + development)

Distribution by Scientific Domains
Humanities and Social Sciences57%

Selected Abstracts

Mumbai's Development Mafias: Globalization, Organized Crime and Land Development

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF URBAN AND REGIONAL RESEARCH, Issue 1 2008
LIZA WEINSTEIN
Abstract For over a decade, researchers have analyzed the effects of liberalization and globalization on urban development, considering the local political implications of shifts at the national and global scales. Taking the case of Mumbai, this article examines how the past 15 years of political reforms in India have reshaped property markets and the politics of land development. Among the newly empowered actors, local criminal syndicates, often with global connections, have seized political opportunities created by these shifts to gain influence over land development. The rise of Mumbai's organized criminal activity in the 1950s was closely linked to India's macroeconomic policies, with strict regulation of imports fuelling the growth of black market smuggling. Liberalization and deregulation since the early 1990s have diminished demand for smuggled consumer goods and criminal syndicates have since diversified their operations. With skyrocketing real estate prices in the 1990s, bolstered by global land speculation, the mafia began investing in property development. Supported by an illicit nexus of politicians, bureaucrats and the police, the mafia has emerged as a central figure in Mumbai's land development politics. The article examines the structural shifts that facilitated the criminalization of land development and the implications of mafia involvement in local politics. Résumé Depuis plus d'une décennie, les chercheurs ont analysé les effets de la libéralisation et de la mondialisation sur l'aménagement urbain en étudiant les implications politiques locales de transformations effectuées à l'échelle nationale et planétaire. Prenant le cas de Mumbai, cet article examine comment les réformes politiques des quinze dernières années en Inde ont reconfiguré les marchés immobiliers et les politiques d'aménagement foncier. Parmi les nouveaux acteurs, les syndicats du crime locaux, opérant souvent dans des réseaux internationaux, ont saisi les occasions politiques créées par ces changements pour gagner en influence sur l'aménagement foncier. A Mumbai, l'activité accrue du crime organisé dans les années 1950 était étroitement liée aux politiques macroéconomiques de l'Inde, une réglementation stricte des importations alimentant l'essor de la contrebande sur le marché noir. Depuis le début des années 1990, libéralisation et déréglementation ont réduit la demande pour les biens de consommation de contrebande, poussant les syndicats du crime à diversifier leurs opérations. Face à la montée en flèche des prix de l'immobilier dans les années 1990, aidée par la spéculation foncière mondiale, la mafia a investi dans la promotion immobilière. Soutenue par un réseau illégal de politiciens, bureaucrates et policiers, elle est donc devenue un personnage central des politiques d'urbanisme à Mumbai. L'article étudie les transformations structurelles qui ont facilité la criminalisation du secteur foncier, et les implications de la présence de la mafia dans la politique locale. [source]

Immigrant Place Entrepreneurs in Los Angeles, 1970,99

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF URBAN AND REGIONAL RESEARCH, Issue 2 2002
Ivan Light
Proclamations of the death of Los Angeles' growth machine are premature. These proclamations overlook the growing role of immigrant Korean and Chinese entrepreneurs in regional property development. Since 1970, Korean and Chinese entrepreneurs have seriously restructured Los Angeles' morphology, creating hierarchically arranged residential and business clusters for co,ethnic immigrants. Koreatown and Monterey Park are the brand names most familiar to outsiders, but these prominent localities really coexist with a multiplicity of less well,known ethnic communities that owe their origins to immigrant property developers. The immigrant property developers use the classic methods of the growth machine: buy land cheaply, promote it in Chinese or Korean emigration basins, then sell it to co,ethnic immigrants at a profit. In the process, the immigrant property developers reduce the difficulty of immigration to Los Angeles at the same time that they enhance its perceived desirability. The success of the Chinese and Korean developers highlights the hazard of assuming, as is conventionally done, that ethnic residential clustering arises from leaderless social processes. In both these highlighted cases, entrepreneurial elites created residential clusters of co,ethnics from conscious, long,term plans that required political as well as economic savoir,faire. In so doing, the immigrant property developers joined the Los Angeles growth machine whose fortunes, admittedly, have been waning among the native born population of the region. La mort annoncée de la dynamique de croissance de Los Angeles est prématurée. Ce serait oublier le rôle grandissant des chefs d'entreprise immigrés coréens et chinois dans l'aménagement immobilier régional. Depuis 1970, ces entrepreneurs ont considérablement restructuré la morphologie de Los Angeles, créant des ,agglomérats' commerciaux et résidentiels hiérarchisés pour migrants de m?,me ethnie. Si Koreatown et Monterey Park sont des noms bien connus des étrangers, ces lieux dominants coexistent en réalité avec une multiplicité de communautés ethniques moins renommées qui doivent leurs origines à des promoteurs immigrés. Ces derniers appliquent les mécanismes classiques de la prospérité: acheter le terrain bon marché, le promouvoir dans des bassins d'émigration chinois ou coréens, puis le vendre à profità des immigrants co,ethniques. Ainsi, les promoteurs immigrés facilitent l'immigration vers Los Angeles tout en en accentuant l'aspect attractif. La réussite des aménageurs chinois et coréens souligne le risque qu'il y a à supposer, comme bien souvent, que tout regroupement résidentiel ethnique naît de processus sociaux non dirigés. Dans les deux cas exposés, les élites commerciales ont créé des regroupements résidentiels de m?,me ethnie selon des plans délibérés à long terme, impliquant un savoir,faire à la fois politique et économique. Ce faisant, les promoteurs immigrés ont rejoint la dynamique de croissance de Los Angeles qui, il est vrai, a vu décliner les succès au sein de sa population de souche. [source]

Property-Led Redevelopment in Post-Reform China: A Case Study of Xintiandi Redevelopment Project in Shanghai

JOURNAL OF URBAN AFFAIRS, Issue 1 2005
Shenjing He
Government-backed redevelopment has been replaced by privately funded and property-led redevelopment. This article discerns the impetus of ongoing property-led redevelopment. A case study of the Xintiandi project in Shanghai reveals how property-led redevelopment actually works. Pro-growth coalitions between local government and developers are formed. Despite its role as capital provider, the private sector is still regulated by the government due to its negligible influence on local governance. The government controls the direction and pace of urban redevelopment through policy intervention, financial leverages, and governance of land leasing. Property-led redevelopment is driven by diverse motivations of different levels of the government, e.g. transforming urban land use functions, showing off the entrepreneurial capability of local government, and maximizing negotiated land benefits. Driven by profit seeking, some thriving urban neighborhoods are displaced by high-value property development, and suffer from uneven redevelopment. [source]

Some important aspects in designing high molecular weight poly(L -lactic acid),clay nanocomposites with desired properties

POLYMER INTERNATIONAL, Issue 12 2008
Subhendu Ray Chowdhury
Abstract BACKGROUND: The main aim of the work reported here was to investigate the effect of clay aspect ratio and functional edge group on the dispersion, degree of order of clays and interfacial strength of high molecular weight poly(L -lactic acid) (PLLA),clay amorphous nanocomposites and consequently their properties. Three kinds of clays (two montmorillonites (SMMTC18 and NMMTC18) and one fluoro-mica (MC18) with the same surfactant) were used to synthesize three amorphous nanocomposites. Thermomechanical properties, permeability, etc., were compared among composites and with pure PLLA. RESULTS: From X-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy, both MMTs with lower aspect ratio showed better dispersion and greater degree of disorder, which led to stronger interfacial strength and consequently higher storage modulus than MC18-based composites. All composites showed better properties than pure PLLA. The oxygen barrier efficiencies of SMMTC18- and NMMTC18-based composites were higher than that of the MC18-based composites. Due to the highest exposed area and probably stronger interactions, SMMTC18 had the highest nucleating efficiency. CONCLUSIONS: Along with aspect ratio, dispersion and degree of intercalation, the interfacial strength of composites and degree of order of clays are also important issues for property development. Compared to reported results in the literature, our amorphous composites showed less of an improvement of thermomechanical properties as real reinforcement was solely from clays. Copyright © 2008 Society of Chemical Industry [source]

Parking Externalities in Commercial Real Estate

REAL ESTATE ECONOMICS, Issue 2 2010
Bowman Cutter IV
Local governments have employed a variety of strategies to reduce street congestion through an increase in parking supply. These policies have been criticized as an implicit subsidy that shifts costs from drivers to the public at large. Others have noted that parking lots and structures can lead to increased water and air pollution. However, there has not been an examination of whether parking, presumably by reducing congestion, generates external benefits. We measure whether nearby parking availability influences commercial property prices after controlling for property characteristics, including on-site parking. We find that publicly accessible parking, such as commercial parking garages, generates significant aggregate externalities. We also find evidence of a significant complementary relationship between building and parking area in property values. This suggests that parking regulation could have a significant impact on property development through its effect on the value of the marginal square foot of building area. [source]

Making Dubai: A Process in Crisis

ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN, Issue 5 2010
Todd Reisz
Abstract The world financial crisis of 2009 brought the onward march of property development in Dubai to a standstill. ToddReisz describes how the city's PR community responded to the predicament with a cathartic call for honesty and transparency. Reisz, however, questions the consultants' understanding of the Dubai Dream, which though built out of no more than images, is also constructed out of the hopes of the Arab world. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]

The Financialization of Urban Redevelopment

GEOGRAPHY COMPASS (ELECTRONIC), Issue 8 2010
Ted Rutland
Spurred by the conviction that not only financial capital but also changes in finance and changes in its relations with non-financial activities have immense and complicated consequences for ongoing processes of urban redevelopment, this article puts the presently separate financialization and urban redevelopment literatures in conversation. The article begins with a review of the financialization literature, outlining and evaluating four different approaches to the topic and seeking to consider what, if anything, they might have to offer to an area of inquiry that has long considered finance to be a central concern. The second section examines how financial capital has been analyzed in the urban redevelopment literature since the pioneering work of David Harvey in the 1970s. The final section examines how financialization has played out in the medium-sized port city of Halifax, Nova Scotia. Drawing on interviews with financiers and property developments, as well as secondary research materials, the study describes how a recent urban design process in Halifax enlisted urban images and ideas to rewrite development regulations, eliminate popular political involvement in the development approvals process, and lever open the downtown landscape to the whims of worldwide financial markets. The essay concludes that studies of urban redevelopment would indeed gain something by engaging with the financialization literature, so long as the former continue to attend not just to financial capital but also to the material and ideological mechanisms through which property is continually reproduced as a financial asset. [source]