Differentiated Market Spaces of Lifestyle Migration: a View from Belize

2019 ◽  
pp. 146-164
Keyword(s):  
Lifestyle Migration

The interurban migration industry: ‘Migration products’ and the materialisation of urban speculation at Iskandar Malaysia

Urban Studies ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 004209802199221
Author(s):  
Sin Yee Koh
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Real Estate ◽  
Foreign Investments ◽  
Regional Economic ◽  
Development Region ◽  
Lifestyle Migration ◽  
State Actors ◽  
Real Estate Education ◽  
Border State ◽  
Migration Industry

Iskandar Malaysia (IM) is a 4749 km2 urban conurbation and development region located at the Malaysia–Singapore border. State-led development of this regional economic corridor has attracted inflows of foreign investments and spurred the rise of mid- to high-end urban developments by foreign developers. This has resulted in the emergence of an interurban migration industry consisting of intermediary entities that are co-developing and co-marketing ‘migration products’ (real estate, education and lifestyle migration) as an integrated package to middle-class, aspiring transnational investor/lifestyle migrants from the region. This article argues that this middlemen industry is crucial to the materialisation of urban speculation, for state actors and investor/lifestyle migrants alike. Through interurban alliances that capitalise on the broader state-led speculative urbanism landscape, the industry co-creates an imagined urban future that is grounded in transnational lifestyle mobilities. This article highlights the need to analyse speculative urbanism and transnational investment/lifestyle migration as intertwined processes.

Between Lifestyle Migration and Comfortable Exit Strategies: Turkish Golden Visa Investors in Greece

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 166-187
Author(s):  
Gül Üret
Keyword(s):  
Economic Insecurity ◽  
Geographic Proximity ◽  
Safe Haven ◽  
Political Upheaval ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Two Factors ◽  
Attractive Option ◽  
New Form ◽  
Lifestyle Migration ◽  
Investment Process

This article examines a new phenomenon of affluent Turks investing in Greek real estate following the 15 July 2016 coup attempt in order to obtain residence rights in Greece. Triggered by a sense of social, political, and economic insecurity, Turkish nationals invest to secure an exit strategy and safe haven for family and capital in case of potential economic and political upheaval in the country. Drawing on Hirschman’s (1970) typology of Exit, Voice, and Loyalty, this paper argues that this new form of mobility and comfortable exit of the Turkish upper middle class helps defuse opposition to the AKP government and could have a stabilizing effect for the regime in the long run. Based on data from twenty-eight interviews with investors and Golden Visa brokers taking part in the investment process, two factors, in particular, are making the move from Turkey to Greece an attractive option for Turkish nationals, namely geographic proximity and perceived cultural familiarity.

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