scholarly journals Rent-seeking middle classes and the short-term rental business in inner-city Lima

Urban Studies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 57 (12) ◽  
pp. 2547-2563
Author(s):  
Mirtha Lorena del Castillo ◽  
Christien Klaufus
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Real Estate ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Spatial Configuration ◽  
Rent Seeking ◽  
Floating Population ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Enabling Factors ◽  
High Rise ◽  
Alternative Means

Between 2007 and 2017, Lima experienced an unprecedented growth of the construction sector and an increase in high-rise condominiums. Urban land as a strategic resource has altered the spatial configuration of Lima’s central districts. This paper presents the results of a case study of Barranco, a central and emblematic district of Lima that underwent an intense real estate boom. In our assessment, we connect the recent touristification and gentrification debates to develop a new pattern of Latin American gentrification. We argue that Barranco’s consolidation as a tourist destination, along with the relaxation of local construction policies, has led to the development of one-bedroom apartments in high-rise condominiums destined mainly to be rented out to tourists and other types of floating population. This urban restructuring model has created new business opportunities for what we call a rent-seeking middle class, keen to invest in real estate as an alternative means to increase their income. By way of discussion, we argue that the case of Barranco exemplifies a new trend in Latin American gentrification which is not characterised by an influx of the urban middle class into central areas, nor by a massive physical displacement of lower-income residents, but by the growing purchasing power of a wealthier middle-class group investing in the short-term rental business in combination with other enabling factors.

Nesting Expectations: What Can the Mexican and Argentinean Cash Transfers Tell Us about the Development of Development?

1969 ◽  
Vol 59 (1) ◽  
pp. 157-169
Author(s):  
Andrés Dapuez
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Latin American ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Cash Transfers ◽  
Conditional Cash Transfers ◽  
Cash Transfer ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Transfer Programs

Latin American cash transfer programs have been implemented aiming at particular anticipatory scenarios. Given that the fulfillment of cash transfer objectives can be calculated neither empirically nor rationally a priori, I analyse these programs in this article using the concept of an “imaginary future.” I posit that cash transfer implementers in Latin America have entertained three main fictional expectations: social pacification in the short term, market inclusion in the long term, and the construction of a more distributive society in the very long term. I classify and date these developing expectations into three waves of conditional cash transfers implementation.

Charles Dickens and the Properties of Fiction

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ushashi Dasgupta
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Real Estate ◽  
Charles Dickens ◽  
Dense Network ◽  
Social Psychological ◽  
Domestic Ideology ◽  
The Social ◽  
Literary Collaboration ◽  
Economic Relationship

This book explores the significance of rental culture in Charles Dickens’s fiction and journalism. It reveals tenancy, or the leasing of real estate in exchange for money, to be a governing force in everyday life in the nineteenth century. It casts a light into back attics and landladies’ parlours, and follows a host of characters—from slum landlords exploiting their tenants, to pairs of friends deciding to live together and share the rent. In this period, tenancy shaped individuals, structured communities, and fascinated writers. The vast majority of London’s population had an immediate economic relationship with the houses and rooms they inhabited, and Dickens was highly attuned to the social, psychological, and imaginative corollaries of this phenomenon. He may have been read as an overwhelming proponent of middle-class domestic ideology, but if we look closely, we see that his fictional universe is a dense network of rented spaces. He is comfortable in what he calls the ‘lodger world’, and he locates versions of home in a multitude of unlikely places. These are not mere settings, waiting to be recreated faithfully; rented space does not simply provide a backdrop for incident in the nineteenth-century novel. Instead, it plays an important part in influencing what takes place. For Dickens, to write about tenancy can often mean to write about writing—character, authorship, and literary collaboration. More than anything, he celebrates the fact that unassuming houses brim with narrative potential: comedies, romances, mysteries, and comings-of-age take place behind their doors.

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.

Domestic matters will determine Mexican foreign policy

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Energy Policy ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Critical Rhetoric ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Foreign Investors ◽  
Content Type ◽  
International Profile ◽  
Latin American And Caribbean

Significance The move follows Mexico’s hosting of a Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) summit last month, and provides an opportunity to expand the country’s international profile. However, AMLO generally disregards foreign policy, except as a tool for advancing domestic interests and building public support. Impacts US relations will continue to dominate foreign policy, despite AMLO’s critical rhetoric about rich nations. In the short term, Mexico will frame its foreign policy around calls for increased access to COVID-19 vaccines. Mexico’s energy policy could become a source of international tension, given its potential implications for foreign investors.

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