Real Estate Capital, a Preponderant Player in the Production of Space in Contemporary Cities. Theoretical Elements for a Marxist Analysis: Urban Income and the Built Environment

Abstract

The contemporary countless urban problems can be explained around the rationality and operation of capitalism, specifically, over the personification of real estate capital, which has reproduced extremely significant in recent years. This obliges us to place on the urban analysis, some specific economic categories linked to the Marxist Political Economy. We refer specifically two concepts: Urban Rent (determinated by Land Prices), and the built environment, which directly affects value and obtaining plus-profits from merchandises real estate plus-prices, that produces the building supply of contemporary cities. A systematic and theoretically articulated understanding of activities in the real estate sector (housing, offices and retail) and its function within the capitalist system can help us understand current contemporary urban process and the social, economic, politic consecuenses.