Financialised office markets and the cities. The example of Frankfurt am Main

Abstract

In the past two decades, real estate has been transforming from owner-occupied utilities into (well-performing) financial products with high yield expectations from investors. In this regard, the main objective of the paper is to discuss two central processes, which not only materialise in urban space but, following their inherent economic logic, reinforce each other. First, the increased volatility of office markets in international financial centres is a result of the liberalisation of the international financial markets and has been creating places of capital ex-traction within those cities. Second, and on the contrary, municipalities face in-creasing restrictions on domains such as urban planning, forced by the necessity to attract private investors to boost the local economy, thus, retracting the po-litical space for manoeuvre with respect to the varied needs of their own inhabi-tants.real estate office markets; financialisation; planning policy; Frankfurt am Main