DIVIDING A CITY: REAL ESTATE MEGA-SPECULATION AND CONTENTION IN MIAMI, FLORIDA
Article
Tardanico, R, Oslender, U. (2021). DIVIDING A CITY: REAL ESTATE MEGA-SPECULATION AND CONTENTION IN MIAMI, FLORIDA
. 1(29), 103-120. 10.12795/astragalo.2021.i29.05
Tardanico, R, Oslender, U. (2021). DIVIDING A CITY: REAL ESTATE MEGA-SPECULATION AND CONTENTION IN MIAMI, FLORIDA
. 1(29), 103-120. 10.12795/astragalo.2021.i29.05
Miami is not a newcomer to the history of gentrification that has reshaped the urban fabric in cities all over the world. Yet a new mega project to be implemented in Miami's Little Haiti neighborhood represents a strategic capitalist modification of the city's previous processes of class-based and racialized socio-territorial dispossession and displacement. As we argue in this paper, Little Haiti's Magic City Innovation District stands emblematic for a global boom in financialized urban corporate accumulation, which presents new challenges to local communities. We ask, what practical political options does a predominantly poor minority community have in confronting such challenges? Our discussion of Miami's Little Haiti suggests two conclusions: first, that real estate mega speculation potentially exacerbates politico-social divisions within such a community, subverts its capacity for resistance, and renders it more vulnerable to large-scale dispossession and displacement; and second, that mega speculation exacerbates socio-territorial divisions and inequalities within the fabric of a wider metropolis.
