Cashing in on the sky: financialization and urban air rights in the Taipei Metropolitan Area

Abstract

This paper focuses on urban air rights, property rights for the ownership, development and trading of the airspace above land parcels. A three-fold contribution is made to the study of urban financialization. First, urban air rights are explicated as a new empirical terrain for research into urban financialization. Second, air rights are conceptualized as ‘market devices’ that enable market-making processes and are deployed by an activist state to facilitate regulatory and socio-technical conditions for urban financialization. Third, case studies of urban Taipei show air rights take subtly different forms across financialized processes of infrastructure provision and urban renewal.