Pipelines, not pipe dreams: Examining financialization narratives and activist demands in Nashville, TN

Keywords: housing, financialization, urban development, fiscal geographies
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Tuesday
Session Start / End Time: 3/1/2022 08:00 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 3/1/2022 09:20 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 50

Abstract

While growing bodies of research examine the logics, tools, and effects of the financialization of housing (Christophers 2021; Fields and Raymond 2021; Wijburg 2020; Fields and Rogers 2021), emerging research on fiscal and tax geographies (Tapp and Kass 2019; Kass 2020) highlights a pressing need to consider the active role that sates play within larger processes of urban financialization. In this paper, I bring together conversations of housing financialization and fiscal geographies to explore on-the-ground activism and resistance to urban development in Nashville, TN. In the spring of 2021, while many city residents were struggling to pay rent, the city government finalized negotiations with a major tech company to redevelop a large section of the city’s riverbank. This deal marks the first in what will become the city’s re-imagined East Bank. with a combined square footage that will eclipse the entirety of downtown. Grounding my research within this case study, I consider 1) how the city’s budgeting process shapes the contours of urban development and the priorities of negotiated land deals, and 2) examine how activists demands for equitable investment and affordable housing reveal contestations over the processes, politics, and intensity of financialization, not only in terms of the housing market, but also in terms of the role of municipal governments and their relationship to social provisions. Attending to questions of financialization at the intersection of activist demands, municipal budgets, and private interests has the potential to reveal unique insights into how urban financialization is both made and unmade.