Emptying out and filling up, or the spatial logic of neoliberalization

Abstract

This paper points to the production of space as an appropriate methodological framework for social sciences in their aim to analyse how current processes of neoliberalization and global fluxes of capital actually work and affect our cities. The interest of this approach lies in the growing penetration of neoliberal policies in Spain, especially in the field of urban planning. Combining theoretical discussion with the presentation of a case study of the old centre of Palma (Majorca), I argue that the reason why urban regeneration projects proliferate in Spanish cities is the purpose of extracting surplus values through the production of space. Nonetheless, the economic success of these processes does not depend on pure market mechanisms but on the mobilisation of social forces apparently alien to the market which, as a result, are dramatically reshaped so as to fall in line with the reproduction (and expansion) requirements of the accumulation system.