Urban Field

Sami Moisio is Professor of Spatial Planning and Policy in the Department of Geosciences and Geography at the University of Helsinki. His research interests include state spatial transformation, political geography of economic geographies, and urban geography. His recent book, Geopolitics of the Knowledge-Based Economy won the 2019 Regional Studies Association Book Award. Ugo Rossi is Professor of Political and Economic Geography at the Gran Sasso Science Institute, where he teaches in the graduate programme in regional science and economic geography. His research interests are in the politics of urban and regional development as well as in critical political and social theory. His books include Cities in Global Capitalism (2017) and (with Alberto Vanolo) Urban Political Geographies (2012).

• Introduction: Neo-feudalism or new monopoly capital?Part I Macro-political economy of the urban field1 The rise of the corporatized state Introduction The urban technological paradigm The competition state The corporatized state Conclusion2 The urban field and the strategic urbanization of the state Introduction The urban field On the “national” urban field The urban field in the age of national competitiveness Designing the Finnish nation-state as a digital space ConclusionPart II Micro-political economy of the urban field3 Labour Introduction Labour as source of economic value Exploiting labour power in techno-capitalism The blurring of rent and profit The contested control of the urban field Conclusion4 Human capital Introduction The rise and rise of human capital theory The early stages of human capital theory Redefining the role of the state Human capital’s new clothes: endogenous growth theory Human capital and the housing crisis The human capital dystopia is yet to come Conclusion5 Startups Introduction The world of startups Startup economy as a constituent of the urban field Extracting economic value through the urban field The corporatized state in the startup world The story of Wolt as an urban startup company The implicit role of the state in the valuation process Conclusion6 Forms of life Introduction Constituting the urban experience economy Naples: Becoming a mass-tourism city Sophia Loren and the politics of the event Staging the open city The cult of Maradona ConclusionCoda: The value of the urban field

Combining innovative theorizing with radical critique, Sami Moisio and Ugo Rossi rethink the strategic role of cities, the stakes in transformative politics, and the meaning of the urban field in the era of technocapitalism.