Uneven development, dependency, and housing financialization in Latin America: Formal and informal city growth in Quito, a consequence of real estate companies

Abstract

It can be taken for granted that all societies in the world belong to a global economy; however, it is important to understand from a historical perspective how the interaction of these economic, political, and social processes has been integrated into a common sphere that transforms and modifies our daily life. Departing from theories that describe the uneven and combined development of the states, the dependency among them that evolves in a world system theory, creating cores and peripheries, and building on empirical evidence of the transition of Quito to a global city, narrowing to the description of the interactions of financialization mechanisms in the consolidated space of Quito, in order to show the key role of Real Estate Investment Trusts (REIT) as the tool of how the capitalist system interacts, penetrates and impacts urban development as a whole. The thesis proves that the economic groups located in Quito make use of international financialization tools in the real estate sector and this contributes to the expulsion of its inhabitants towards the periphery of the urban area, restricting their right to the city.