Urban National Parks and the Making of the Housing Market in Emerging Cities: Places of Exclusiveness, Land of Opportunities

With Abdul Shaban and Rafael Soares Gonçalves
Book chapter

2018-07-18

Abstract

As emerging and postcolonial cities of the Global South, Mumbai, Rio de Janeiro, Nairobi and Cape Town share some common trends with regards to local real estate market dynamics. The spectacular increase of real estate prices had clear implications for urban national parks in these cities: the land and resources provided by the park are claimed by the urban poor, in the form of informal settlements and squatting strategies, while the park, as a major amenity and a potential reserve of land, attracted developers and investors. But despite the rise of property values and the intensity of urban change, these cities remain quite marginalised from the large scholarship on how environmental amenities influence market and price dynamics. Using primary and secondary data, this chapter deploys quantitative methodologies for mapping and tracing the spatial dynamics of housing prices, with a focus on Cape Town and Mumbai. Analysing local market configurations, both in terms of supply and demand, this chapter investigates the interweaving of the park within the housing market: we discuss the making of the park as an influential environmental amenity by analysing the marketing strategies, the narratives and the discourses displayed by local market actors, and investigate the role of the park in the determination of property prices. In the context of urban growth and rising property prices, market forces turn urban national parks into a land of opportunity, both for profit-oriented developers and city-dwellers aspiring to access housing, either through the formal or informal market channels. Findings highlight how the interplay of market forces and residential contexts led to a social and spatial process of homogenisation in Cape Town and to a process of differentiation in Mumbai: the construction of environmental amenities and their incorporation into the housing market are deeply structured on the local patterns of social stratification and market configurations.