Daniel Sanfelici
Daniel Sanfelici is a Visiting Scholar at the center and a doctoral student at the University of Sao Paulo (USP), Brazil. His current research deals with the recent changes occurring on the waterfront of Porto Alegre (Southern Brazil) as a result of large-scale property development and state policies designed to prepare the city for the next FIFA World Cup in 2014. He also considers the close connections being established in Brazil between the financial sector and housing markets as a fundamental background for understanding the rapid changes taking place in metropolitan areas. At the University of Sao Paulo, Daniel has participated in seminars and discussions about Marx’s and Henri Lefebvre’s works and their potential for interpreting present-day urban development. His main interests include the connections between crisis and urbanization; regional differentiations in the urbanization process; the effects of neoliberal urban policies; and the intensification of socio-spatial fragmentation in metropolitan areas.
Collected Work
“Financial Markets, Developers and the Geographies of Housing in Brazil: A Supply-Side Account”
This paper looks at how financial markets influence the development industry, its business strategies, and the nature and location of its products. Adopting a supply-side account, the paper inquires into the rising role of financial markets as a source of funding for a consolidating development industry and its influence on the geography of housing in Brazilian cities. Analysing the wave of Initial Public Offerings occurring in the mid 2000s, the paper highlights that narratives of quick capital gains associated with the removal of the land banking bottleneck faced by developers supported a convention giving priority to the growth in total output, and contributed to the observed changes in the forms, scales and locations of housing projects in Brazilian cities. As discrepancies between the promises of returns for shareholders and actual financial results emerged, the growth convention unravelled, making way for other narratives and strategic moves to resonate anew and possibly change again the geographies of housing.