Resumen de City of Rents: The limits to the Barcelonamodel of urban competitiveness

Greig Charnock, Thomas F. Purcell, Ramon Ribera Fumaz

• The turn towards the knowledge-based economy and creative strategies to enhanceurban competitiveness within it has been well documented. Yet too little has been said todate about the transformation of land use for new productive activities, and thecontradictions inherent to this process. Our case study is Barcelona, an erstwhile‘model’ for urban regeneration which has sought to transform itself into a globalknowledge city since 2000. Through the lens of Marxian value theory, and Harvey’swriting on urban monopoly rents especially, we show how the 22@Barcelona project —conceived with received wisdom about the determinants of urban knowledge-basedcompetitiveness in mind — amounted to an exercise in the capture of monopoly rents,driven by the compulsion of public sector institutions, financiers and developers topursue rental profit-maximizing opportunities through the mobilization of land as afinancial asset.