Class Meets Land

Maria Kaika is a planner, urban geographer, and architect. She is Director of the Centre for Urban Studies at the University of Amsterdam. Her books include Turning Up the Heat: Urban Political Ecology for a Climate Emergency, The Political Ecology of Austerity, In the Nature of Cities, and City of Flows.  Luca Ruggiero is Professor of Economic and Political Geography in the Department of Political and Social Sciences at the University of Catania, Italy. His books include Tardo industrialismo: Energia, ambiente e nuovi immaginari di sviluppo in Sicilia, La dipendenza energetica dell’Unione Europea: Strategie geopolitiche e scenari innovativi, and Temi di geografia economica.

“Stylistically logical. . . . A convincing case for approaching financialization in its specific historical context and from the perspective of local class struggles.”

• ContentsList of Illustrations Acknowledgments: The Academic Manuscript as a Collective “Labor of Love” Introduction: A Timeful Analysis of Class Struggle as a Force of Spatial Production PART I. CITY OF INDUSTRY: LAND AS THE MEANS TO FORGE A NEW ANTHROPOLOGICAL TYPE OF WORKINGMEN AND WOMEN (1880–1939)1. Class Meets Land: Turning Flexible Peasantry into Disciplined Industrial Labor (1880–1922) 2. Land as Catalyst for Forging Class Consciousness (1922–1939) PART II. CITY OF WORKERS: LAND AS SPACE FOR COMMONING AND RADICAL POLITICAL ACTION(1939–EARLY 1970s)3. Land as Citadel of Workers’ Anti-Fascist Resistance (1939–1945)4. “Italy’s Stalingrad” and the “Years of Lead”: Radicalizing Social Claims over Industrial Land (1945–Early 1970s) PART III. CITY OF TECHNOLOGY: LAND REVANCHISM AS A MEANS OF TRANSITIONING TO HIGH-TECHCAPITALISM (EARLY 1970s–early 1990s)5. Land Revanchism and the Unmaking of the Working Class (Early 1970s–1985)6. The Eureka Moment: “Discovering” Industrial Land as Asset (1985–Early 1990s) PART IV. CITY OF FINANCE: LAND AS PURE FINANCIAL ASSET (EARLY 1990s–2020)7. Land Financialization as a “Lived” Process: From Industrial Commodity Production to the Production of Land as Financialized Asset (Early 1990s–2000)8. Decaffeinated Urbanity: Financialized Land as No-Man’s-Land (2000–2020)Epilogue: Financialization as “Lived” Process: Moving the Field ForwardNotes References Index