Potential rents vs. potential lives

Abstract

The seeking of potential rents directs flows of investment into built and natural environments, suffusing volatility into urban and rural landscapes, generating gentrification and other forms of land use change, and displacing lives and livelihoods to make space for ‘improvement’, ‘highest and best use’, ‘revitalization’, or the like. In this paper we argue that potential rents are captured at the cost of potential lives, and that rent gap theory, long central (and limited) to gentrification theory, is more widely applicable to the dynamics of land use change and uneven geographical development in capitalist societies. By reading David Harvey’s analyses of rent and accumulation by dispossession as a sophisticated formulation of rent gap theory, we relate the seeking and capturing of potential rents to the power of landed developer interests and a broadened conceptualization of rentiership. We furthermore relate the seeking of potential rents to an ideology of limitless accumulation, and the striving to rein in potential rents to ideas of degrowth and the need for a culture and a politics of limits. Brief vignettes from the ‘primary sector’ (fisheries in the Baltic Sea, dairy farming in Europe, and small-scale farming in Sweden) suggestively illustrate our central argument that the seeking and capturing of potential rents stand in stark opposition to potentials for wellbeing and flourishing of human and non-human lives. We conclude that constraining potential rents – founded as they are on faith in limitless growth – requires a culture of self-limitation and politically imposed limitations commensurable with post-capitalist societies.

LANDSCAPES ON HOLD: Opening up Monopoly Rent Gaps on Crete's Cape Sidero

“…As already discussed, potential rents are particularly susceptible to the speculative visions of developers (who are constantly on the lookout for profitable investment opportunities), as well as the legal and institutional frameworks that make the latter possible. These opportunities, however, do not always materialize, despite the land having been ‘condemned … to redevelopment’ (Clark and Pissin, 2020: 3).…”

“…On a broader level, the case of Cape Sidero highlights the crucial role of potential rents and their future‐oriented, speculative role in processes of land use change. Potential rents are, following Clark and Pissin (2020: 3), ‘unencumbered by the friction and inertia of … [the] concrete considerations’ that constrain capitalized rent—namely, the constraints imposed on capitalized rent by the fixity of investments and specific land uses. They are therefore an easy target for speculative investors.…”

“…Smith's model stems from and is typically associated with urban settings and the study of gentrification, but it has always been conceptually rooted within the broader political economy of uneven development and capitalism's spatial expansion (Smith, 1982). However, as Clark and Pissin (2020) point out, rent gap theory itself (as opposed to gentrification) has largely remained isolated from broader, more generalized notions of land use change and capital investment in land; they therefore argue for a more ‘generic’ understanding of rent‐seeking practices—one that deploys rent gap theory in much wider contexts of struggle over land. There seems to be a curious lack of engagement, for instance, between the growing literature on land dispossession (namely, the forcible expropriation of land for accumulation's sake) and the rent gap as a driving mechanism behind it.…”

‘Everybody loves living here’

“…Gentrification and well-being have emerged as major research subjects (Figure 4.1), although have relatively rarely been discussed in relation to each other. 1 One of the earliest studies explicitly addressing their relationship is Vigdor's (2002, p. 134) examination of whether gentrification causes 'a reduction in well-being among disadvantaged households' or, indeed, whether it might be a cause of improved well-being, an idea that also animated Freeman's (2012) review of research on gentrification and wellbeing. This remains the most extended general discussion of their interrelation, although studies have emerged addressing gentrification and well-being in particular population segments (e.g.…”

Specters of Neil Smith in Chile's failed 2022 New Constitution

“…The latter proves the relevance of Smith's simple rent gap theory to understanding the urban and housing system, even for those who do not cite him or ignore his work. Further, Clark and Pissin (2020) rightly point out that the rent gap exists without gentrification.…”