Metropolis Capitalisation

Autorentext

Beatriz Rufino is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Architecture, Urbanism and Design, University of São Paulo (FAU-USP), Brazil, where she completed her Habilitation (2025). She was a visiting researcher at King's College London as an Urban Studies Foundation Fellow (2021-2022). Her research focuses on urban financialisation and infrastructure privatisation in Latin America. Among other works, she is the author of Financeirização e Metropolização do Espaço (Letra Capital, 2023).

Klappentext

Why has infrastructure escaped the spotlight in debates on financialised urban space? Metropolis Capitalisation places this aspect centre stage. Through the case of Brazil, we discover how privatisation turns infrastructure into a rentier business, one in which capitalising future rent streams becomes the engine of accumulation. Tracing the transformation of major construction contractors into powerful asset-owners, the book follows the trajectory of one company, CCR (now Motiva), from a road concessions business to national conglomerate. It then zooms in on São Paulo, where highways and metro lines have reshaped real estate markets and deepened urban inequality. This offers readers a bold rethinking of financialisation from the vantage point of the capitalist periphery.