Document Type
Article
Publication Date
7-2020
DOI
10.1080/02723638.2020.1774150
Publication Title
Urban Geography
Pages
1-26
Abstract
The emerging literature on the globalization of real estate has addressed how internationally circulating capital has increasingly found its ways into housing markets of the "Global South". With relatively underdeveloped financial and real estate markets, these countries have discursively and materially been rebranded as emerging markets, that is, they have been shaped into frontiers in the global urbanization of capital. In this paper we scrutinize the transnational real estate networks that shape and reshape the Cuban housing market. First, we reconstruct how, following the 2011 legalization of housing prices set between buyers and sellers, Cuban migrants and a few foreign investors, in cooperation with Cubans residing in Cuba, are buying properties in Cuba's cities, beach resorts and other towns. Second, we explore the economic and extra-economic motives behind such transnational property transactions, highlighting how residential properties are bought and converted into private restaurants or hotels. Central to our analysis is that the present development is not simply shaped by local or national demand and processes but also by international investment. We contend that a pattern of economic globalization unfolds where transnational remittances, rather than institutional investments or mortgage finance, steer Cuba's emerging property market, along with local investments among Cuban citizens.
ORCID
0000-0002-7314-3091 (Bono)
Original Publication Citation
Wijburg, G., Aalbers, Manuel B., & Bono, F. (2020). Cuban migrants and the making of Havana’s property market. Urban Geography, 1-26. https://doi.org/10.1080/02723638.2020.1774150
Repository Citation
Wijburg, Gertjan; Aalbers, Manuel B.; and Bono, Federica, "Cuban Migrants and the Making of Havana's Property Market" (2020). Political Science & Geography Faculty Publications. 28.
https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/politicalscience_geography_pubs/28
Comments
© 2020 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/, which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.
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