Branded Heritage and Real Estate

The Making of Urban Value
1. Auflage 2026
ISBN: 978-1-041-27763-7
Verlag: Taylor & Francis Ltd

Buch, Englisch, 218 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm

Reihe: Routledge Research in Planning and Urban Design

Branded Heritage and Real Estate presents a bold and timely investigation into the intersection of two powerful forces reshaping our cities today: the financialisation of space and the strategic use of heritage as a vehicle for profit.

Heritage can certainly be consumed, but it can be endlessly consumed, because its ageing, unlike ours, is infinite. Regeneration projects that present themselves as “eternal” do not undermine the meaning of history; instead, they align with capital’s objective to continuously renew value in forms that strive for permanence.

Driven by concerns about growing inequality, this book examines how heritage is strategically employed to validate and boost real estate development amid crisis and rising inequality. With London as a central case study, the book probes the rhetoric of "value", unpacking the political nature of heritage in urban branding, exclusionary redevelopment, and constructed narratives of authenticity, ultimately revealing its role as a malleable asset within global real estate dynamics.

Essential reading for scholars, practitioners, and students of urban studies, geography, architecture, and cultural politics, this book offers fresh perspectives on the contested meanings of heritage and its intersection with urban inequality and redevelopment.

Zielgruppe

Academic, Postgraduate, and Undergraduate Advanced

Autoren/Hrsg.

Pace, Michela

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Architektur Städtebau, Stadtplanung (Architektur)

Inhaltsverzeichnis

0 Introduction. 1 First We Take London: Where the Relationship Between Real Estate and Heritage is Expanded. 2 Monopoly for Millennials: Where Finance’s Appetites Meet Housing. 3 A Ruin in Reverse: Where Heritage Branding Defines Value. 4 Strangely Familiar: Where The Sanctuaries of Fake Are Granted Absolution. 5 Heritage Reaches New Heights: Where Restitution And Privatisation Are Difficult To Separate. 6 As If People Counted for Anything: Where The Neolib Rhetorics Are Made Useful

Über Autor(innen)

Michela Pace is an architect and Associate Professor of Urbanism at Iuav University of Venice. Her research focuses on the role of heritage within urban regeneration and land preservation projects, addressing both the natural and built environments and their increasing exposure to financialisation. She has explored urban and territorial transitions in different countries, with particular attention to fragile contexts and processes of spatial and economic consumption. She is co-author, with Alan Chandler, of The Production of Heritage: The Politicisation of Architectural Conservation (Routledge, 2019).