Real estate development in European and US research.

A balance of its contribution to urban sociology in Argentina

Abstract

Studies on the dominant actors in the production of the urban built environment have been approached from a variety of theoretical perspectives. The field of research on the subject is transformed by leaps closely linked to political and social transformations that go beyond the academic context. In this paper we review and articulate the antecedents claimed by contemporary research on real estate development in Argentina, with a focus on works produced in the context of the central capitalist countries. Our reading encompasses French urban sociology, neoclassical spatial economics and American political science. The proposed circuit articulates the conceptual and theoretical debates themselves with the historical conditions of possibility for their emergence and circulation. Each theoretical proposal can be read from its points of conflict with hegemonic ideas in the academy and in the field of public policy making. The result of this review work is to indicate a reconstruction of the processes that shaped the notions currently used in research on real estate development in Argentina.