*Message sent from a system outside of UConn.* AAG 2023 CFP: Geographies of Real Property Across the Urban/Rural Divide AAG 2023 / Denver, Colorado / March 23-27, 2023
Organizers: Kelly Kay (UCLA) Taylor Shelton (Georgia State University) Levi Van Sant (George Mason University) Across rural and urban landscapes, there is growing concern with the changing nature of real property ownership, including the growth of investor and corporate ownership, the consolidation of property into fewer hands, and rapid appreciation in values (Fields 2018; Charles 2020; Fairbairn 2020; Ouma 2020; Christophers 2018; Whiteside 2019; Epstein et al. 2022, Haggerty et al. 2022). Yet, much of the discipline’s engagement with property continues to be splintered along an urban/rural divide that has long been called into question (Cronon 1992; Van Sant and Bosworth 2017). While there are many parallels and interlinkages between urban and rural phenomena, we note that the field generally produces a different literature for each space: one largely about urban housing and another about rural land. There are, of course, studies that break from this general pattern (e.g., Blomley 2004; Safransky 2017; Kay and Tapp 2022), but the tendency remains in the geographic literature and beyond. While there are meaningful differences between urban and rural spaces and legitimate methodological reasons to focus case studies in one or the other, there is also much to be gained from connecting country and city and analyzing the variety of forms that property ownership takes across these spaces. This session aims to put the growing bodies of work on rural land and urban housing into conversation with one another, recognizing that for many actors involved in buying and selling property, the shared status of these categories as real property makes them more similar than different. For instance, many of the same types of corporate structures, financing tools, and risk calculi are used across the urban housing/rural land divide. We are particularly interested in showcasing a diversity of methodologies for studying real property ownership, how it is changing, and the impacts of those changes. This could include, but is not limited to, novel uses of public data and records (Ashwood et al. 2022), innovative approaches to mapping (Shelton 2022), or other qualitative and quantitative approaches. Studies that understand rural and urban property ownership relationally are particularly welcomed. If you would like to participate in the session, please send a title and 250-word abstract to Kelly Kay at [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> by Friday, October 28th. We will notify you if your paper has been accepted by Friday, November 4th. References: Ashwood, L., Canfield, J., Fairbairn, M., & De Master, K. (2022). What owns the land: The corporate organization of farmland investment. The Journal of Peasant Studies, 49(2), 233-262. Blomley, N. (2004). Unsettling the city: Urban land and the politics of property. Routledge. Charles, S. L. (2020). The financialization of single-family rental housing: An examination of real estate investment trusts’ ownership of single-family houses in the Atlanta metropolitan area. Journal of Urban Affairs, 42(8), 1321-1341. Chistophers, B. (2018). The new enclosure: The appropriation of public land in neoliberal Britain. Verso Books. Cronon, W. (1992). Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West. WW Norton & Company. Epstein, K., Haggerty, J. H., & Gosnell, H. (2022). With, not for, money: Ranch management trajectories of the super-rich in Greater Yellowstone. Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 112(2), 432-448. Fairbairn, M. (2020). Fields of gold: Financing the global land rush. Cornell University Press. Fields, D. (2018). Constructing a new asset class: Property-led financial accumulation after the crisis. Economic Geography, 94(2), 118-140. Haggerty, J. H., Epstein, K., Gosnell, H., Rose, J., & Stone, M. (2022). Rural Land Concentration & Protected Areas: Recent Trends from Montana and Greater Yellowstone. Society & Natural Resources, 1-9. Kay, K., & Tapp, R. (2022). Un/making assets: the institutional limits to financialization. Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 112(5), 1243-1259. Ouma, S. (2020). Farming as financial asset: Global finance and the making of institutional landscapes. Agenda Publishing. Safransky, S. (2017). Rethinking land struggle in the postindustrial city. Antipode, 49(4), 1079-1100. Shelton, T. (2021). Gameday homes: Mapping emerging geographies of housing speculation and absentee ownership in the American South. Cities, 115, 103230. Van Sant, L., & Bosworth, K. (2017). Race, Rurality, and Radical Geography in the US. Antipode. Available from: https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fantipodeonline.org%2F2017%2F09%2F14%2Frace-rurality-and-radical-geography%2F&data=05%7C01%7C%7Ceaeaa91ecfe04ac3f56c08da9cc95c47%7C17f1a87e2a254eaab9df9d439034b080%7C0%7C0%7C637994685894830323%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=xBhnan%2BhcAQON9e2KNASVmkNmFx28CIZrLB5ivv7u%2Bo%3D&reserved=0 Whiteside, H. (2019). The state’s estate: Devaluing and revaluing ‘surplus’ public land in Canada. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 51(2), 505-526.
