The developers, the economic segment and the deconstruction of public housing promotion

Abstract

This article discusses how the advance of capitalist relations in real estate production through the economic and political consolidation of large developers has interfered in the making of public policies. Based on the notion of forms of production (Jaramillo, 1982), we argue that the large developers, by joining the sophistication of immediate production mechanisms (direct economic control) with their growing power as an interest group in the definition of financing and urban policies (indirect economic control), have established the economic segment as the main product of the housing policy. By expanding the commodification of the city and the control of the public policy by powerful private agents, this movement has made the strategy of decommodification of housing through the State’s direct action in housing production become impracticable.