The volume’s Introduction presents the objectives and methodological devices of our analysis and its theoretical frames, discussing the contributions it brings to critical urban studies and urban political economy, especially to the investigation of capitalist advancement in the second- and third-tier cities of global semi-peripheries.
The authors provide some statistical information about Romania and the selected cities of our fieldwork, placing them in local, regional, and transnational dynamics of uneven development. The introduction gives a brief overview of the volume’s chapters, each revealing key aspects of our common inquiry into the role of real estate development for capitalist advancement in these cities. The research from the background of this volume explored a hitherto almost “uncovered” territory, adding Romania’s case as a contribution to current discussions on privatization, deindustrialization, financialization, de-risking, de-contextualization and re-contextualization in real estate development, urban planning, re-urbanization, growth coalitions, inter-city competition and neoliberal governance, urban regeneration, and (re)branding.