According to David Harvey (2012, 89–113), the city is a zone in which capitalism negotiates the problem of cultural autonomy. Capital is driven, in part, by competition for monopoly rents and the ability to profit by delimited access to scarce or unique “resources.” While this is perhaps clearest in the case of canals, railways, land, natural resources and large-scale or irreproducible infrastructure, Harvey’s concern is for the ineffable substance of “local” culture and the way a whole variety of industries, notably tourism and real estate, attempt to capitalize on the unique character of global spaces and cities. For Harvey, capital’s engagement with these zones is complex. On the one hand, there is a recognition that this uniqueness, however saleable and valuable it may be, is the product of a certain degree of cultural and economic autonomy and is the outgrowth of largely non-market relationships and forms of cooperation. At the same time, capital necessarily seeks to capture and to exploit that uniqueness, typically replacing it with corporate monocultures, as part of its drive towards globalization. As local property speculators, regional chains and global firms discover unique cultural zones and flock to them, they either bring with them the homogenizing effects of global capital, or they drive up local rents and prices, pushing out their original creative residents.

Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, loc. 463