Performing real estate value(s): real estate developers, systems of expertise and the production of space

To date, critical work on real estate activities and the financialisation of urban development has focused mostly on investor-developer-government interactions to highlight how real estate and investors’ values, expectations and objectives are enacted through regulatory and fiscal reforms, which in turn affects how cities are built. However, less emphasis has been put on the relationship between urban expertise, real estate activities and the production of particular urban forms. Yet, the production of urban knowledge and associated city visions by specific ‘expert’ professions have been shown to influence how cities were planned and built throughout history. Using the redevelopment of King’s Cross Central (London) as a case study, this paper seeks to start addressing this gap, exploring how real estate developers shape the production and use of urban expertise in the context of planning, which in turn influences how cities are planned and built. In doing so, it posits that a renewed emphasis on the politics of expertise and the concept of performativity can help understand how real estate values permeate the built form and are performed in space. More specifically, it demonstrates the pivotal role of real estate developers in articulating and delimiting what constitutes legitimate urban expertise in decision-making regarding large-scale regeneration projects. In addition, it illustrates how the mobilization of calculative techniques and the use of narrow definitions of risks in assessing real estate projects viability and related uncertainties contribute to legitimising the design of planning instruments that enact and perform real estate values.