The results of the US election are widely regarded as presaging profound consequences. But what of their symbolic aspects for those interested in space and cities? What spatial representations might be discerned in the subjectivities of the major candidates?
The US election positioned Trump against Clinton. Trump’s wealth is almost entirely derived from property capital. Property capital is typified by fixity in space and the production monopoly spatial rents. Development sites are unique in terms of spatial characteristics. Their exploitation derives in part from the exclusive control over that specific location and the extraction of rents by the property owner from those wishing to use that site. Spatial bounding was also apparent in Trump’s policy offerings; economic nationalism involving the reinscription of spatial controls at the national scale.
In contrast Clinton represents a combination of technocracy with financial capital as demonstrated by her long-running participation in US federal policy making and close ties via her fundraising to major financial firms. Arguably neoliberalism is a union of technocracy and financial capital. As a liberal Clinton’s policy settings reflected the continued globalisation of finance and expansionary cosmopolitanism.
The representative of property capital and bounded space won. We must interpret this result.
[Drafted 15 November 2016]