Statecraft financialization in spatial planning. Insights from the deterritorialization of three Milanese large-scale projects

Large-scale projects are increasingly conceived as connectors of financial and real estate markets through the financialization and deterritorialization of strategic lands. Milan is currently characterized by multiple grand planning operations pursued by global developers and investors, and I argue that such projects were delivered by mobilizing powerful statecraft financialization affecting the planning practice. This article unveils the financialization of the three largest Milanese major projects, Milano Innovation District, Milano Santa Giulia and Milano Sesto, and shows how municipal planning and policy measures intertwined with financialized statecraft generated a deterritorialization of actors, instruments, and strategies from territorial patterns. Thus, this article problematizes the role of statecraft in the plan-making of large-scale projects, questioning how real estate financialization shaped statutory planning by undermining its capacity to rebalance urban rent and deliver collective urban strategies, with relevant implications on city governance. • Statecraft financialization and deterritorialization are intertwined. • Their impact is clearly tested in large-scale projects. • The sum of these phenomena raises considerations of the role of state in planning.