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The craft of urgency: performing prosperity, running capital, and the making of a buying crowd in home presales in Nanjing, China

Publication ,  Journal Article
Wang, M
Published in: Journal of Cultural Economy
July 3, 2020

This article examines home presales–the selling of future residential properties–at the urban fringe of Nanjing, China. It argues for an analytical focus on urgency as a temporal quality that creates the local housing market and facilitates urban accumulation. I examine how urgency, grounded in a linear imagination of urban development, motivates home presales for developers, estate agents, and homebuyers. In particular, to speed up the turnaround time of investment, developers conjure up a vision of prosperity by building extravagant sales centers to organize home presales. Estate agents working at the sales center organize promotional events to attract, register, and manage a buying crowd. If properly managed, the buying crowd could reach the size of a festival-like presale, whereby hundreds of apartments are sold within one day. Capital at the urban fringe accumulates through the synchronization of these activities in which the sales center crafts an affective temporality of transaction by cultivating and managing an exuberant buying crowd. The craft of urgency emphasizes the performative agencement that assembles the condition for urgency to come into being.

Duke Scholars

Published In

Journal of Cultural Economy

DOI

EISSN

1753-0369

ISSN

1753-0350

Publication Date

July 3, 2020

Volume

13

Issue

4

Start / End Page

475 / 488

Related Subject Headings

  • 47 Language, communication and culture
  • 44 Human society
  • 20 Language, Communication and Culture
  • 16 Studies in Human Society
 

Citation

APA
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ICMJE
MLA
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Wang, M. (2020). The craft of urgency: performing prosperity, running capital, and the making of a buying crowd in home presales in Nanjing, China. Journal of Cultural Economy, 13(4), 475–488. https://doi.org/10.1080/17530350.2020.1719870
Wang, M. “The craft of urgency: performing prosperity, running capital, and the making of a buying crowd in home presales in Nanjing, China.” Journal of Cultural Economy 13, no. 4 (July 3, 2020): 475–88. https://doi.org/10.1080/17530350.2020.1719870.
Wang, M. “The craft of urgency: performing prosperity, running capital, and the making of a buying crowd in home presales in Nanjing, China.” Journal of Cultural Economy, vol. 13, no. 4, July 2020, pp. 475–88. Scopus, doi:10.1080/17530350.2020.1719870.

Published In

Journal of Cultural Economy

DOI

EISSN

1753-0369

ISSN

1753-0350

Publication Date

July 3, 2020

Volume

13

Issue

4

Start / End Page

475 / 488

Related Subject Headings

  • 47 Language, communication and culture
  • 44 Human society
  • 20 Language, Communication and Culture
  • 16 Studies in Human Society