Public Finance, Private Profit: The Contradictions of Public Resource Capture by Financialized Landlords in North America

Author

Sophie O'Manique, CUNY Graduate CenterFollow

Date of Degree

2-2026

Document Type

Doctoral Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Program

Earth & Environmental Sciences

Advisor

Cindi Katz

Committee Members

Mariana Pavloskaya

John Krinsky

Kathe Newman

Subject Categories

Human Geography

Keywords

Financialized landlords, rental housing, social reproduction, North America, pensions, affordable housing

Abstract

This dissertation examines how public finance, particularly public and public sector pension funds and municipal “affordable housing” programs, contribute to the deepening financialization of multi-family rental housing in North America, in turn reshaping the conditions under which working class people carry out social reproduction. Across Canada and the United States, rental housing has been rapidly consolidated under the ownership of financialized landlords, who’s imperative to generate profit has worked to increasingly subordinate the use value of housing to its exchange value. While existing scholarship has foregrounded private finance, this project demonstrates that public finance and resources are deeply implicated in these transformations, often intensifying the very housing crises they purport to address.

Bringing social reproduction theory into conversation with the literature on housing financialization, this dissertation argues that state strategies for managing crises of social reproduction rely on marketized governance approaches that ultimately provision the means of social reproduction to some while undermining access for others. Through a comparative, mixed-methods analysis, the project traces two key pathways through which public resources are captured by financialized landlords: the growing allocation of public and public sector pension capital to financialized rental real estate; and the transfer of public land and public finance to private developers through affordable housing programs in Toronto and New York City. These cases reveal how the state’s management of social reproduction is intertwined with, and often constituted through, the expansion of financialized housing.

Recommended Citation

O'Manique, Sophie, "Public Finance, Private Profit: The Contradictions of Public Resource Capture by Financialized Landlords in North America" (2026). CUNY Academic Works.
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/6572