ABSTRACT
The detachment of development rights from land rights has transformed zoning from solely a place-based consideration of built form into an element of financialization. Because real estate, a financial asset, is heavily impacted by zoning determinations about where detached air rights can go, air rights fungibility, subjects decisions about the built environment to the forces that drive global finance. This has large social, economic, and environmental implications for cities and the lives of the people who depend on them. The financialization of zoning and the ensuing fungibility of air rights are analyzed in this chapter.
