(Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, Columbia University, USA)

Abstract: Real estate speculation — be it land speculation or site development — was practiced by our first American president, George Washington, and is currently the noted expertise of our 45th president, Donald J. Trump. Despite a general community distain for the activities of “wheeling and dealing” in property at least in Western societies, these two holders of the highest office in the USA undertook such activities with pride and enthusiasm, and without concerns of conflicting interests.

This politically titillating fact actually reveals an interesting socio-economic acceptance of the activity of speculative real estate development in the USA. Furthermore, upon closer inspection, it can be seen that the acquisition of land, its improvement as subdivisions or with buildings, and the disposal of the outcome for the predominant objective of profit, rather than being for a purely utilitarian motive, has been encouraged and supported by the emerging planning, legal and taxation systems, as the country grew to be a prosperous and globally dominant nation.