Despite the central role that real estate development plays in the physical form and geography of buildings, cities, and suburbs in market economies, scholars have engaged in relatively little research on the inner workings of its figures and processes in relation to the built environment. Historical research is abundant on architects and landscape architects, urban planners, and public policy, as well as on ideas: theories about cities and suburbs and buildings, often evolved in universities, where the stuff of markets and profits is often beyond concern. A similar gap is found in adjacent fields such as business history, whose practitioners have devoted much effort to exploring the financing mechanisms and political alliances of real estate, but less on the buildings and places that result.

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