Smart city, eco city, world city, creative city, et cetera et cetera: a Marxian interpretation of urban discourses' short lifecycles.

This article examines the recurring emergence and rapid replacement of urban concepts such as "smart city," "creative city," and "eco city" through a Marxian lens, focusing on the built environment as fixed capital. It argues that the unique characteristics of built environment capital—namely its long production cycles and reliance on agglomeration economies rather than physical quality—create fragility in capital circulation that cannot be resolved solely through economic means. Consequently, developers and states deploy urban discourses as strategic tools to attract investment, create visions of surplus profit, and induce moral depreciation of competing spaces, especially under conditions of financialization and over-accumulation. The study highlights that state intervention often intensifies rather than diminishes the use of such discourses, particularly in non-core regions seeking to secure monopoly rents and economic competitiveness.