Constructing Influence: The Political Economy of Luxury Megaprojects

Across the world, a new generation of cities is emerging. Egypt’s administrative capital is rising from the desert, intended to relieve the congestion of Cairo and attract foreign capital. Indonesia is undertaking an even more radical experiment in relocating its capital from the sinking, overcrowded Jakarta to a newly planned city in the forests of Borneo. In Saudi Arabia, NEOM is perhaps the most audacious vision of all—a multi-billion-dollar futuristic zone featuring vertical living, autonomous transport, and AI-powered governance, heralded as a civilizational leap into Saudi Arabia’s post-oil future.

These projects reflect a pattern in which states, particularly those with centralized authority and considerable sovereign wealth, are leveraging real estate for purposes beyond housing or infrastructure. While conventional urban development is understood as a response to market forces, shaped by population growth, zoning laws, and the dynamics of supply and demand, this new generation of state-driven initiatives challenges that model. Together, the case studies of Lusail City in Qatar, Monaco’s Mareterra district, Sazan Island in Albania, and the Ellinikon project in Greece illustrate how urban development serves as a vehicle for political narrative, economic positioning, and global ambition.

Lusail City, Qatar

The Government of Qatar has deployed urban megaprojects as instruments of strategic statecraft. Lusail’s Real Estate Development Company was established in 2005 by Qatari Diar, a real estate firm owned by the country’s sovereign wealth fund. Qatari Diar describes itself as a “country with a concrete vision” and promotes a “vision of an inclusive, modern society, supported by the best contemporary infrastructure and learning, developed to exacting standards of excellence.” Reflecting the country’s global economic and political ambitions, Qatari Diar has expanded internationally with a portfolio of high-end developments in prominent locations, including the Chancery Rosewood Hotel in London, located on the former site of the U.S. Embassy in Grosvenor Square.

Increasingly, Qatar has engaged in liberal international norms and attracted UN institutions to bolster its state-building project. Under the leadership of Qatari Diar Chairman H.E. Abdullah bin Hamad bin Abdullah Al Attiyah, who more recently began serving as Qatar’s Minister of Municipality, Lusail has attracted the regional offices of ten United Nations entities. This includes the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the International Labour Organization (ILO), and the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Qatar has also invested in the Doha Forum to position itself as a hub for multilateralism, declared to be guided by the principles of “diplomacy, dialogue, diversity.”

Qatar’s dependence on Chinese construction underscores latent geopolitical tensions, even as it advances soft-power ambitions through projects like the Lusail Stadium. The stadium hosted the 2022 FIFA World Cup Final, designed in the shape of an Arabic lantern to project Qatar’s cultural identity to a global audience. Yet, the very choice of builder complicates this soft power narrative: the stadium’s construction was led by the China Railway Construction Corporation (CRCC), a state-owned enterprise entangled in U.S.–China strategic competition. The US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control has designated CRCC as a Non-SDN Chinese Military-Industrial Complex company. As of August 2, 2021, US persons are prohibited from investing in the company, including buying or holding its publicly traded securities.

As Qatar has deepened its security and diplomatic ties with the United States, it has also strengthened its “strategic partnership” with China. In an interview, Ambassador of Qatar to China Mohammed bin Abdullah Al Dehaimi noted that “Qatar is an important partner of China in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), China's second-largest source of liquefied natural gas (LNG), and China is Qatar's largest trading partner.” More than 250 Chinese companies currently operate in Qatar, and in addition to constructing Lusail Stadium, Chinese state-owned enterprises have operated in Qatari telecommunications and shipping sectors.

While Qatar has turned to China for major construction contracts, it has looked to Western architects to translate its cultural vision into built form. The Lusail Museum, a flagship institution due to open in 2029, will be located on Al Maha Island and house one of the world’s leading collections of Orientalist art. The project is spearheaded by Sheikha Al Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, the sister of the ruling Emir and Chairperson of Qatar Museums, and designed by Herzog & de Meuron. In Doha, the Al Sa’ad Plaza Towers were designed by British architect Lord Norman Foster, who also designed the new German Parliament in Berlin and Hong Kong’s Chek Lap Kok airport. These towers serve as the headquarters for key geoeconomic institutions, including Qatar National Bank, Qatar Central Bank, and the Qatar Investment Authority.

In many ways, Lusail captures the contradictions of the modern Gulf: a Chinese state-owned enterprise constructed its most iconic stadium, while the city also hosts UN agencies focusing on Western liberal values and features landmark buildings designed by Swiss and British architects. These inconsistencies of international involvement in urban development reflect the balancing act of architecture, diplomacy, and international partnerships that defines Qatari statecraft.

Mareterra District, Monaco

Monaco has deployed luxury real estate as an instrument of national ambition to attract global capital and reinforce domestic power structures. Mareterra is a 2 billion euros (US$2,346,810,000.00) project by S.A.M. L'Anse Du Portier that adds 60,000 square meters of luxury housing along a newly created coastline. Backed by members of Monaco’s most prominent families, all 110 apartments, four townhouses, and 10 villas were sold, with some properties listed at over 100,000 euros per square meter. Other key investors include Kazakh billionaire Bulat Utemuratov and Mark Capital Management, a London-based real estate investment and asset management firm.

Le Renzo, the flagship residential tower within Mareterra, demonstrates how architecture in Monaco combines cultural prestige with controlled access for international capital. The project was overseen by Renzo Piano, the Pritzker Prize–winning Italian architect known for works like the Centre Pompidou in Paris and The Shard in London. “I build flying vessels,” he told the Financial Times in 2021, a line that ostensibly speaks to the imaginative and boundary-defying spirit of the project.  Within Le Renzo, about half of the buyers are from outside Monaco. This aligns with global trends in wealth migration. According to Henley & Partners, 128,000 millionaires migrated in 2024—the highest figure recorded since the citizenship advisory firm began tracking in 2013—with projections indicating further increases in 2025.

In recent years, Monaco has increasingly leveraged cultural infrastructure to amplify its profile. The country’s leadership has, much like Qatar’s, made international engagement a priority through platforms like the Monaco Grand Prix, the Monaco Yacht Show, and the Monte-Carlo Masters to project visibility. Part of Mareterra, the Grimaldi Forum expansion adds 9,000 square meters to what is already one of Europe’s main business tourism destinations and cultural highlights, hosting events in partnership with the Monaco Economic Board and the Prince Albert II Foundation.

Mareterra demonstrates how Monaco aligns real estate with statecraft, channeling the mobility and wealth of global elites into projects that rely on pricing scarcity and architectural distinctiveness as instruments of selectivity. This ensures that development aligns with the state’s comprehensive political and economic strategy.

Sazan Island, Albania

The arrival of Affinity Partners in Albania further exemplifies how connected private capital is increasingly yielding geopolitical influence through real estate. In 2023, Jared Kushner’s firm was granted special status by the Albanian government under the Law on Strategic Investments, a designation that offers privileged land access, accelerated approvals, and bespoke regulatory support for projects considered important to national development.

Administered through the Albanian Investment Development Agency (AIDA), the law distinguishes between “Assisted” and “Special” procedures. The latter offers more aggressive facilitation tools, including potential expropriation and state-supported infrastructure. Beyond the legal element, strategic investor status signals political alignment. Kushner’s rapport with Prime Minister Edi Rama was reportedly forged aboard financier Matt Rothschild’s yacht. Anchoring this arrangement is Sazan Island, one of several islands off the Albanian coast, scattered with bunkers, piers, and other submerged Cold War relics.

Affinity’s proposed US$1.4 billion resort community on Sazan Island spans 11 acres and 15 kilometers of coastline. A segment of the development will feature an Aman-branded hotel, in collaboration with Aman Resorts CEO and OKO Group Chairman Vlad Doronin. Other components reportedly include a museum and restaurant by Major Food Group’s Carbone, in addition to a partnership with local businessman Shefqet Kastrati. To administer the state’s role in the development, the Albanian government established the Albanian State Development & Real Estate (ASDRE) agency in June 2025. ASDRE is the formal coordinating body for strategic real estate projects and operates under Albanian Investment Corporation (AIC). These agencies ensure high-level state coordination and centralized control over licensing, land transfers, and infrastructure deployment.

The financial backing of Sazan links Albania’s development not only to Affinity Partners but also to Gulf sovereign wealth, embedding Balkan real estate in powerful Middle East networks and financial institutions. The Riyadh-based Public Investment Fund (PIF) committed $2 billion to Affinity, alongside its total of $900 billion in assets. Additional capital was sourced from the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) and Lunate, an Abu Dhabi-based firm affiliated with the Royal Group and chaired by H.H. Sheikh Tahnoun bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the Deputy Ruler of Abu Dhabi and National Security Adviser.

Understanding the project’s full implications requires disaggregating these actors to evaluate who stands to benefit, who bears the risks, and how value is ultimately distributed. According to filings disclosed at the request of U.S. Senator Ron Wyden, Affinity earns a 1.25 percent management fee on US$2.5 billion in capital from the PIF, although reporting “N/A” for the fund’s annual return rate. However, the absence of Chinese capital in Sazan distinguishes the project from many Balkan initiatives. In a region where Beijing has extended its influence through Belt and Road infrastructure, Sazan includes no Chinese participation, positioning it as a rare case of Western and Gulf-aligned development.

Sazan’s assemblage of actors brings together a diverse set of stakeholders. In addition to the vision, network, and financial capacity of Affinity Partners, the island’s transformation depends on an unusually layered coalition of actors with cross-border interests: Albanian government development agencies, local business leaders, Gulf sovereign wealth, politically connected Western investors, and recognized hospitality brands. As in the case of Qatar’s Lusail Stadium, this convergence reflects a calibrated model of globalized development.

Ellinikon, Athens

Ellinikon is being remade as Greece’s flagship site for sustainable design and future-focused urbanism. Located in the Athens suburb of Elliniko, Ellinikon lies on the grounds of the former Hellinikon Airport, which saw its final flight in March 2001. As Greece entered a period of deepening fiscal instability that escalated into the Eurozone crisis of 2009, plans for the site stalled. The area was abandoned with crumbling terminals, overgrown tarmac, and rusting aircraft.

Through the privatization of Ellinikon, Greece has leveraged state-owned land as collateral for recovery. In 2011, the Hellenic Republic Asset Development Fund (HRADF) was created to manage and monetize state-owned assets. It acts in the public interest but operates under private-sector rules to build value through market-based development. HRADF initiated an international tender under the terms of Law 3986/2011, inviting proposals for a 99-year lease.

In November 2014, amid Greece’s ongoing debt crisis, HRADF facilitated the landmark privatization of Hellinikon. During the initial phase, nine companies submitted expressions of interest, including the Qatari Real Estate Investment Company QSC and the Trump Acquisition LLC. Ultimately, Lamda Development was granted a binding 99-year lease in exchange for 915 million Euros and a proposed 6 to 8 billion euro investment plan. In the transactions, Lamda acquired 100 percent of shares in Hellinikon S.A., although the state retained ultimate ownership of the land.

Marketed as “Mini Dubai” and “Europe’s greatest urban regeneration project,” Ellinikon has embraced luxury-oriented regeneration to attract foreign capital. Ellinikon will feature thousands of luxury apartments, high-end hotels, retail and entertainment venues, office space, a university, and modern infrastructure such as electric vehicle charging stations and rainwater capture systems. Among its offerings is the 123-room Mandarin Oriental and 17 branded residences. Residentially, Lamda Development has sold 167 of the 173 units in Riviera Tower, the flagship high-rise.

The Ellinikon is linked to powerful domestic shareholders and global hedge funds. Lamda’s largest shareholder is the Latsis Group, which holds a 43.8% stake. Foreign institutional investors hold 20.9% of Lamda’s shares, with Geneva-based hedge fund Brevan Howard owning 5.092%. The company reported €4.15 billion in assets at the end of 2023 and is listed on the Athens Exchange. In recognition of its impact, Lamda was named one of Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential Companies of 2024, the publication owned by Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff.

The Ellinikon, like Mareterra, embodies a vision of environmentally conscious development, with coastal parkland, sustainable infrastructure, and accessible green space at its core. However, beyond design, Ellinikon is positioned as a major engine of economic growth, promising to create thousands of new jobs and contribute up to 2.4% of Greece’s GDP. Its early commercial momentum indicates strong international demand, amplified by Greece’s Golden Visa program, which continues to draw high-net-worth individuals seeking EU residency through real estate investment. Additionally, Ellinikon highlights the indispensable role of the Greek state. From legal restructuring and asset transfers to long-term planning approvals, government support has been critical in bringing this concept to execution.

Conclusion

Across luxury megaprojects, consistent dynamics reveal how these developments reflect the priorities of their host states. Often fast-tracked through streamlined approval processes, they bypass traditional competitive bidding—not due to institutional neglect, but because their sheer scale and complexity naturally limit the pool of qualified developers and capital allocators. Equally important, these projects operate as much on the level of narrative and symbolism as on physical infrastructure: from Lusail’s projection of a post-carbon Gulf identity, to Ellinikon’s signal of Greece’s post-austerity openness to foreign investment, to Mareterra’s climate-conscious vision of an innovative, high-net-worth Monaco, to Albania’s bid to transform from a post-socialist economy into a luxury coastal playground. These narratives are materially reinforced by signature architects, branded residences, and cultural anchors. Ultimately, such projects demonstrate how high-net-worth individuals and transnational investment entities are shaping the built environment as powerful actors within national development strategies and geoeconomic balancing.