Late nineteenth-century theorist and activist Rosa Luxemburg hypothesized that under capitalist economies, cities would inevitably be used as ways to absorb capital—that in systems in which there is surplus money floating around (i.e., a society with rich people), cities become a mechanism, like luxury goods, to open the pockets of the rich. Luxemburg saw grand architecture, monuments, parks, and beautiful streetscapes as ways to attract the rich and beef up a city’s tax base.
