Hamnett, C (2009) The New Mikardo? Tom Slater, gentrification and displacement, City, 13, 4, 478-484 (original) (raw)
Related papers
2010
Taylor and Francis CCIT_A_458437. gm 10.1080/1360 810903579287 ity: Analysis of Urban Trends 360-4813 (pri t)/1470-3629 (online) Original Article 2 1 & Francis 4 0 0 00 February 2010 Professor Ch isHamnett chris.h mnett@kcl.ac.uk am pleased to have the opportunity to respond once again to Tom Slater’s (2010) arguments regarding gentrification and displacement. The issue is an important one, which has major social, analytical and political implications and it merits serious debate. Tom’s case seems to boil down to four key issues. These are: first, that I ignore or fail to engage with the key issue of Marcuse’s classification of different types of displacement; second, that I focus on the claimed diversionary issue of replacement versus displacement, which is in fact undermined by Marcuse’s concept of exclusionary displacement; third, that I utilize aggregate class analysis rather than a more rounded approach to class; and fourth, that my work is deemed to be mainstream versus critic...
International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 2008
what he rightly suggests is the disappearance of a critical edge from much of the recent gentrification literature. It explores one of these points in greater depth, i.e. the notion that the working class occupy a 'backstage' role vis-à-vis the analysis of gentrification. This is done via a discussion of gentrification and London's class structure in relation to the work of Tim Butler and Chris Hamnett. The essay makes a plea for more 'bottom up' accounts of gentrification which focus upon the urban working class, especially in relation to contemporary processes of policy-driven state-led gentrification.
Gentrification: What It Is, Why It Is, and What Can Be Done about It
Geography Compass, 2008
This article outlines the key contemporary debates on gentrification, most of which arise from variations in the process: in interpretations, assessments of displacement, the agents involved and the forms that gentrified cities take. The variations are so extensive that some scholars argue that gentrification has become too broad a concept to retain analytical coherency. Others counter that the logic of gentrification is now so generalised that the concept captures no less than the fundamental state and market-driven 'class remake' of cities throughout the world. The article agrees with the latter position and proposes that gentrification should be considered part of a broader continuum of social and economic geographic change, replacing the useful but outdated stage model but still accommodating the myriad of variations within its underlying logics. Understanding gentrification as a complex but coherent concept highlights the importance of time and place in the viability of progressive policy responses to gentrification's inequitable effects.
The 'Middle Class' Does Not Exist: A Critique of Gentrification Research
Antipode, 2020
The middle class is a key word in gentrification research, it is used extensively, and it is often part of the very definition of gentrification. But it is also used highly differently. This Intervention argues that the best way to grasp the middle class in the gentrification literature is synonymous with “anyone moving into a so-called gentrified area”, i.e. “newcomers” or “gentrifiers”. This, however, is not a proper definition of a social class. This Intervention also suggests that the capitalist class should rather be understood as the actual gentrifiers, but such an approach is incompatible with the existing gentrification discourse.
Gentrification: A Working-Class Perspective
Share Tweet Pin The gentrification debate continues. Kirsteen Paton's Gentrification: A Working-Class Perspective offers a "new sociological perspective" to the increasing study of gentrification.[1] Centered within the working-class neighborhood of Partick in Glasgow, Scotland, a community with a strong history of communist organizing, Paton explores the gentrification concerns of working-class residents, an interest group whom Slater, Curran, and Lees suggest scholars often skirt.[2] Through a confluence of schools of thought, Paton reveals gentrification as a hegemonic project and a mode of "neoliberal urbanism" that alters spaces and shifts subjectivities.[3]
From class to gentrification and back again
Handbook of Gentrification Studies
Introduction: Class, class theory and (spaces of) gentrification In this chapter, we argue for the need to carefully scrutinise the models of class that underlie understandings of gentrification and how they are mobilised, while also introducing more recent considerations from the sociology of class that focus on values and classificatory struggles (Skeggs 1997, 2004; Tyler 2015) into the study of gentrification. Our contention is that when rethinking gentrification to account both for the specificity of different contexts around the world and to speak to a planetary gentrification that can account for very different social, economic and political histories, different registers and languages of gentrification (Lees et al. 2016), it is timely to revisit and revitalise the understandings of class that have underpinned this body of research. In many ways, what we present here is a logical extension of concerns that, as Lees at al. (2016) remind us, have long been at the heart of urban theory that warn against the ethnocentric imposition of theories developed in Western European industrialized economies onto the reality of urbanization in other economic and social systems. Simply put, we question the extent to which conceptualisations of class variously developed to explain 19 th century labour relations and the class struggles emerging from industrialization (in Western European economies), and the manifestation of such relations of power through taste and consumption practices (cf. Bourdieu 1984), are fit to the purpose of critically analysing contemporary processes of gentrification the world over. Final version-Benson and Jackson-to cite: Benson, M. and Jackson, E. (forthcoming) 'From Class to Gentrification and Back Again', in Lees, L. and Phillips, M. (eds) Handbook of Gentrification Studies. London: Edward Elgar
Comment on ‘The Eviction of Critical Perspectives from Gentrification Research’
International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 2008
The eviction of critical perspectives from gentrification research' offers the premise that scholars are becoming less critical of gentrification and that this trend is detrimental to those most vulnerable to gentrification. This argument falls short on a number of grounds. First, the article does not persuasively show that the scholarly literature on gentrification has indeed become less critical. More significantly, Slater does not consider perhaps the most important reason that gentrification can be accurately described in both critical and less than critical terms-gentrification's impacts are multifaceted, affecting different people differently and even the same individuals in different ways. Finally, those most threatened by gentrification are likely to need a combination of resistance and persuasion to blunt the ill effects of gentrification. Slater's call for more critical approaches may inspire some to resist, but will do little to persuade the larger society to take their concerns seriously. Given that those most threatened by gentrification are among the least powerful, their cause will most benefit from a combination of literature that inspires resistance as well as literature that persuades others that gentrification is truly a predicament. Therefore, literature that not merely criticizes gentrification but offers a rationale for blunting its detrimental effects is needed as well.
Rethinking gentrification: beyond the uneven development of Marxist urban theory
1984
Abstract In this paper, I make a critical assessment of the ways that issues relating to the'gentrification'of inner-city neighbourhoods have been conceptualised, especially in North America, in both positivist and extant marxist work. I aim to rethink the processes generating'gentrification'and'gentrifiers' and our'ways of seeing'the results of these processes. First, I address epistemological problems of neoclassical and marxist approaches to this subject.