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Displacement is central to the process of gentrification, but the importance of law in both enacting and resisting such displacement is often overlooked. Noting the tensions between existential, embodied meanings of displacement (i.e. being removed from a place called home), and the formal legal definitions of displacement (i.e. the removal of the right to a property), this paper explores how the law is implicated in the struggle for London's remaining council estates, with processes of expropriation providing councils a means of displacing residents from these estates to allow for (private) redevelopment but also an opportunity for residents to assert their ‘right to community’. Here, we focus on the implications of the UK Secretary of State's decision not to overturn the Planning Inspectorate's (2016) recommendation that Southwark Council should not be allowed to compulsory purchase those homes on the Aylesbury Estate which residents had not already vacated via negotiation. This decision was reached on the basis that while tenants would be compensated financially for the loss of property, they would not be adequately compensated for losing their home. This is suggestive of an expanded notion of housing rights that encompasses a right to community—something that raises the possibility of the law actually aligning with the interests of council residents rather than supporting the politics of gentrification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban intensification is a key planning strategy in the UK, but one that is frequently resisted by local residents objecting to transformations of urban character. This paper is concerned with the factors that underlie such resistance, and with the opportunities for addressing them through the planning process. The paper relates a case-study of the East London district of Dalston where a mixed-use redevelopment project, strongly supported by local authorities, was fiercely resisted by residents who claimed that the existing character of the locality was being violated. Reflecting on the case through theories of place, gentrification, and planning process, we argue that resident resistance was not simply a case of self-interested NIMBYism, but a product of important differences in the ways that character was variously constructed and valued by local authorities and community members. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper is a response to Davidson and Wyly. While we agree with them that class and class conflict is an important element of cities, we disagree with many of their claims and assertions regarding our work. In particular, we argue that the growth of the middle class does not mean that we consider the working class unimportant or to have largely disappeared as they suggest. This is to muddle empirical findings and political agendas. The working class is still clearly present, even though it has shrunk. Nor does the growth of the middle class imply that inequality has become unimportant. On the contrary, we argue that the growth of the middle class is one of the key reasons why London has become more unequal. We take issue with their claim that the middle class does not exist, and we argue that their analysis of 2001 census data, while interesting, does not look at the changes which have taken place over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the links between the growth of high incomes and gentrification in inner London on the homeownership market. It examines changes in average London house prices by borough using data from 1995 to 2006. It shows that while the top priced boroughs in 1995 were still at the top of the distribution in 2006, and the lowest priced boroughs were still at the bottom, there has been a catching up process with some of the highest rates of price inflation in the lowest priced boroughs, and vice versa. It considers various explanations for these changes and outlines the concept of spatially displaced demand from the expensive boroughs to help explain price rises in the cheaper boroughs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we argue that a process of super-gentrification, similar to that first identified by Lees (2003 Urban Studies 40 2487–509) in Brooklyn Heights, New York City, is occurring in the already gentrified, inner London neighbourhood of Barnsbury. A new group of super wealthy professionals working in the City of London is slowly imposing its mark on this inner London housing market in a way that differentiates it and them both from traditional gentrifiers and from the traditional urban upper classes. We suggest that there is a close interaction between work in the newly globalizing industries of the financial services economy, elite forms of education, particularly Oxbridge, and residence in Barnsbury which is very different from other areas of gentrified inner London. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]