Search

Many of the world's major cities have recently seen large episodes of social unrest. What is the relationship between the changes these cities have experienced, particularly in the form of gentrification, and urban riots? We address this question by examining how local gentrification affected participation in the 2011 London riots. We use an instrumental variable strategy that exploits exogenous variation in the amount of local destruction caused by the Blitz; this is a strong predictor of local gentrification in London in 2001–2011. We find that gentrifying neighborhoods had a lower participation rate than other areas; this was a result of changes in the type of resident (a composition effect) and in the context in which the residents made their participation decisions (a contextual effect). Our findings are consistent with qualitative evidence from the United Kingdom and the United States, and highlight the effect that urban change can have on social order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to critics such as James Dalby, Matthew Freeman and Renira Rampazzo Gambarato, immersive transmedia storytelling encourages recipients’ participation and changes their ontological beliefs regarding social issues. Recent psychogeographical works, which can be used as tools to foreground class-based discrimination and address social inequalities in capitalist cities, are increasingly presented through transmedia means. Using Iain Sinclair’s London Overground (2016) and John Rogers’s documentary of the same title (2016) as exemplary texts, this article shows how British literary psychogeography utilizes transmedia properties to prompt recipients to question the authenticity of their experiences of the highly curated urbanscape and undergo self-transformations. With reference to new approaches pertaining to embodied cognition in both film and cognitive literary studies, the article shows how the use of complementary and clashing textual affordances within and across media can trigger embodied responses to increase transportation into the storyworld, sustain engagement across texts and encourage recipients’ participation in the re-imagination of hidden London spaces. As demonstrated via a flesh-andblood recipient’s report, the discursive techniques in the transmedia presentation of London Overground also spur recipients’ meaningful reconsideration of their class-related beliefs, as well as raise their awareness of the hegemonizing effects of capitalist-driven gentrification projects in cities such as London. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper introduces the exhibition, The Real Faces of the Royal Borough. This touring exhibition combines digital portraiture by artist Nevada Lynn and research on gentrification and displacement by urban geographer Sharda Rozena. By focusing on the individual lives and experiences of twelve residents from Kensington and Chelsea, we highlight the everyday impact of gentrification in this London borough, including displacement, transient community, high costs of living and unaffordable rents. The portraits help us to humanise the housing crisis and increase people's awareness of the injustices that arise from the ongoing gentrification of the Royal Borough. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the book "Sultanahmet, Istanbul's historic peninsula: musealization and urban conservation" by Pinar Aykaç, the author explores the transformation of the Sultanahmet district in Istanbul into a tourist destination. Aykaç examines the concept of "musealization" and its application to historic districts, arguing that entire areas are being converted into objects of touristic consumption. The book covers the historical development of Sultanahmet, the secularization efforts during the Republican period, changes in urban management and planning, the transformation into a global heritage site, and the impact of the Justice and Development Party's rule since 2002. Aykaç's work provides a comprehensive analysis of the interplay between power dynamics and historic urban spaces, offering historical insights into the consequences of musealization. [Extracted from the article]

Over the past 20 years, increasing land values, a rising population and inward investment from overseas have combined to encourage the demolition and redevelopment of many large council-owned estates across London. While it is now widely speculated that this is causing gentrification and displacement, the extent to which it has forced low-income households to move away from their local community remains to a large degree conjectural and specific to those estates that have undergone special scrutiny. Given the lack of spatially disaggregated migration data that allows us to study patterns of dispersal from individual estates, in this article, we report on an attempt to use consumer-derived data (LCRs) to infer relocations at a high spatial resolution. The evidence presented suggests that around 85% of those displaced remain in London, with most remaining in borough, albeit there is evidence of an increasing number of moves out of London to the South-East and East of England. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses residents' emotional responses to the regeneration – involving demolition and rebuilding – of West Hendon council housing estate in north London. Based on ethnographic research, the article outlines what living on the estate meant for its working-class residents in terms of providing ontological security and place belonging prior to regeneration. The reality of regeneration for residents involved multiple layers of physical, social, symbolic and psychosocial 'degeneration'. The article's focus is psychosocial degeneration, which is illustrated through three emotional dimensions: frustration, anger and betrayal arising from broken promises; stress resulting from living near a building site; and displacement anxiety regarding the uncertainties of where and when they would be relocated. The article highlights how residents are emotionally scarred by the protracted, opaque, ever-changing regeneration process. The reality of regeneration/degeneration for residents – involving state-led gentrification – is at stark variance to the official narrative that regeneration entails a smooth, unidirectional trajectory of improving homes and communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact of Airbnb on the everyday lived experiences of residents in London. We focus on three spatial scales – the city, neighbourhood, and an individual building. Short-term rental platforms such as Airbnb have transformed socio-cultural urban landscapes by turning homes into informal hotels. We argue that many of the consequences of Airbnb echo and support those of gentrification; this includes indirect displacement, buy-to-let investment, and transient communities. Using mixed-methods, including geodata, online surveys, focus groups, resident diaries, and auto/ethnography, we explore the impact of Airbnb across London, in Kensington, and inside a specific building on Kensington High Street. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will chart the multiple ways that regulated tenants in my family home of Webb Place, a tenement building in Kensington, London, experience gentrification-induced displacement. I then discuss how community and creativity play a part in their resistance and survival. Landlords and property management companies have subjected regulated tenants, in this specific context, to a long process of 'slow violence' and displacement that has included negligence and harassment intended to stress, harm, anger, and ultimately push out residents. Not only does this 'slow violence' occur behind the closed door of the building but so does resistance to it. Communal interaction and creativity have helped regulated tenants to mock power structures and repurpose space while also trying to survive the gentrification of their home. While this displacement is not unique to regulated tenants, this paper adds to much-needed theoretical work that centres on regulated tenants—indeed, in-depth analysis of gentrification and displacement among this subfield is essentially non-existent in the UK, until now. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The forced relocation—displacement—of social housing residents resulting from estate regeneration involving demolition has been the subject of considerable academic and policy debate. While some scholars and policy makers regard such displacement as having harmful outcomes in relation to loss of homes and community relations, others argue that residents benefit from relocation as they move to 'better places'. This paper contributes to this debate, and to the wider 'post-displacement' research agenda, by providing an experiential perspective on residential relocation with reference to in-depth interviews with social housing residents in London who returned to new-build flats at the redeveloped mixed-tenure estates. The paper employs a multi-scalar approach to place attachment which is illustrated and analysed at three spatial scales: domestic (home/dwelling), intermediate (block of flats) and neighbourhood (estate). The home scale is the most positive albeit not unequivocal aspect of residents' post-displacement experiences, whereas place attachments at the block and neighbourhood scales are characterized by extensive and intensive disruptions and losses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While recent debates have widely acknowledged gentrification's varied manifestations, success in enumerating and disentangling the process and its defining features from other forms of neighbourhood change at‐scale and across entire cities, has remained largely elusive. This paper addresses this gap and employs a novel, open and reproducible urban analytics approach to systematically examine the past and future trajectories of neighbourhood change using London, England, as a case‐study example. Using suites of datasets relating to population, house prices, and built environment development, the nature of gentrification's mutations and its spatial patterns are extracted through a multi‐stage data dimensionality reduction and classification methodology. Machine learning is subsequently adopted to model gentrification's observed trends and predict its future frontiers with interactive visualisation methods offering new insights into gentrification's projected dynamics and geographies. This paper employs a novel, open, and reproducible urban analytics approach to systematically examine the past and future trajectories of neighbourhood change using London, England, as a case‐study example. Using suites of datasets relating to population, house prices, and built environment development, the nature of gentrification's mutations and its spatial patterns are extracted through a multi‐stage data dimensionality reduction and classification methodology. Machine learning is subsequently adopted to model gentrification's observed trends and predict its future frontiers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 1997, over 50,000 homes have been demolished to allow for the "renewal" of council estates in London. This has involved the "decanting" of short and long-term tenants, as well as those leaseholders who bought their homes under "right to buy" legislation. Often described as "social cleansing", the racialized dimensions of these displacements remain under-explored despite asizable literature documenting the connections between race, place and state-subsidized housing in Britain. Drawing on interviews with Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic estate residents– including many active in housing movements– this paper shows that this displacement is understood in relation to histories of racial discrimination, the destruction of ethno-cultural infrastructures, and long-standing racialized inequalities. These themes resonate with apolitics of resistance grounded in aracialized class consciousness that seeks to intervene more broadly in the politics of capital and the state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws on ethnographic biographies to reveal the multiple experiences of displacement among three residents on the Lancaster West Estate in London. It is a longitudinal study of before, during, and after the Grenfell Tower fire on 14 June 2017. Drawing on in-depth, individual ethnographic biographies, I respond to gentrification scholars' calls for more qualitative methodological approaches to studying the experiences of the displaced. The temporal lens used adds value in showing that residents were being displaced before the fire and that they have continued to experience displacement even when rehomed. The Grenfell literature tends to focus largely on the causes of the fire but here I consider the lived subjective experiences of displacement, slow violence, unhoming and rehoming, among residents on the Estate. Upholding and preserving these voices is crucial for the Grenfell Inquiry and in resisting state-led gentrification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of gentrification, originally proposed by Ruth Glass on the basis of her observations of neighbourhood change in London, has been reconceptualised as well as criticised by scholars over the years. Though the concept has travelled over time and space, it still remains a very anglophone concept, and the extent of its applicability in the global South has been questioned. Especially in a country like India, where urban development takes place in an uneven way, it may not always be sufficient in itself to understand these urban changes and the dispossessions they lead to. This article aims to throw light on the main gentrification theories and debates and engage with the issue of differences over conceptualisation of the term itself. It then evaluates the relevance of the concept of gentrification in India by examining the restricted use of the term by Indian academics and Indian print media, and explores alternate/complementary frameworks to capture diverse instances of urban dispossession. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers the different dimensions of an individual's attempt to survive gentrification. The focus is on Beverley Robinson, a displacee from the Aylesbury Estate in London, who has experienced the slow violence of gentrification and displacement over an extended period of time. We argue that her 'survivability' has been, and indeed continues to be, key in her resistance to gentrification. Few academic studies of gentrification have focused in depth on an individual's everyday fight for survival in the face of gentrification; this article zooms in on the experience of one displacee. The individual displaced by gentrification, Beverley Robinson, interrogates her own experience, and in so doing she shares her autobiography with us; and this is interlocked, dovetailed, with an ethnographic biography undertaken by Loretta Lees, a scholar-activist who has worked with and fought with her. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Anadolu University Journal of Art & Design / Sanat & Tasarım is the property of Anadolu University and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Green infrastructure (GI) and nature-based solutions (NBS) are increasingly adopted as urban planning and development solutions to enable sustainable and healthy urban transitions. However, urban green(ing) has featured as an instrument of urban planning for several centuries. The extent and causal effect of these instruments in delivering environmental and social sustainability outcomes are, however, often unclear, but raise concerns of green gentrification. This paper presents a 120-year analysis of GI in London low-income neighbourhoods drawing on below (soils) and above (urban greenery) components of GI. Three testable relationships are analysed in a long-term perspective (1881–2001): soils, geology and initial socio-spatial structures; impact of urban greenery in comparable low-income neighbourhoods; and the impact of urban greenery in low-income neighbourhoods set in their wider urban systems adjustments. The results suggest that new greenery in comparable low-income neighbourhoods had little independent effect on neighbourhood socioeconomic characteristics. Where gentrification does occur, wider processes of social, economic, and technological adjustment, rather than urban greening, is likely causal. The non-random distribution of soils is found to anchor socio-spatial structures. Future productivity of GI and NBS, e.g., sponginess or mass of green that can be sustained, will likely also vary spatially, and continue to anchor socio-spatial structures. • Combining above (urban greenery) and below (soil and geology) components of green infrastructure with socio-spatial analysis. • Long-term analysis (1881-2001) combining unique socioeconomic, slum clearance and infrastructure data with contemporary data. • Soil and geological components of green infrastructure found to anchor socio-spatial patterns. • New greenery not found to generate an independent gentrification effect London neighbourhoods with a slum clearance history. • Potential GI productivity (e.g., sustaining GI and sponginess) found to correlate with existing socio-spatial patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent decades policies of renewing social housing in partnership with private developers have become widespread and critics have described such policies as state-led gentrification. Whilst resident participation in such schemes is often viewed as tokenistic, this paper presents a case of estate renewal where a well established residents' association is having some success in influencing the outcomes of redevelopment. The residents' association faces considerable challenges as the local authority has entered a partnership with a major developer and the majority of new homes will be for sale. Nonetheless, the residents' association has influenced the regeneration in terms of the offers of rehousing to existing residents and in terms of maintaining their sense of place. However, many leaseholders have been displaced and there is an ongoing struggle to ensure that there is not a net loss of social rented housing. The paper highlights how sustained organisation by residents can affect the outcomes of redevelopment, but also illustrates the limitations of developer-led regeneration in meeting social objectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research into the dynamic adjustment of prices within the London housing market is extended via the application of a novel two-step procedure. Combining the non-parametric analysis of the ranking distributions of the levels and changes in house prices with the application of a cross-sectional convergence technique results in the detection of a three-tier system in which highly significant convergence clubs are identified within borough-level data. These findings contrast with both the divergence apparent when considering all boroughs and the failure of previous research to identify convergent groupings. The novelty of the empirical methods is supplemented by a discussion of various theoretical factors such as gentrification, displaced demand, immigration, foreign investment and criminal activity in relation to the findings obtained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Throughout 2017, cultural institutions across England and Wales marked the fiftieth anniversary of the partial decriminalisation of sex between men. In this article I explore two projects about public sex and queer space developed in London that year by two contemporary queer artists: Liz Rosenfeld and Prem Sahib. Both employ queer approaches to preservation and archival labour in the face of imminent material erasure, particularly the loss of dedicated queer cultural spaces as a consequence of gentrification, and exhibit a queer disengagement with the public forms of commemoration enacted that year. I consider how Rosenfeld and Sahib's work from 2017, which casts endemic gendered and racialising practices of exclusion and denial in sharp relief, imbues the practices of preservation and archiving with an erotic complexity and an embodied and radical urgency that underscores the precarity of queer spaces and queer archives in contemporary Britain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the class politics of inclusion. Drawing from ethnographic fieldwork, I examine a community campaign organized to oppose the closure of a pub to make way for urban redevelopment and the local Council's and property developers' proposal to be 'inclusive' by planning a 'replacement LGBT venue' on its former site. Through this case study, the article shows the struggle surrounding the 'norms of intelligibility' imposed onto working‐class and 'queer' expressions of sexuality in the attempt to gentrify a disadvantaged urban space. The article contributes to extant critical discussions of inclusion by unveiling the struggle surrounding the classed normative conditions attached to it. It further adds to queer perspectives on organization by showing how inclusion is predicated on 'straightening up' the 'wonkiness' of 'queer(ness)' in the pursuit of profit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article draws on material from an ethnographic study in the gentrifying/gentrified London neighbourhood of Brixton to analyse the relationship between practices of LGBTQ territorialisation and the politics of neighbourhood change. It proceeds with two interrelated aims: to think critically about the ways in which LGBTQ claims to place-based belonging interact with racialised and classed ideologies of displacement and disciplining, and to explore memory's significance in framing the relationship between LGBTQ people and place. 'LGBTQ situated memory' is thus introduced here as a concept that draws attention to the complex, contradictory and dynamic role that site-specific evocations of the past play in contemporary LGBTQ urban politics. By exploring three memory tropes that emerge in Brixton, I show that LGBTQ situated memory can be used to claim spatialised belonging, negotiate culpability for gentrification and disturb progress narratives. Ultimately this article both calls for, and works towards, an approach to sexual geography that foregrounds multiplicity: a multiplicity of LGBTQ situated histories and – as is reflected in the memories explored – a multiplicity of relationships between LGBTQ people and neighbourhood development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Removing people from their homes in the name of regeneration is something that potentially affects their mental and physical well-being, but this is rarely explored via an experiential perspective that focuses on people's own understanding of how their lifeworld has been disrupted. This paper considers the emotional and psychological impacts of recent council estate renewal on those displaced, or being displaced, from six London council estates. The paper reveals what it feels like to be displaced, and how these feelings — of losing one's home and community — affect individuals' psychological and indeed physical health. The paper concludes that displacement is often experienced as a form of slow violence which entails periods of waiting and uncertainty that cause multiple conflicts and anxiety, and that suggest that the benefits of renewal may never outweigh the costs for those who are displaced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sharing accommodation has emerged recently as a new business model in the accommodation sector. Due to the potential gentrification Airbnb might bring to an area, it is critical to understand the spatial patterns of sharing economy and its possible determinants. The neighbourhood environment has proven to be an important factor in the traditional hotel business, and whether it is the same for sharing accommodation is worth investigating. In this study, location data of 29,780 houses/apartments on Airbnb.com in London was collected. Using Ordinal Least Square and Geography Weighed Regression analysis, the spatial distribution features of Airbnb and its relationship with neighbourhood environment in London were explored. The results show that sharing accommodation is mainly located in the city centre and around tourist attractions. Neighbourhood elements such as Water, Vegetation Coverage, Art & Human Landscape, Travel & Transport, University, Nightlife Spot emerged as important factors influencing Airbnb. In addition, the distribution of Airbnb in London is spatially non-stationary, in some areas high Airbnb is associated with higher transportation accessibility, in other areas, high Airbnb is associated with more attractions or nightlife spots, suggesting that the role of different factors varies in different regions, proving Tobler's first law of geography. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Marked by high levels of diversity and gentrification, changing demographics in east London highlight the need for new analytical tools to examine how formerly familiar spaces must now be re-negotiated. Conceptual frameworks of habit and affect have informed the contemporary analysis of how encounters with difference unfold within transforming cityscapes. However, findings from a participatory research project with young people suggest a more reflexive management of classed and racialised encounters is occurring as accumulated cultural knowledge is tested and revised from which new practices emerge. Attention to processes of reflexivity highlighted the capacity of young people to consciously weigh options and choose a range of strategies under conditions of 'breach', including: degrees of acceptance of change; re-working space use through avoidance and adapting everyday practices such as dress and food; as well as developing attributes that enable engagement such as empathy. Feelings of judgement appeared as a dominant driver of reflexivity, while disposition and place contextualised and modified responses. Yet, while the possibilities for subjective re-evaluation and adaptation are apparent, the study raises questions of inequality in the expectation that young people are being asked to adapt to new cultural norms not of their making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neo-artisanal production is a growing milieu of contemporary urban cultural economy. This article positions one area of this neo-artisanship – 'craft' beer brewing – as pivotal to this urban milieu. It draws on 25 qualitative interviews with craft brewers and brewery owners in London and critically unpacks how the 'crafting' of beer involves entanglements with and alterations of social and material space. The article offers accounts of London craft brewery owners' creative and commercial dispositions and the spatial and aesthetic patterns emerging out of London's craft beer boom and troubles the weaving of craft brewing by policymakers and real estate developers into restructuring and place-making agendas. The article suggests that the 'authentication' of livelihoods, tastes and places through the tactile promise of 'craft' cannot be decoupled from patterns of socio-spatial stratification and growing precarity and casts doubt upon any 'creative' urban economy shifting in this direction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

PLACE/Ladywell is a block of modular and mobile "pop-up" housing, currently occupying a council owned site awaiting redevelopment in Lewisham, South East London. It houses 24 families on the borough's homelessness register. The development has received multiple awards, been highly praised in the media, and cited by the Greater London Authority as prototypical of pop-up housing as a 'solution' to London's housing crisis. Yet amidst the widespread excitement around PLACE/Ladywell, experiences of urban precarity persist for the families living there. In this paper we examine how resident experiences of being 'on-edge' are defined both by personal crises as they await permanent rehousing, by job losses, evictions and school moves, as well as by anxieties relating to the housing crisis as a wider structure of feeling, including fear after the Grenfell Tower fire and anxieties about gentrification. In doing so, we offer a timely conceptualisation of how experiences of urban precarity persist and mutate in a political moment defined by a growing sense of urgency around finding solutions to the housing crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent developments in the field of machine learning offer new ways of modelling complex socio-spatial processes, allowing us to make predictions about how and where they might manifest in the future. Drawing on earlier empirical and theoretical attempts to understand gentrification and urban change, this paper shows it is possible to analyse existing patterns and processes of neighbourhood change to identify areas likely to experience change in the future. This is evidenced through an analysis of socio-economic transition in London neighbourhoods (based on 2001 and 2011 Census variables) which is used to predict those areas most likely to demonstrate 'uplift' or 'decline' by 2021. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of such modelling for the understanding of gentrification processes, noting that if qualitative work on gentrification and neighbourhood change is to offer more than a rigorous post-mortem then intensive, qualitative case studies must be confronted with – and complemented by – predictions stemming from other, more extensive approaches. As a demonstration of the capabilities of machine learning, this paper underlines the continuing value of quantitative approaches in understanding complex urban processes such as gentrification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the decade between 2007 and 2017 London changed fundamentally. This article is about how the actions of the transnational über-wealthy -- the "have yachts" -- impinged on the life-worlds of the "merely wealthy" -- "the haves." As the authors explore the conceptual utility of gentrification as a way of thinking about these seismic urban changes, they conclude that profound socio-spatial changes and new intensities in the financialization of housing, neighborhood tensions, and cultural dislocations are reshaping London as a plutocratic city and the lives of those who live there in historically unprecedented ways. The concept of "super-gentrification," the authors argue, does not adequately frame these circumstances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article problematizes the relationship between the global super‐rich and processes of property development that have generated large volumes of underused residential space. Evidence is presented to show that much of London's new skyline is underused or lies entirely empty, so that one interpretation of this new landscape of super‐prime residential development is that it is a kind of dead residential space or necrotecture. These relatively lifeless spaces can be interpreted as the particularly wasteful result of continuing rounds of international capital investment in the built environment and the overconsumption of housing and other resources by the super‐rich. Necrotectural forms, seen in new towers and spectacular homes, appear to index a massive misdirection of development capacity, even as the city experiences a massive social crisis that continues to be played out in the wider housing market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article looks at the distribution of social upscaling across London linked to changes in tenure between 2001 and 2011. Against a background of discussions of suburban decline, it shows that there are a number of Outer London areas which have seen upscaling trajectories linked to the private rented sector. The analysis reveals that this particular type of upscaling was made possible by the variegation in the Outer London landscape: within a space dominated by early to mid-20th century semi-detached and terraced (row) housing, areas of distinctive architecture and excellent accessibility offer a diluted version of the metropolitan milieu gentrifiers seek in the inner city. Buy To Let gentrification in Outer London can thus be understood as an overspill by those uninterested in, or unable to access, ownership and priced out of high house price Inner London. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the spatial imprint and social impacts of the emerging geographies of concentrated overseas investment into London’s high-end real estate market, particularly the boroughs of Westminster and Kensington and Chelsea. Framed by literatures on the 1% and the super-rich, and based on a mixed methodological approach of qualitative interviews with intermediaries and a quantitative mapping of overseas investors using 2011 census data, the results speak to the pervasive nature of “safe-haven” seeking in London real estate and its attendant transnational provenance set within a laissez-faire regulatory framework. In so doing, it makes an important contribution to the geographies of the super-rich, the class geographies of London, and the broader sense that overseas investors are producing what we call “pied-à-terre” urbanism which builds on a conventional gentrification framework (exclusionary displacement and a more affluent incoming group) but also exceeds it in several ways, leading to an increasingly socially attenuated landscape. This exceeding relates to: a different kind of rent gap, in that it is not speculative but safe-haven seeking, a guaranteed return on investment, and occurs without previous disinvestment; the agents are not traditional gentrifiers; the transnational nature of the process, with no attachment to particular places like in the traditional gentrification model; and a process focused on super-prime areas and completely independent of the existing gentrification process in London. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cityhas, from its inception, paid close attention to London, to the ‘World City’ or ‘Global City’ ideologies underwriting its concentration of wealth and of poverty and to challenges from among its citizens to the prevailing orthodoxy. This paper focuses on London's extreme experience of the housing crisis gripping the UK—itself the European nation with the fastest long-term growth of average house prices and widest regional disparities, both driven by overblown financialisation and the privileging of rent as a means of wealth accumulation, often by dispossession. Londoners’ experiences stem partly from four decades of neo-liberal transformation and partly from accelerated financialisation in the last two decades and are now being accelerated by the imposition of ‘austerity’ on low- and middle-income people. The social relationships of tenancy in social housing, private tenancy and mortgage-financed owner-occupation are, however, divisive and the paper ends by identifying what may be the beginning of a unified social movement, or at least a coalition, for change. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Studies of gentrification in London have shown that some groups of middle-class people have been attracted to poor and multi-ethnic areas of inner London in part because of their social and ethnic mix. However, the attraction has often not translated into everyday interaction. In an earlier account of gentrification in Brixton this de facto social segregation was typified as a process of ‘social tectonics’. In this paper we compare two ethnically and socially mixed neighbourhoods, Peckham and Brixton, that at different times have represented the ‘front line’ of gentrification in London. We examine the extent to which the gentrification of Brixton in the late 1990s is being mirrored by the gentrification that is occurring today in Peckham – a similarly mixed and counter-cultural area of South London. Whilst we identify continuities between the gentrification process in these two areas separated by a decade of boom and recession, we suggest that the Peckham example demonstrates the need for a more developed approach to the issue of social mixing than that implied by the social tectonics metaphor. Specifically, we argue that there is a need to explain how the presence of classed and ethnic ‘others’ can be central to the formation of identities within some middle-class fractions in such enclaves in the inner city, and how attitudes and neighbourhood practices can change over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a response to the paper by Manley and Johnston (2014, "London: A Dividing City, 2001–11?" City 18 (6): 633–643) which analyzed occupational class change in London 2001–14. While it queries some of their classifications, the census data show that middle class growth seems to have stalled in proportionate though not in absolute terms from 2001–11. However, this does not fundamentally challenge Hamnett and Butler's thesis that the middle classes, upper and lower, have grown substantially in London over the last 50 years as a result of changes in industrial and occupational structure. The paper discusses some of the possible reasons for changes in the last decade and reiterates the importance of using census data as a tool for the analysis of urban social change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the debate on issues related to gentrification. It mentions the golden anniversary of sociologist Ruth Glass's observation about the shifting class geographies of a small sliver of London, England. The author argues on the context of gentrification, its myriad causes, impacts, forms, contestations and interpretations, with apologies to theorist Richard Florida and neoliberalism.

The Barbican Estate, in London’s square-mile City financial district, is one of the capital’s most unique residential spaces. In the 1950s the City Corporation redeveloped the war-damaged site as a “high class” neighborhood even though the prevailing planning dogma was to usher the well-heeled out of the crowded center. To sanitize the inner-city site, the Barbican’s architects created a radically modernist residential precinct elevated above City streets. This social history examines the Barbican Estate as a unique intersection between modern architecture and the emerging discourse of gentrification in London. In creating spaces of comfort and exclusion, its architects drew from the same new middle-class culture that influenced the gentrification of existing London neighborhoods. The Estate’s eventual residents continued this interpretation and revision after the flats opened in 1968. The Barbican demonstrates the flexible nature of early gentrification and suggests how it must be approached as a diversified spatial phenomenon. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

With the ongoing shift in the dynamics of retail development toward inner-city sites, mega-retail-led regeneration schemes have emerged as an important strategy for place marketing in the entrepreneurial city of London. While a number of studies have attempted to examine the effects of these schemes, the focus of previous studies has been limited to their wider economic and environmental effects. However, few studies have empirically investigated their impact on surrounding neighborhoods, particularly deprived neighborhoods. This paper investigates the effects of the Westfield London Shopping Centre on changes in housing price levels in the surrounding neighborhood of White City/Shepherd's Bush, in order to determine whether mega-retail-led regeneration schemes are a key determinant in the process of gentrification. A difference-in-differences analysis was used to assess differentials in the change rates of housing prices between control and treatment groups following the development of Westfield London. It was found that Westfield London development caused an increase in the change rate of housing prices of the treatment group relative to that of the control group. These findings indicate that mega-retail-led regeneration schemes may be a main cause of the pricing out of neighborhood residents who cannot afford the resulting increased rents and for altering the characteristics of neighborhoods and their social networks. [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]

The article explores various issues relating to the Stratford locality in London, England, as of March 2013. Particular focus is given to branding and regeneration efforts that took place in the area prior to the 2012 Olympic Games. Additional topics discussed include the design of the Westfield Stratford City shopping center in Stratford, the gentrification that has taken place in the neighborhood, and the political discourse related to the regeneration of Stratford.

In this article we draw on Peter Marcuse's discussion of different types of displacement using evidence from a recent study we conducted in East London to argue that there is clear evidence of 'exclusionary displacement' and 'displacement pressure' in terms of education and specifically the choice of schooling. We show how the incoming middle classes in the Victoria Park area of inner East London have displaced not only existing poor residents but also many of the less affluent middle class from the favoured state schools in the area by adopting some schools and avoiding others. The preferred schools are often praised to the heavens whilst the shunned schools are similarly disparaged and deemed unacceptable. We suggest that it is this middle-class dichotomization of schooling which accounts for the kind of educational displacement we have observed. The main form that this takes is direct exclusionary displacement when middle-class pressure on favoured schools leads to local people being unable to get their children into them - normally because of 'distance from school' selection criteria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the much-hyped 2012 Olympic Games ‘legacy’ in relation to the displacement experiences of lower-income East Londoners. The paper begins by outlining the overall context of housing-related regeneration including the reduced role for social housing, especially council (public) housing in London. It then sets out a framework for understanding how regeneration, state-led gentrification and displacement are intertwined, as well as how such processes have been contested. The paper examines these issues in greater depth with reference to case studies of the inhabitants of two working-class spaces in the London Borough of Newham, an Olympics host borough. The first study is based on the Carpenters Estate, a council housing estate in Stratford that is facing potential demolition, and the second focuses on young people living in a temporary supported housing unit. These studies illustrate how the 2012 Olympics, alongside other regeneration schemes, is changing the nature of space and place from the perspective of existing East London residents and how gentrification is implicated in such transformations. Neither the Carpenters Estate residents nor the young people think that the Olympics and other regeneration schemes in Newham are primarily occurring, if at all, for their benefit—indeed, displacement processes may well mean that they are no longer able to live in their current neighbourhood. The Olympics legacy is for others, not for them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chatsworth Road in Hackney, has recently been branded in an article in The Guardian newspaper as ‘the frontline of gentrification’ in East London. As one of the ‘faces’ of the article, and through my position as local street market trader, I want to open up these claims to scrutiny, beyond both scholarly discourses on gentrification and the tough language of militant resistance. Through a blossoming of local action groups, the planning mirage of the Localism Bill, the proximity to the Olympic Park and the activities of local estate agents, the Clapton area is certainly at the centre of intense transformations in both demographics and property values. How are such urban shifts are created and the resulting values distributed in this area and for whose benefit? Where is the place for truly transformative social justice in the scope and tools of the Localism Bill? At the crossroads between declared missions of ‘managing gentrification’ for the love of the local, and the ways in which the employment of images of area distinction and notions of cultural ‘authenticity’ inevitably bolster the fragmentation of the local as the locals know it, the probing of Chatsworth Road and Clapton at this point in time offers a valuable vantage point to observe East London beyond the Olympic rhetoric. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the last 60 years three forms of mobility have played a crucial role in the process of home-making across London – global migration, suburbanisation and gentrification. While these mobilities have been extensively analysed in terms of secular processes, the role of religion is becoming ever more evident and this paper seeks to contribute to this growing understanding by analysing the involvement by different Christian churches in the making of multiple homes across the metropolis. Various aspects of this home-making process are explored – the ways in which Anglican churches have responded to global migration and gentrification, as well as the challenges of increasing ethnic and ritual diversity for Methodist and Catholic congregations. Religion is intimately involved in diverse crossings of spatial and cultural boundaries and the construction of multiple dwellings (immediate and virtual). While global migration, suburbanisation and gentrification operate here in specific local contexts across a particular city, these modes of mobility operate around the globe and encourage comparison with American and Australian cities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The role of artists as precursors and agents of gentrification processes has been widely acknowledged and studied. Yet there has been limited consideration of the particular aesthetic practices and attitudes deployed by these artists, and the related urban landscapes they have helped shape and re-imagine. This paper uses the notion drawn from art history of the 'urban pastoral' to highlight largely disregarded socio-cultural and political relations of power accompanying gentrification. It focuses on a district of inner London called Hoxton where a deindustrialised location and a legacy of forms and practices of British working-class popular culture offered artists a rich resource and socio-spatial environment to work and operate during the 1990s. By indulging in fantasies and performances of the urban pastoral, these artists fashioned a new cultural landscape that not only catered to many of the lifestyle tastes and investment priorities within postindustrial London, but manipulated and downplayed the complex and potentially conflictual histories of the area. The paper argues that this capture of urban space through the pastoral is indicative of new forms of gentrification where class-based and race-related neighbourhood change occurs without direct displacement. [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]

This article critically examines visitor experiences of a creative urban area, to help explore the relationships between creative industries, consumption, and the development of urban tourism. After reviewing available literature on creative areas and their appeal for emerging types of contemporary tourists, the article concentrates on one creative area in London: Spitalfields. Drawing on 50 semistructured interviews conducted with visitors between November 2007 and March 2008, the article explores the role of the creative industries in developing urban tourism, via an analysis of visitors' perceptions, experiences, and characteristics, as well as the tangible and intangible qualities of an emerging tourism area. The findings suggest that Spitalfields is an established off-the-beaten-track destination that is starting to attract more mainstream tourists with the consequent departure of some groups of visitors. "Atmosphere" appears to be crucial to the visitor experience and is created by a number of elements including independent shops, a high number of young artists, new fashions, and cultural diversity. All these elements contribute to make the area seem distinctive, but at the same time "typically London." The findings shed light on the complexity of the tourist experience, interrogating some key concepts such as atmosphere, perceived authenticity, and new forms of cultural capital in the context of a creative urban area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers the author's insights on the process new-build gentrification, which was used to develop the city centre in London, England. The authors note that gentrification as distinguished from redevelopment, does not concern quixotic oddity in the housing market rather the primary residential edge of a broader endeavor such as the class remake of central urban landscape. The authors say that it ranges from housing renewal projects to a mass of place-based indirect displacement process.

Abstract: This article examines recent processes of urban renewal and housing provision in London, led by market agents and shaped by the 2004 London Plan. Against the backdrop of housing and regeneration policies in London over the last three decades, the discussion analyses the socio-economic and physical transformation of Bermondsey in inner London as a case of ‘gentrification without displacement’, via the conversion of industrial and commercial building stock to housing, together with new-build or in-fill gentrification. The London Plan’s emphasis on densification, and the re-positioning of local government from an oppositional to entrepreneurial stance in respect of private development, has helped promote the conditions for such physical and socio-economic changes characterised less by the displacement of lower-income populations than by patterns of micro-segregation in housing and consumption spaces. In this context, Bermondsey offers one version of the mixed income and mixed tenure ‘communities’ that are central to current urban and housing policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The issue of social mixing has recently moved to the forefront of gentrification debate. In part, this has been stimulated by neoliberal urban policies promoting 'social mix' research showing the inability of gentrified neighbourhoods to remain socially mixed and attempts to rethink the association between gentrification and displacement. This paper draws upon a mixed-methods study that examined levels of social mixing between gentrifying and incumbent communities in three neighbourhoods undergoing new-build gentrification in London, UK. Little evidence was found for substantial interactions between populations, and there were few shared perceptions of community. The author claims that the particular character of new-build gentrification has played an important role in generating this socially tectonic situation. Husserl's concept of the lifeworld and Bourdieu's thesis on the relative structuring of class identity are drawn upon to provide an explanatory framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]