In debt to the rent gap: Gentrification generalized and the frontier of the future

ABSTRACT

In this paper I advance three interconnected arguments that explore the relation between gentrification generalized and the generalization of indebtedness. First, I show how the availabilit y of credit liberates potential land values from social constraints. Second, I suggest that debt functions as a form of class discipline, imbuing the proliferation of gentrification with a coercive impetus. Third, I argue that the generalization of indebtedness should reframe the way that class is theorized in contemporary debates on gentrification. I conclude by returning to the rent gap model, arguing that it remains a vital tool for understanding gentrification, but only if its sense of time is blown wide open. Through these four strands, I argue that debt should change the way we think of gentrification, both as a concept to be explained and a process to be resisted.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Elvin Wyly and Emma Saunders for their feedback on an earlier draft, Eric Clark for his kindness and enthusiasm, and three anonymous reviewers for their sincere engagement with the text.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. As McKee et al. (2017) point out, there is no singular UK housing policy, as the Scottish Government (alongside the legislative chambers in Wales and Northern Ireland) have devolved power in this regard. Nevertheless, at present, the reliance on debt underpinning Scottish housing policy is barely distinguishable from UK policy more broadly, closely linked over multiple generations.

2. In 2017, for example, Barratt Developments (the UKs largest house builder), reported that 40% of their record £835.5 million annual profit was underpinned by government debt through the Help to Buy (Evans, 2018). The Scottish government scheme, specifically targeted at lower income first time buyers, is valued at £80 million for 2019–2020 alone (Scottish Government, 2020).

3. Incidentally, Henri Lefebvre (with Ross, 1997, p. 75) suggests that Simak’s novel—a cheap paperback sci-fi vision of the far-future—was his “starting point” for discussions with the Situationists around capitalist urbanization after automation.

4. One exception is students, whose growing debt in the UK is framed as investment in human capital, transforming student life through heightened commodification. This is having a noticeable impact on the urban development of university towns and cities across the UK (Chatterton, 2010).

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Hamish Kallin

Hamish Kallin is a Lecturer in Human Geography at the University of Edinburgh. His work focuses on the myriad ways in which capital remakes the city. He has published on territorial stigmatization, state power, and gentrification.