Gentrification, urban policy and urban geography

ABSTRACT

Despite recognition that gentrification around the world is state-led – and that gentrification is in of itself de facto an urban policy – few scholars writing about gentrification, including urban geographers, have engaged purposively with urban policy, urban policy makers and other institutional actors. Building on my particular commitment to putting mitigations and solutions to gentrification on the policy table, I once again call for scholars of gentrification to work with policy makers and other institutional actors, to make our research on the negative impacts of gentrification known and to develop alternative and better policy practice.

KEYWORDS:

• Urban policy
• geography
• gentrification
• solutions

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Note: Since 2008, I have been heavily involved in fighting gentrification and putting alternatives on the table (see London Tenants et al., 2014; Annunziata & Lees, 2020).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Loretta Lees

Loretta Lees is an incoming Director of the Initiative on Cities at Boston University in the U.S.A. She was previously a Professor of Human Geography at the University of Leicester, and before that at King’s College London, in the UK. She is a long time scholar-activist who has worked with a number of communities being displaced by gentrification. She was awarded the 2022 Marilyn J. Gittell Activist Scholar Award by the Urban Affairs Association, U.S.A. She is the outgoing Chair of the London Housing Panel. She is internationally known for her research on gentrification/urban regeneration, global urbanism, urban policy, urban public space, architecture and urban social theory. Loretta is the co-author of Defensible Space: Mobilisation in English Housing Policy and Practice (2022); Planetary Gentrification (2016); and Gentrification (2008); in addition to a number of edited collections.